CT1005

Draft syllabus: Understanding McLuhan and Media
To be revised and readings added following seminar 1

The McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology,
University of Toronto
Graduate Seminar:
C&T 1005 Understanding McLuhan and Media

Liss Jeffrey, PhD Adjunct faculty,
Director, McLuhan Global Research Network,
McLuhan Program
ljeffrey@mcluhan.org

Technical support: byDesign eLab
admin2007@mcluhan.org
Phone: 416-596-9533 x 280

Locations:

McLuhan Coach House 39a Queen's Park Crescent east,
McLuhan Video conference room, 140 St George Street, Room 307
Course Office: 386 Huron St. 596-9533 x 280
www.mcluhan.ca
www.mcluhan.utoronto.ca

Monday September 8 - Monday December 1st
Class meets on Mondays 7-9 PM

Understanding McLuhan, Lectures and seminar discussion
Media mapping, Screenings, discussions, probes, and web work
Participation in online web and email forum (the Classroom without Walls) will be expected weekly.

This research seminar is designed to acquaint students and researchers with the life, works, and relevance of Marshall McLuhan (1911- 1980), by retracing the development of his ideas, working through certain core texts, situating his contribution within the Toronto School of Communications, and critically interrogating his influence on scholarship and popular culture. The course will consist of lectures, seminar and online forum discussions, screenings, and Internet and web based research and production.

This seminar will read McLuhan, the Toronto School and certain heirs to McLuhan, and will draw upon the instructor's scholarship on McLuhan, the McLuhan Oral History Project, and an extensive research archive gathered to support "The heat and the light of Marshall McLuhan: A reappraisal" a 1998 McGill University doctoral thesis in Communications. A McLuhan reading room is available at the FIS Inforum which is located in the Bissell Building, 140 St George St. 6th floor, and a small collection is also available at the McLuhan Program.

Student projects will be central to this seminar, and students are encouraged to develop scholarly and knowledge media design projects in consultation with Dr Jeffrey. Some topics that will be on the agenda of the course include: e learning and knowledge media; network analysis and mapping the influences of McLuhan; networks, netizens and netiquette: the (re)invention of space, and transformation of experiences of time, association, community, and physical presence; the problem of perception, sensory extensions and memory; epistemologies of experience: vital signs of the purported shift from electronic to digital environments; the transformation of the arts and human sciences under digital conditions. Students with specific interests and projects are encouraged to contact the course director in advance.

Registered graduate students, visiting faculty and independent scholars are welcome with permission of the instructor. A course materials fee may be applied. Serious auditors are welcome, with permission. An auditor fee will apply. Special guests will also be announced.

Draft Syllabus:

[Note: This is a multi disciplinary course, and thus familiarity with core concepts in communications, culture, media and technology studies is welcome but not presumed. Dr Jeffrey will adjust course content depending on the background of the participants. Please come to the early classes ready to discuss your academic and professional background and research interests, and to complete the participant design questionnaire. It is our aim to create a temporary community of practice, a collegium, and to work together in a mutually supportive manner in order to accomplish individual and group goals.]

1. September 8
   Introduction to McLuhan: The phases of intellectual production
   • A guided tour of the McLuhan corpus of texts and audio visual materials
   • Introduction to the seminar
   • Email list established
   • Web site resources discussed www.mcluhan.ca
   • Classroom without Walls established
2. September 15
   The Oral McLuhan
   Screening from the "Knowles York University media tape" and Life and Times of Marshall McLuhan "Out of Orbit" (CBC)
   Screening and other varied excerpts from The Video McLuhan (produced by Stephanie McLuhan Ortved, with Tom Wolfe)
   Reading:
   • In GG (Preface, opening section to page 65, and final section, The Galaxy Reconfigured)
   • UM (Preface, read all of Part I
   • and pick one section in Part II
   • read the last section ""Automation: learning a Living")
   Online forum
   Post It 1: Write a review of a selected media form as discussed in Understanding Media, in light of insights presented in Part 1. Be sure to note where you find the points or arguments dated, and try where possible to update. Write concretely. All post its are expected by 12 noon on day of class. Topics of post-its may vary depending on class discussion.
3. September 22
   TEXTS Understanding McLuhan's classic texts: Understanding Media and the Gutenberg Galaxy
   McLuhan's major early arguments set out and discussed - readings in GG (Preface, pp. 19-65 and The Galaxy Reconfigured) UM (Preface, Part I and pick one section in Part II and read the last section - "Automation: learning a Living")
   Initial discussion of student course projects online. Topic and title and early bibliographic references.
   Post it 2: Review the Knowles interview. Discuss McLuhan's style of presentation. Discuss at least one insight (eg. Pattern recognition, ecology, Sputnik).
4. September 29
   CONTEXTS Early McLuhan, Toronto School of Communications and The Explorations period
   (a two part seminar) McLuhan's Cambridge doctoral thesis "The place of Thomas Nashe in the learning of his time" will be discussed (One copy is in Ottawa's National Archives) Essays from McLuhan of the 1950s "Culture without Literacy" ; "A historical account of the mass media" Excerpts from Harold Innis McLuhan introductions to Bias of Communictaions and Empire and Communications and copy of letter to Innis from McLuhan Excerpts from Eric Havelock The Muse Learns to Write.
   Post it 3: Select a second media form (traditional form speech, writing, print, radio, television or unconventional form road, clothing, etc.) and an example of McLuhan's insights (or pattern recognition) media as translators, the medium is the message, media as extensions, the global village etc. and discuss the selected media form in a critical post it note in the C-woW. Add an insight form Innis or Havelock.
   Discussion of projects and submission online of tentative themes continues. Add to personal bibliography.
5. October 6
   Context: Explorations and Toronto School continued
   Readings in Explorations - a journal edited by Edmund Carpenter and McLuhan in the 1950s (Complete collection at the Thomas Fisher Rare Books Library, U of T)
   Jeffrey essay on the Toronto School "A singular diversity"
   Screening: The Innis Memorial Lecture. Eric Havelock and Marshall McLuhan at the Innis memorial lecture
   Post it 4: Debate the idea of a "Toronto school of communications". Discuss the idea of a unity of themes or "interdiscipline" in the works of Innis, McLuhan and Havelock with reference to texts from McLuhan and one of the other men. Suggest another theorist, school of thought, or disagree with the attempt to place McLuhan within the context of a "school" if you prefer. Provide reasons.
6. October 20
   SHIFTS The Literary to post-literary McLuhan; academic to celebrity;
   • Readings in The Interior Landscape
   • Essays from the 1940s will be available
   • An ancient quarrel in modern America
   • Excerpts from "The Project in Understanding New Media (1959)
   • 1954 Sight, sound and fury
   Post it 5: Review the last paragraph of Sight, sound and fury. Why does McLuhan say that he was wrong? When he says he is now (1954) right, what does he mean?
7. October 27
   Canada's intellectual comet: From media celebrity to the laws of media
   Screenings and readings - The impact of McLuhan on sixties culture: arts, happenings, advertising, Video McLuhan; Tom Wolfe Videos, the works of the later 1960s and 1970s. The last decade and the Laws of media.Screening: Early film explorations and multimedia events and happenings, Annie Hall clip, Videodrome (David Cronenberg) and other media materials -- in search of McLuhan's impacts on the cultural imagination
   Post it 6: Discuss or debate the significance of the transition from the literary to post-literary McLuhan. What does this have to do with the way in which he was perceived? What does this have to do with a shift form Gutenberg to an electronic galaxy?
8. November 3
   EXTENSIONS The prescience of McLuhan's insights: beyond the tetrad
   Extensions of McLuhan's contribution The relevance of McLuhan and Innis within the Toronto School of Communications Extensions of McLuhan Communications history, network society, and media ecology approaches Readings in Meyrowitz, Castells, Manovich, and others including heirs in the Toronto School. Introduce your own texts here. Screening: McLuhan's Wake
   Post it 7: McLuhan became a media celebrity and academic pioneer in the 1960s, yet he was not of the 1960s. The academic community rejected television, media and popular culture as serious objects of study (Gripsrud 1999). When McLuhan turned his literary training to media study he was celebrated and vilified: explain and discuss or explore with reference to course lecture, screenings or readings. Address the role of celebrity, and explore further the notion of the "public intellectual."
9. November 10
   RELEVANCE McLuhan's relevance for understanding media and the role of the public humanist intellectual today:
   Understanding McLuhan and the need for new forms of media literacy and ways of being in the public mediasphere - significance of McLuhan Screening the web - The afterlife of McLuhan online McLuhan and the digital imagination
   Post it 8: Assess the influence of McLuhan in light of his media celebrity and the academic negative consensus on his work: do we understand the role of a public intellectual differently in a media-saturated age? Or: develop a knowledge media project based on theoretical insights drawn from McLuhan and his heirs.
10. November 15
    (Special event: date TBA ) A day long workshop and evening celebration - all students will present working versions of their seminar projects for course. Evening celebration at the Coach House.
11. November 17
    Reviewing the projects: adding to the collective bibliographies.
    Review: Your own project and often constructive criticisms of at least one other class project.
12. November 24 - TBA
    Post it 9: McLuhan's impact on the cultural and artistic imagination has been profound. He created "metaphors we live by" such as 'the global village' and 'the medium is the message' Discuss with examples. or: Discuss your critical assessment of McLuhan's significance drawing on readings and other materials.
13. December 1
    Conclusions: Towards a post MucLuhan galaxy.

Liss Jeffrey, PhD

Assignments:

• Seminar class participation - 10
• Classroom without walls participation
• 6 post its ( 5 points each) - 30
• collegial discussion online - 10
• proposal for project (final version due: October 27) - 5
• Seminar workshop presentation - 25
• Final project due - 20 / Total - 100.

Detailed Readings to follow.
Some special guests and events to be announced.
Syllabus will be revised.

Liss Jeffrey, PhD July 2003

The McLuhan.ca web site is a labour of love in honour of the work of Marshall McLuhan. This is an open source not for profit web project. Volunteers and support welcome. All contents on the McLuhan.ca site are copyright the original authors. Site stewards: the byDesign-eLab and pixcode.com