DoubleTake returns to print, merges with another journal
News Release - December 7, 2005
contact:
Karen L. Gill
karen.gill@cnu.edu
(757) 594-8428
 The Spring 2006 premiere issue of the print magazine-format journal DoubleTake/Points of Entry focuses on children and cultural perceptions. |
(NEWPORT NEWS, Va.) — DoubleTake, an influential magazine of documentary and literary arts, is returning to publication after a three-year hiatus. The magazine is combining forces with another journal, Points of Entry: Cross-Currents in Storytelling, in a merger that produces a magazine with the familiar look and mission of the old DoubleTake but with an interest in narrative journalism in the newsroom and classroom as well. The first edition of the combined DoubleTake/Points of Entry will be published in January 2006 by the English department of Christopher Newport University. The print magazine-format journal will be published bi-annually and distributed through the Johns Hopkins University Press Journals Division. DoubleTake was founded in 1995, and went on a publishing hiatus in 2003. The union of DoubleTake with Points of Entry will increase the audience of the two magazines, redoubling each magazine's mission to not only instruct and delight, but to foster connections from the artistic and academic communities to the general public. |
As Dr. Robert Coles, the author of more than 60 books and the James Agee Professor of Social Ethics at Harvard University, noted in the first issue, "We regard the magazine as an educational institution and the teachers and librarians of the country are, for us, colleagues."
The creation of the new DoubleTake/Points of Entry is the joint effort of Coles, well known for his own documentary work, and Terry Lee and Roberta Rosenberg, the founding editors of Points of Entry and professors in CNU’s Department of English.
"It’s important to keep a magazine like this before the reading public,” Coles said of the newly merged magazine.
Like its predecessors, DoubleTake/Points of Entry seeks to look past stereotypes while presenting discussions among writers, journalists and photographers about the craft of storytelling in word and image.
“We value work that is the result of thoughtful and patient observation of our world,” Lee said, “in nonfiction, photography, fiction and poetry.” Rosenberg believes the goal of the magazine is to expand readers’ perceptions, “The magazine wants to help us all see others without preconceptions interfering. Our goal is to have readers ‘do a doubletake’ as they experience topics from a surprising or unanticipated perspective.”
First Issue Focuses on World Children and Cultural Perceptions
The premiere issue of the bi-annual DoubleTake/Points of Entry presents children of the world from a variety of perspectives.
Scott Campbell, an American soldier, documents, through word and photograph, his experience with barefoot children struggling in wintry Afghanistan during the war. Maggie Silverstein photographs children in Massachusetts during a 10-year period as they grow into adulthood, and Pulitzer-Prize winning writer Madeleine Blais describes the process from a mother's perspective. Half-way across the world, photographer Stephanie Sinclair creates quiet and penetrating portraits of Israeli settler children playing in their seaside homes and then learning that they will be removed from Gaza.
In order to bear witness to particular, individual lives, DoubleTake/Points of Entry switches the usual focus of the camera, allowing the subjects to record their own lives as well. Through Duke University's pioneering "Learning through Photography" program, children show us the neighborhoods of Durham, N.C.; while in Concord, N.H., Danny Gleason, a 12-year-old painter, struggles to capture his frightening world, suddenly rearranged by Sept. 11, 2001.
Fiction and poetry will also focus on cultural perceptions and misperceptions. The short story “Machu Picchu” by Sandra Cisneros introduces new immigrants' hopes and fantasies, while Mythili Rao portrays an Indian father and his American-born daughter as they negotiate new cultural terrain.
Indic scholar Graham Schweig provides a new translation of an ancient Hindu text to American audiences through his translation of the "Divine Dance of Love,” from the Indian scripture the Bhågavata Puråa. The new translation, published by Princeton University Press, portrays Krishna’s ability to dance with many maidens at once, a metaphor for unconditional love and care.
The magazine also develops a dialogue among writers, photographers and documentary filmmakers, as Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Jon Franklin debates the ability to teach “vision,” and documentary filmmaker Larry Engel discusses the “democratization of documentary” as new technology enables the general public to create their own videos.
For additional information and downloadable images, subscription rates, editorial/submission policies, please see www.doubletakecommunity.org and www.press.jhu.edu/journals/.
Christopher Newport University is a four-year public university in Newport News, Virginia. CNU enrolls 4,800 students in programs through its College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Luter School of Business and offers great teaching, small classes and an emphasis on leadership, civic engagement and honor. Visit us at www.cnu.edu.