The work of pioneering media theorist Marshall McLuhan is becoming increasingly relevant to our contemporary, interconnected world. Having coined the expressions “The Media is the Message” and the “Global Village,” McLuhan is also credited with predicting the Worldwide Web almost 30 years before it was invented and his work is receiving a great amount of renewed interest in both academia and the mainstream. Another of McLuhan’s primary concepts was that of “Media Ecology,” the study of media, technology and communication and how they affect human environments.
In a recent address to the University of Windsor, Ontario Law Faculty, Andrew McLuhan, the grandson of Marshall McLuhan and Director of the McLuhan Institute likened the “environmental catastrophe” of our current media ecosphere to that which our biosphere is currently experiencing and that the stakes — cultural, political and psychological — are just as devastating.
Join us from 12 to 1:15 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 5, in Titchener Hall Room 101 for a rare opportunity to discuss Marshall McLuhan’s ideas in conjunction with Andrew McLuhan’s recent address “From Snake Oil to Silicon-Media Ecology and Climate Catastrophe” with Andrew via Skype from his home in Toronto, Canada.
The event will be moderated by Media Arts instructor Nick Bongiorno.
ANDREW McLUHAN is the grandson of Marshall Mcluhan and Director of The McLuhan Institute, which he began in 2017. His first major research project was in the cataloging and evaluation of Marshall McLuhan’s working library, now named to UNESCO’s Memory of the World register, and he has presented widely on the subject. A frequent speaker on university campuses, Andrew has addressed audiences at the Münster School of Design, Carleton University, most recently at the University of Toronto and La Universidad de la Sabana in Bogotá.
