TORONTO | OCT 13-16, 2016Isabel Bader Theatre / Victoria College / St. Michael’s College, University of Toronto

TheTorontoSchoolInternational Conference

THEN | NOW | NEXTCONFERENCE BOOK

2

Presented by

Supported by

In collaboration with

TheTorontoSchoolInternational Conference

THEN | NOW | NEXT

St. Paul’s CollegeMarshall McLuhan Initiative THE WALTER J. ONG ARCHIVE

INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL FOR CANADIAN STUDIESCONSEIL INTERNATIONAL D’ÉTUDES CANADIENNES

FA C U LT Y O F A RT S & S C I E N C E

JPEG and PNG — web only

• EPS — for print

T

University of

Toronto

FA C U LT Y O F M U S I C

Toronto

Arts Design &

H a r o l d I n n i s Fo u n d a t i o n

ArtMuseum

Media

Ecology

Association. .

P

i

o

inniscollege

a Canadian Communication Association

Association canadienne de communication

3

As Honorary Patron of The Toronto School: Then, Now, Nextinternational conference, I warmly welcome you to Ontario.Schools of thought have been with us throughout history. Whether philosophical, scientific orartistic, like-minded thinkers have joined together to create paradigms that give intellectual structureand meaning to our world.So when mid-twentieth century greats Marshall McLuhan, Northrop Frye, Eric Havelock and HaroldInnis among others, sparked a new model of communication theory, they gave rise to the TorontoSchool. In the thinking behind the prophetic phrases “the medium is the message” and “globalvillage,” we see the foundation of interdisciplinary academic and cultural enterprises. As we live in anincreasingly borderless but interdependent world of remarkable technological change, building onthis tremendous legacy helps us to understand what it means to be human in this new millennium.As The Queen’s representative in Ontario, I wish all participants an inspiring and enlighteningcolloquium.

The Hon. Elizabeth DowdeswellLieutenant Governor of Ontario

As Interim Director of the McLuhan Centre for Culture and Technologyit is a delight to welcome you to The Toronto School: Then, Now, Nextinternational conference.The thinkers who pioneered investigations of communication and society here in Toronto shapedthinking on the topic in the second half of the 20th. It is our hope that this Conference will bringtogether an intellectual community to chart the contemporary legacy of the Toronto School and usethose reflections to mould its future research directions.The McLuhan Centre for Culture and Technology rests on the vibrant foundations which MarshallMcLuhan laid down in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s and the consistent work of manyDirectors over the past three decades to continue to build on this legacy. When we celebrated theMcLuhan centenary in 2011 with a series of events including the McLuhan 100 Then|Now|NextConference the Faculty of Information at the University established the Marshall McLuhanCentenrary Fellowship program. This program over the past four years has brought a dozen or soFellows to the University.It is one of these, Dr Paolo Granata, who proposed that we should initiate a Conference to examinethe legacy, contemporary place, and future directions of the Toronto School. He was the catalyst forits intellectual vision and the remarkable range of strategic collaborations needed to make thisconference a reality. First, there have been a noteworthy number of faculties, schools, colleges anduniversities in Toronto which have joined with the McLuhan Centre to make the Conference possible(see page 2). Second, the landscape of the conference, itself is being shaped by the rich andinnovative intellectual contributions which authors of papers, peer reviewers, participants in theplenary panels and attendees are bringing. The broader community has over the past year helped usto breathe new life into the McLuhan Centre and we know that they will be bringing their dynamicquestioning and ideas to this Conference as well. Thank you to all these players, thank you to DrGranata from his orchestration, and thank you to all who are joining us for this historic event.

Seamus RossInterim Director McLuhan Centre for Culture and TechnologyFaculty of Information, University of Toronto

PLENARY PANEL (A)

The Early DaysChair PHIL ROSE

VIC 213 CHAPEL FRIDAY OCT 14, 9:30 AM

4

The Toronto School’s PathNot Taken: Harold Innis’sHistory of CommunicationsProjectWILLIAM BUXTONConcordia University

During the last dozen years of his life,Harold Innis assembled a lengthymanuscript (around 1400 pages) entitled“A History of Communications.” With atime-span running from ancient India andChina (circa 1500 BCE) to twentiethcentury Europe and North America, itexplores how the development of printingand paper was bound up with a broadrange of other phenomena, includingadministrative structures, geo-politics,militarism, public opinion, labourrelations, as well as the lives of visionaryfigures. However, those working withinthe tradition of the Toronto School havelargely overlooked the manuscript,drawing instead on Innis’s much betterknown published work. This paperexamines the work’s notable contributionsto our understanding of the history ofcommunications as well as tohistoriographical methodology. It willbriefly indicate how Innis’s history ofcommunications project was continuouswith his earlier writings on the ecology andinfrastructure of staples economies. Thepaper will conclude by examining theextent to which the approach deployed byInnis in this manuscript differed from thatfound in Empire and Communications andBias of Communication; it contends thatthe framework he used was more in linewith the one he had deployed in PoliticalEconomy and the Modern State.

WIllIAm J. BuxToN is Professor ofCommunication Studies at Concordiauniversity in montreal. Co-editor of HaroldInnis in the New Century, Harold Innis’sHistory of Communications, and HaroldInnis Reflects, he has also edited HaroldInnis and the North and has published anumber of articles on Innis and the TorontoSchool of Communication.

On Plato’s Forms: TheIdeas and IntellectualLegacy of E.A. HavelockTWYLA GIBSONUniversity of Missouri

Eric Alfred Havelock was a pioneeringclassical scholar whose writings on therepercussions of the technology of thephonetic alphabet helped lay thefoundations for the study of orality andliteracy, as well as media, communication,culture, and library and informationscience. His argument is that Plato’s attackon the Homeric tradition of epic poetrymarked a turning point in the greattransition from oral to literate modes ofcommunication in Greek education. Hisideas were inspired by prominent thinkersof the early to mid-twentieth century andinfluenced an emerging generation ofmedia and literary scholars—even as theywere harshly critiqued by classicalphilosophers. I point out that while hisarguments concerning Plato’s Forms wereclosely scrutinized and critiqued byclassical philosophers, those concerningthe authorship and textuality of thedialogues were tacitly accepted, therebyshoring up boundaries that continue tojustify the division of classics andphilosophy into separate disciplines. Thus,Havelock’s influence has been profoundand persists to this today. In pointing toconnections he forged among ideaspresented by his contemporaries, hisinfluence on classical philosophy, and theimpact of his intellectual legacy, I explainwhy Havelock’s writings remain acornerstone for research on thetransforming effects of shifts ininformation media and technologies.

TWylA GIBSoN is Assistant Professor ofInformation and Director of the DigitalHumanities Commons at The Allen Institutein the School of Information Science &learning Technologies at university ofmissouri. She holds an appointment at theFaculty of Information at the university ofToronto and is a former mcluhan Fellow.L@TwylaGibson

Creating a System:Frye’s Contribution to theToronto SchoolBRIAN RUSSELL GRAHAMAalborg University

This paper examines the fact that, by theend of the “early days”, Frye, through hisreading of Frazer and Spengler, haddeveloped a vision of how literature, moreparticularly what Frye thought of as thecentral myth of literature, is characterizedby doubleness, this being part of the visionrepresenting his “dialectical thinking”. Iexplain how Frye, through his encounterwith these two thinkers, evolved anunderstanding of the fact that, throughmetaphor, literature and mythologypresent a vision in which subject andobject are two aspects of the same thing.But, elucidating my central point, I alsochart how Frye emerged from hisencounter with Frazer and Spengler with asense of two myths, one comedic, the othertragic. I go on to explore the how Frye’s“digestion” of these thinkers wouldultimately allow him to evolve a theory ofthe “central myth of literature” not tomention an account of how Romanticismreinvented the mythos of each of the fourgeneric areas, while highlighting that,some time before those tasks were take onand completed, the vision of doublenesshelped him to develop a new criticalunderstanding of the Prophetic Books ofWilliam Blake, embodied in his FearfulSymmetry.

BRIAN RuSSEll GRAHAm, AssociateProfessor of literature, media and Cultureat Aalborg university. His first monograph,The Necessary Unity of Opposites,published by university of Toronto Press in2011, is a study of Northrop Frye,particularly Frye’s dialectical thinking.Graham continues to work with literary andcultural theory, but has also begun originalresearch on English poet William Blake. Healso teaches and writes about popularculture.

5

PLENARY PANEL (B) Roundtable

Explorations AgeChair MICHAEL DARROCH.Participants HART COHEN, JERRY HARP, PAUL HEYER, JANINE MARCHESSAULT, ERHARD SCHÜTTPELZ

VIC 213 CHAPEL FRIDAY OCT 14, 11:30 AM

mICHAEl DARRoCH is an AssociateProfessor of media Art Histories and VisualCulture. He is Co-Investigator for theVisible City Project + Archive (yorkuniversity). He co-edited (with Janinemarchessault) the anthology Cartographiesof Place: Navigating the Urban (mcGill-Queen's university Press, 2014), aninterdisciplinary collection that situatesdifferent historical and methodologicalcurrents in urban media studies. He is a2016-2018 mcluhan Centenary Fellow.

HART CoHEN is Associate Professor inmedia Arts in the School of Humanitiesand Communication Arts at WesternSydney university, Australia. He haspublished widely in the field of visualanthropology, communications and filmstudies. Cohen is co-author of Screenmedia arts: an introduction to concepts andpractices (oxford university Press, 2009)and founding editor of the Global MediaJournal (Australian Edition).L@HARTK

JERRy HARP teaches at lewis & ClarkCollege in Portland, oregon. He haspublished three books of poetry and twobook-length studies: “Constant Motion”:Ongian Hermeneutics and the ShiftingGround of Early Modern Understanding(Hampton Press 2010) and “For Us, WhatMusic?” The Life and Poetry of DonaldJustice (u. of Iowa Press 2010). He teachesat lewis & Clark College in Portland,oregon.

PAul HEyER, Professor Emeritus ofCommunication Studies, Wilfrid laurieruniversity. His books includeCommunications and History, Harold Innis,The Medium and the Magician, TitanicCentury, along with the co-edited text (withDavid Crowley), Communication in History,and with Bill Buxton and michael Cheney,Harold Innis’s History of Communications,and Harold Innis Reflects.

JANINE mARCHESSAulT is Professor ofCinema and media Studies in theDepartment of Cinema and media Arts atyork university. She has (co)curatednumerous large-scale public artexhibitions in Toronto and beyond. She isalso involved in on-going archival researchrelated to Edmund Carpenter and marshallmcluhan’s media think-tank and journalExplorations in the early 1950s at theuniversity of Toronto under the rubric ofthe Explorations Seminar.

ERHARD SCHüETTPElz is Professor ofmedia Theory at the university of Siegen.Principal Investigator, CollaborativeResearch Center "media of Cooperation",university of Siegen. Former Director of theGraduate School "locating media", Siegen.organizer of the Research Project "Trancemediums and New media", Siegen.Research on questions of mediaAnthropology, Actor Network Theory, andthe histories of Science, media, and Worldliterature.

How did Canada become a leader of contemporary

media theory in the 1950s and 60s? This plenary will

explore the contributions of media researchers affiliated

with the Toronto School to the wide-ranging

interdisciplinary debates and discussions that took place

from the late 1940s through the 1960s, at a time when

media and communication studies took root in

universities internationally. How did interdisciplinary

debates between faculty and graduate students, new

and critical pedagogies, and experiments with new

media across disciplines (literature, anthropology,

linguistics, intercultural studies, town planning, visual

arts, philosophy, cybernetics, psychology, political

economy) contribute to shaping a media studies

tradition particular to Canada? The plenary addresses

Canada’s role in facilitating an international exchange

between different disciplines in the arts, social sciences,

humanities, as well as studies in science and

technology, at the outset of contemporary media theory.

PANEL 1.1.1 Roundtable

Re-Creating Marshall McLuhan’s Monday Night Seminarsand Classes through Reminiscences and StoriesChair ROBERT LOGANParticipants DERRICK DE KERCKHOVE, DAVID OLSON, GEORGE GARLOCK, DONALD GILLIES,KATHY HUTCHON KAWASAKI, DAVID NOSTBAKKEN, CATHY RODRIGUES, ERIC MCLUHAN, FATHER LEO REILLY.

VIC 213 CHAPEL FRIDAY OCT 14, 2:00 PM

6

RoBERT K. loGAN, Fellow ofuniversity of St. michael’sCollege and Emeritus Professorof Physics, university of Torontoand Chief Scientist of the slab,oCAD university.

DERRICK DE KERCKHoVE,former student of mcluhan,former Director of the mcluhanProgram in Culture andTechnology and Emeritus Prof.university of Toronto, whoworked with marshall mcluhan1972 to1980 as translator,assistant and co-author.

DAVID olSoN, former Directorof the mcluhan Program forCulture and Technology andEmeritus Professor in oISE,university of Toronto. Author ofThe mind of paper: Reading,consciousness and rationality,forthcoming by Cambridgeuniversity Press.

GEoRGE GARloCK, formerstudent of mcluhan, andFormer CBC-TV publicist.

DoNAlD GIllIES, formerstudent of mcluhan, ProfessorEmeritus, Ryerson university,Adjunct Professor, yorkuniversity, Honorary Professor,university of the Highlands andIslands, Scotland, Fellow, SeniorCollege, university of Toronto.

KATHy HuTCHoN KAWASAKI,former student of mcluhan,collaborator and co-author ofCity as Classroom with marshalland Eric mcluhan.

DAVID NoSTBAKKEN, formerstudent and teaching assistantof marshall mcluhan, co-consultant with mcluhan in thelatter part of the 1970’s.mcluhan Centenary Fellow atthe mcluhan Centre for Cultureand Technology.

CATHy RoDRIGuES, a regularattendee of marshall mcluhan’smonday Night Seminars in the1970’s.

ERIC mCluHAN, award winningand internationally knownlecturer and author oncommunications and media,collaborator and co-author withhis dad, marshall mcluhan.

HElGA-lIz HABERFEllNER,former student of mcluhan anddocumentary filmmaker.

FATHER lEo REIlly, retiredpriest and former student at theuniversity of St. michael’sCollege who knew mcluhan.

FRIDAY OCT 14 PARALLEL SESSIONS 1

A panel of old hands some of whom co-authored and collaborated with McLuhanwill reminisce of what it was like to work with, study with or listen to MarshallMcLuhan. The role of the other members of the Toronto school including HaroldInnis, Ted Carpenter, Tom Easterbrook, Jacqueline Tyrwhitt, Carl Williams, SheilaWatson, Wilfred Watson, Harley Parker, Barrington Nevitt, Eric McLuhan, andGeorge Thompson will be examined for their influence on and their collaboration

with Marshall McLuhan. We will try to recreate with the panel the spirit of Marshall’s Monday NightSeminars, which means audience participation will be encouraged. No formalpapers will be presented; panelists will describe the influence of MarshallMcLuhan on their lives.

7

VIC 215 FRIDAY OCT 14, 2:00 PMPANEL 1.1.2

Unknown InnisChair WILLIAM BUXTON

Early Life, World War I, and itsAftermathPAUL HEYERWilfrid Laurier university

This paper will explore aspects of Innis’s early life whichhas been occasionally cited but rarely examined: hisautobiographical memoir written shortly before hisdeath in 1952; and his m.A. Thesis, “The ReturnedSoldier” (1918). It will be argued that part of theinspiration for writing the memoir came from three earlyprojects that differ markedly from the rest of his oeuvresin that they explore the role of the individual in history:Peter Pond: Fur Trader and Adventurer (1930); The Diaryof Alexander James mcPhail (1940); and The Diary ofSimeon Perkins (1948). The memoir itself highlights theforces that shaped his early life–the farm raisedupbringing, and most tellingly, his observationsresulting from have served and been wounded in WorldWar one. This experience led to an insightful foray intopost-graduate academe resulting in an m.A. Thesis, “TheReturned Soldier” (1918). Here he looks at the effect ofthe War in terms of those who survived it and thepersonal and broader social situation in which they haveto integrate. Before the now ubiquitous term “post-traumatic-stress disorder” was coined Innis was wellaware of its causes, consequences, and possibletreatment options.

PAul HEyER, Professor Emeritus of CommunicationStudies, Wilfrid laurier university. His books includeCommunications and History, Harold Innis, The Mediumand the Magician, Titanic Century, along with the co-edited text (with David Crowley), Communication inHistory, and with Bill Buxton and michael Cheney, Innis’sHistory of Communications, and Harold Innis Reflects.

Blood and Dirt ResearchMICHAEL CHENEYUniversity of Illinois

The work of Harold Innis has been characterized as“staples thesis” scholarship, “Early Innis” and “laterInnis,” and “dirt research.” The last characterization is afitting frame to approach the unpublished master’sthesis of Harold Innis – “The Returned Soldier.” In hismaster’s thesis, Innis offered a systematic study of oneinstitution - modern warfare. He focused on topics thatrose to significance from the returning solider cominghome from World War I – hence blood and dirt research.Here, Innis argued “the standard by which her [Canada’s]success in dealing with the problems of the returnedsolder…is…the health of the people.” He examined inthe thesis problems that were part of the social structureand life of the returning soldier that resulted frommodern warfare and their systematic effects on thesoldier. In conclusion Innis noted “the problems of thereturned soldier…are the problems of Canada [and] inperspective, are at hand and … are difficulties that willonly be surmounted by a thorough investigation of theproblems … and by application of the lessons learned.”

mICHAEl CHENEy is Professor of Communication andAssociate Professor of Economics at the university ofIllinois. He is the coauthor of From Iowa to the WhiteHouse (1989) and Packaging the Presidents (2008), andco-editor with Bill Buxton and Paul Heyer of HaroldInnis’s History of Communications, and Harold InnisReflects.

A Reader’s ResponsePHIL ROSEMedia Ecology Association

mine is the third contribution to a panel presentationwith michael Cheney and Paul Heyer regarding theirrecent two-volume publication (with William Buxton) ofsome lesser-known but important work of Harold AdamsInnis. While I will provide the response of a projectoutsider, our collective goal is to discuss thecircumstances surrounding the publication of a recenttwo-volume project. This work features, in the first,selections from Innis’s hitherto unpublished “History ofCommunications” manuscript – specifically his historicalgrand analysis of “the paper and printing complex” andits impacts in Asia and Europe “upon politics, culture,and economics”; and in the second, Innis's hithertounpublished and now missing mA thesis The ReturnedSoldier (1918), his incomplete autobiographical memoir(which goes only up to 1922), along with some of hiscentral correspondence, including letters he sent homefrom Toronto to his small rural hometown of ottervillethat describe his agony and culture shock when he firstset off to mcmaster university, back in the days beforemcmaster moved its operations from Toronto toHamilton. This presentation will probe the implicationsderiving from these newly accessible materials,demonstrating their variety of value and interest forscholars.

PHIl RoSE, immediate Past President of the mediaEcology Association, is author of the books Roger Watersand Pink Floyd: The Concept Albums (2015), Radioheadand the Global Movement for Change: 'Pragmatism NotIdealism' (2016), and editor of the forthcoming volumeConfronting Technopoly: Charting a Course TowardsHuman Survival (2016).

PANEL 1.1.3

Frye, Myth, and MediaChair STEPHEN RUPP

VIC 212 FRIDAY OCT 14, 2:00 PM

8

The CRTC and Northrop Frye:the Bush Garden in the GlobalVillageIAN CHUNNColumbia College

many know of Northrop Frye as a critic and scholarwhose magisterial and comprehensive works profoundlyinfluenced literary studies in the twentieth century.However, throughout his career Frye was also involved inother aspects of cultural production, often with a focuson Canadian culture. He was, for example, one of theeditors of the Canadian Forum, a progressive, issues-oriented monthly magazine that also published the art,fiction and poetry of some of the leading creators of thetime. But in addition, Frye also worked with theCanadian Radio and Television Commission (CRTC) inthe late 1960s and early 1970s, writing reports ontelevision programs and on documents such as HaroldInnis’s History of Communications (part of which wasrecently published in an edition by Buxton, Cheney, andHeyer), and contributing to committee hearings inottawa. This aspect of a great scholar’s work as a citizen,pro bono publico, needs to be more widelyacknowledged: Frye was an activist scholar who workedto ensure that studies contributed to the public good.

IAN CHuNN teaches Communication and English at Co-lumbia College in Vancouver, Canada. A graduate of Vic-toria university in the university of Toronto, the School ofGraduate Studies at the university of Toronto, and theuniversity of British Columbia, his research interests in-clude the social use of language, and the challenges ofpedagogy in a changing information environment.

Playful Work with MythicMinds in the Toronto SchoolRUTHANNE WROBELSt. Paul's College, Winnipeg

LAURA MCRAEHavergal College, Toronto

An appeal to mythic learning is an element shared byeducators in the Toronto School of Communication.Northrop Frye, marshall mcluhan, Edmund Carpenter andothers have promoted the idea that mythic understandingbuilds firm foundations for learning. These scholarsencourage teachers to adapt narrative frameworks frommyth and legend as thinking tools in varied subject areas.A well-known story offers a safe platform from which toobserve and interrogate a challenging text. In his famedstudy of the Bible, Words with Power, Northrop Frye invitedstudents to explore universal, contextual and metaphoricmeanings of mountain, Cave, Garden and Furnace.learning to navigate these spaces in literature and lifedeepens understanding of mythology, history, literature,art and more. The present study outlines an approach tolesson-planning that is both familiar and novel, designedto spark imaginative and metaphoric thinking. This analysisunearths surprising ways in which the biblical story ofJonah illumines recurring motifs in the terrain of Canadianliterature, where oral and written messages risk beingswallowed up and lost in vast tracts of wilderness.

RuTHANNE WRoBEl is a retired teacher of History,literature and Social Sciences who applies cognitive toolsfor learning inspired by marshall mcluhan, Northrop Frye,Kieran Egan and others.

lAuRA mCRAE is an English teacher at Havergal College.Her academic focus is mythography and the ways in whichmyths evolve to reflect the key concerns of any society.

Understanding Mediation –Art as Making MythHELMUT KLASSEN Indipendent Scholar

The form and meaning of art as ‘anti-art’ in mcluhan’sthought is re-interpreted to recollect and reframe theproblematic of art in relation to an ethically groundedrelation to myth. In mcluhan’s thought, the sphere ofmyth is irreducibly coupled to the grounding conditionof mediation, the relation of media — extensions of man— to our embodiment — the often unrecognized other ofour extensions. Technological consciousness is blind tothe operational fact of mediation, leaving us unaware ofour alienated condition in a prison without walls. Anti-artdialectically renders unconscious effects of mediationvisible to consciousness though production of disruptingperceptual ratios, an understanding of art as negationthat builds upon mcluhan’s characterization of westernart since the Renaissance. However, it is further arguedthat it is vital to recuperate the ritual function ofreconciling individual consciousness with thesocial/natural cosmos of what mcluhan calls tribal art toforge a critical and creative relation to myth capable ofredeeming its vital energies from the false dichotomy ofirrationality or exclusion. Reference is made to theexperimental practice of 18th century architect G. B.Piranesi, acknowledged as a critical antecedent to bothconstructivist and surrealist avant-gardes in the 20thcentury.

HElmuT KlASSEN is an independent scholar who worksin architecture, planning, and design as an Associatewith lundholm Associates museum planningconsultants in Toronto. His interdisciplinary Ph.D. inCommunication and Culture (york university) focused ontechnology, visibility/embodiment, art, andcommunication in a project to recuperate the function ofutopian imagining in the intersection of art, architecture,and culture of the city.

9

VIC 206 FRIDAY OCT 14, 2:00 PMPANEL 1.1.4

Preface to OngChair JERRY HARP

Walter J. Ong: TheSaint Louis MilieuTHOMAS D. ZLATICSt. Louis College of Pharmacy

Walter ong noted that I. A. Richards hada knack for asking the right questions,and “[s]uch a knack is a matter of thephilosophical milieu into which one isborn and of one’s own specialbackground of interests within thatmilieu” (ong, “The meaning of the NewCriticism” 345). As is often the case, suchobservations are in reality comments onone’s own experience. During hiseducation at Saint louis university in the1940s (where he earned degrees inphilosophy, theology, and English) ongwas nurtured in a stimulating milieu inwhich a large number of academics froma variety of disciplines were exploringthe role of the senses in noetic activity.Part of the milieu was constituted by theNew Criticism from Cambridge and bywhat ong styled “Saint louis Thomism,” aschool of Thomistic thinking influencedby neo-Thomists such as Etienne Gilsonand Jacques maritain. In thisenvironment, ong and his teachermarshall mcluhan developed abidingmetaphysical interests that led to theirinsights into media ecology. Thispresentation will use unpublishedmaterials from the ong Archives at theSaint louis university to document theinfluence of Saint louis university on thedevelopment of ong’s key concepts.

THomAS zlATIC’s Ph.D. in Americanliterature is from Saint louis university,at which he was a student of Father ong.zlatic has published a number ofarticles/book chapters and presented anumber of talks on the work of Walterong. These include studies that focusspecifically on ong’s ideas and ones thatrelate ongian ideas to literary figuressuch as Herman melville and markTwain.

Orality and SpokenSecond LanguageAcquisitionW. LANCE HAYNESMissouri University of Science andTechnology

“In the name of ‘progress,’ our officialculture is striving to force the new mediato do the work of the old,” observedmcluhan and Fiore in 1967. The myriadways literacy supplanted orality attest tothis, yet scholars rarely consider orality insolving problems that literate methodsfail to remedy. many universities face theneed to rapidly enhance the spokenEnglish skills of potential graduateteaching assistants--internationalstudents who read and write English wellenough to gain admission, but whoseability to engage native-speakingundergraduates in the classroom iswoefully inadequate. This essay discussesthe application of two theoreticalframeworks of orality, merlin Donald’s2001 4- part conceptualization ofmimesis (mime, imitation, skill, andgesture) and the author’s own 1990oralist canons of rhythm, narrative, andcommunality. Together, they address theproblem of raising students’communication skills beyond a basic oralthreshold (BoT) in order to afford themthe pedagogical benefits of interactingwith the larger university community.Three learning activities that bringinternational graduate students togetherwith undergraduate public speakingstudents are described, one stressingrhythm, one narrative, one the sharing ofcommunality, and each applying thestages of mime, imitation, skill, andgesture.

W. lANCE HAyNES is Professor of Speechand media Studies at missouri universityof Science and Technology. He is theauthor of several articles dealing with theepistemic effects of media shifts and withthe pedagogical uses of orality.

Walter Ong's LastBook: Language asHermeneuticSARA VAN DEN BERGSaint Louis University

After Walter ong's death, four drafts of acompleted book manuscript were foundamong his papers. He had written thebook as an overview of his work, but wefound the manuscript had an argumentof its own as well. language asHermeneutic (his title) comparesdigitization and language as systems ofexpression. The former, dominant inelectronic media, can be traced back tothe dichotomous organizationalschematae of Peter Ramus. Digitization isa closed system, ong contends, thatpresumes to be a complete mapping ofideas. language, on the other hand, is anopen system, mode of interpretation(hermeneutic) that not only remainsincomplete but invites more and morepossible meanings. In this paper, I willdescribe the edition of that Thomas m.zlatic and I have prepared forpublication.

SARA VAN DEN BERG received her B.A.summa cum laude from the university ofminnesota, and her m.A., m.Phil., andPh.D. from yale university. She chairedthe Slu English Department from 2000to 2012, after teaching at Fordham,Fairfield, occidental College, The ohioState university, and the university ofWashington-Seattle.

From The GutenbergGalaxy to theTwitterverse, or theUnmaking ofTypographic ManTIMOTHY BUELLIndipendent Scholar

While mcluhan is most popularlyassociated with the “Toronto School,” theworks of Eric Havelock, Harold Innis andWalter ong were vital not only to thetheoretical underpinnings of the TorontoSchool generally, but to mcluhan’sthought in particular. This paper discusses:1) How Havelock, Innis, mcluhan and ongwould have individually responded to theeffects of social media on discourse; and,2) How their collective viewpoints – aka the“Toronto School” – can be contemporarilyapplied. As ong demonstrated, thecurricular reforms of Ramus – or, asdescribed by mcluhan, “that furiouspedagogue,” -- resulted in a transformationof rhetorical discourse from an oral to avisual process where – in ong’s words --"the orator is perhaps not extinct, but he isnow permanently eclipsed.” Before we areseduced by the contemporary societalmyth that social media enhances ourdemocratic participation, empowering usall with the unfettered ability to blog,tweet, Facebook-post, and self-publish,bypassing the strictures of publishers andother censorious academics, we shouldpay heed to the combined voices ofHavelock, Innis, mcluhan and ong callingout, “not so fast!” For example, the webdesigner’s mantra is “mobile firstresponsive design.”

TImoTHy BuEll is from Toronto, Canada.His two Ph.D.’s are in leadership andAdult Higher Education (oISE), and inmusic Theory and Composition (Pitt). Hehas held a multidisciplinary range ofgraduate and undergraduate professorialappointments in communications,cultural studies, technical writing, artsjournalism, public speaking, rhetoric,educational psychology, social powertheory, environmental design,continuing education, and in musictheory and composition.

PANEL 1.2.1

Religion UnboundChair MARK MCGOWAN

VIC 101 FRIDAY OCT 14, 3:30 PM

10

Bunker Prayer:McLuhan, Virilio, anda Future forCatholicismDEAN DETTLOFFInstitute for Christian Studies, Toronto

A common refrain of media theory is theexamination of how telecommunicationstechnologies have given rise to a“shrinking” effect, whereby space andtime are contracted as the world becomesmore intensely connected. marshallmcluhan observed this effect early onwith his infamous and oftenmisconstrued conception of the “globalvillage,” a situation in which, far frombringing all people under the auspices ofa thoroughly homogenized world order,discontinuities and diversities are forcedinto contact and friction. moreover, thecontraction of space and time happens atan accelerating speed, leading to a kindof cultural vertigo. The analysis of speedand the contraction of space and time isalso taken up by French urbanist PaulVirilio, who advances a theory of thepossibility of an integral accident,occurring at all places at the same time. Examining the writings of mcluhan andVirilio, and a church building designed byVirilio, this presentation explores therelationship between Catholicism and thethoroughly connected world it inhabits,considering how media captivatesCatholicism and how Catholicism mightprovide a space of peace in a societydefined by breakneck speed.

DEAN DETTloFF is a PhD candidate inphilosophy at the Institute for ChristianStudies, Toronto, where his researchfocuses on the intersections of mediatheory, religion, and politics. His mA, alsoin philosophy, explored the thought ofGerman philosopher Peter Sloterdijk,considering the possibilities for religionin a cynical age.L@DeanDettloff

Incarnation andDigitization: MarshallMcLuhan and theDigital HumanitiesANDREW STOUTUniversity of Missouri

This paper offers an interpretation ofmarshall mcluhan’s work in mediastudies in the context of his religiousbeliefs. It points to significantconnections between the core ideas ofthis major figure of the Toronto Schooland the contemporary field of DigitalHumanities (DH). It does so byexamining mcluhan’s religious beliefsand the theological infrastructure of hiswork, focusing on the central place thatmcluhan gave to the doctrine of theIncarnation. This “incarnational principle”shapes his view of the plasticity ofhuman consciousness and itsrelationship to technology. I argue that italso underwrites his critique of the“discarnate” or “disembodied” nature ofelectronic technology. This ambivalenceabout the effects of technology revealstensions in mcluhan’s thought. It causeshim to claim that electronic media areextensions of embodied consciousnesswhile at the same time claiming that it“discarnates” or disembodies humanexperience. To resolve this tension, I lookto contemporary digital humanists N.Catherine Hayles and Pierre lévy.ultimately, Hayles’s understanding of the“material” nature of digital technology,as well as the physical substrata of“virtuality” as expressed by lévy,articulate views of technology that aremore consistent with mcluhan’s“incarnational principle.”

ANDREW STouT is a graduate student inthe library and Information Scienceprogram at the university of missouri’siSchool. He has degrees in philosophy andtheology from lindenwood university andCovenant Theological Seminary. Hisprevious research has focused onliterature, theology, and ecclesiology.L@ThomasACStout

Harold Innis goesEast: on the afterlifeof an Empire thatbecame its ownmediumCEZARY GALEWICZJagiellonian University in Krakow

Empires, as Harold Innis saw them, canbe explored as major institutions ofcivilizations, tending to evolve graduallyin response to inner processes thatinevitably lead them towards finalexhaustion. In selecting his historicalillustrations, Innis chose not to includedirectly either the British Empire itself orany of the imperial past of its oncepowerful dominions. This paper followsthe logic of Innis’ major ideas withreference to the conceptual history of theBritish Empire and it’s dominions in 19thcentury India. It attempts to highlightmutual relationship of the two differentconcepts of empire in a major work byFriedrich max müller. along the lines ofhis double engagement with the BritishEmpire on the rise and to the afterlife ofthe East Indian Empire of Vijayanagara.In 1849, a century before Empires andCommunication, the first volume ofmüller’s The Hymns of the Rgveda withthe Commentary of Sāyaṇa appeared inoxford thanks to the Honorable EastIndia Company which patronized itsimperial size and impact. The paperattempts to explore the concept ofimperial commentary as an effectivemedium through historical change.

CEzARy GAlEWICz, assistant professor,Center for Comparative Studies ofCivilisations, Jagiellonian university.Cultural history of South Asia, historicalanthropology of knowledge systems andlearned communities, intellectualpractices, history of book and reading,ancient scriptural traditions inrelationship with centers of power, theirtransformations and persistence,memory, writing and print cultures.

The Inner Word:McLuhan meetsGadamerANDREW FUYARCHUKHanson College

The many interpretations of the innerword in Gadamer’s hermeneuticsoverlook the fact that for him language isboth written and spoken and that thecognitive norms recommended by thesetwo mediums for communication are in adialectical tension with one another. Afterusing understanding media by mcluhanto explain the significance of thesemediums for interpreting the inner wordas an intermediary realm of rhythm andresonance between speaker’s voices, thepaper develops the findings of mediaecologists in the evolution of the mindand language in order to explain howthe inner word thus understood bringslife in the sense of a self-unfoldingstructure to language. Central to thisargument is a turn of the inner ear orauditory disposition which in contrast tosensory memory that is subjective andbased on sight, recollects the musicalorigins of language in the present andthereby renders the movements of adialogue comparable to song.

ANDREW FuyARCHuK is an instructor atHanson College in Brampton. Hisresearch focuses on developing relationsbetween Heidegger, Gadamer, theGreeks and contemporary cognitivescience and theories about the evolutionof language. mcluhan, ong and “TheToronto School” in general have beencrucial to Andrew’s interpretation of therole of hearing, seeing and music inGadamer’s thought.

11

VIC 115 FRIDAY OCT 14, 3:30 PMPANEL 1.2.2

City as MediumChair SHAUNA BRAIL

McLuhan, Media, andthe MetropolisGERALD ERIONMedaille College

mcluhan’s framing thus leads him wellbeyond the common communicationtools that we typically associate with theterm “media.” For sure, understandingmedia includes important, well known,and widely celebrated discussions ofspeech, writing, photography, radio,television, and so on. But his analysiscovers much more than this, including adeep and powerful exploration of theurban environment. Here the TorontoSchool studies the school of Toronto; thecity becomes, perhaps, the teacher, theclassroom, and the subject.By articulating and exploring these andother themes, we can describe importantapplications of Toronto School conceptswhile we develop important theoreticalunderpinnings for New urbanism. Thispresentation will argue, then, that thework of mcluhan offersimportant lessons for students andcitizens of the contemporary city.In particular, mcluhan’s ideas aboutscale and transportation are vital butunderappreciated applications of hiswideranging theory of media. We shallalso find that these lessons reflect keyfoundations of the New urbanistmovement. This influential association ofarchitects and planners plays a lead rolein the building and rebuilding of citiesaround the world, and its connections tomcluhan are potential grounds forimportant work, Now and Next.

GERAlD J. ERIoN teaches philosophy atmedaille College in Buffalo, New york.His scholarly interests include ethics,philosophy of mind, and criticalthinking; he and his students are alsodeveloping a new, experimental courseon cities.

McLuhan’s CityTheory: Pattern andBalance in the UrbanSensoriumJAQUELINE MCLEOD ROGERSUniversity of Winnipeg

Although mcluhan was involved andfamiliar with designers and architectskeen on designing a world city andimposing their own sense of networkedpatterns—with traditional planningpractices--his deeper interest was inunderstanding what so many urbantheorists now refer to as the “mutuallyconstitutive” nature of the city and thehuman body. In my presentation, I willexamine how he shares and extends theviews of his contemporaries, Kevin lynchand Jane Jacobs, with whose work hewas familiar. I will also note how heremains committed to some of JaquelineTyrwhitt’s approaches to city planningand design. In examining his connectionto these influential figures whocontributed to visual culture and urbandesign in the 1960’s, I am interested notonly in the ambient culture of the time,but also in how this approach andpractice continues to inform currenturban spatial thinking.

JAQuElINE mClEoD RoGERS isprofessor and Chair of the Department ofRhetoric, Writing and Communications atthe university of Winnipeg. She recentlyco-edited a collection of new articles,which has just been published this may-June as Finding Marshall McLuhan: TheMind, The Man The Message (u ReginaPress, 2015).

The City is a CoolMedium: UrbanStudies and theToronto SchoolCURRY CHANDLERUniversity of Pittsburgh

The facilitation of communication hashistorically been considered a centralfunction of urban centers. The process ofplanetary urbanization has coincided withthe global networking of information andcommunication technology, leading to aglobal village wherein denizens areincreasingly interacting in physical andvirtual spaces. This paper argues for anapproach to urban studies thatforegrounds the communicative functionof urban environments andconceptualizes the city as a medium ofcommunication. This approach extendskey concepts of communication mediaarticulated by scholars associated with theToronto School, particularly as thesetheories have been developed throughthe literature on media ecology andmedium theory. Additionally, this papershows how principles from the TorontoSchool approach to communication haveexplicitly and implicitly informed atransdisciplinary body of scholarship onurban life. The technologies beingimplemented in the infrastructure ofsmart urbanization introduce new meansof segregation and new questions aboutwhat and for whom the city is for. Withnew means of connection come also newmethods of protection and control. Theencounter with difference is a definingcharacteristic of the urban experience, anda media studies approach to urban studiesis uniquely situated to facilitateinterventions to cultivate meaningfulcommunication amidst increasinglystultifying public environments.

CuRRy CHANDlER is a graduate studentin Communication at the university ofPittsburgh. His current research includesthe labor experiences of ride-sharedrivers and the development rhetoric ofsmart city projects. He has written oninternet regulation, media effects, andthe media theory of marshall mcluhan.

McLuhan and work inthe global art formMARC BELANGERRadioLabour

marshall mcluhan’s works can be used toaddress unemployment and inequalitybecause digital technologies areallowing humankind to create a globalart form. People working within this artform will act as artists who needdemocratic workplaces, artistic training,and life-long learning. understandinghow to work within the art form will helpus move to more equitable, sustainable,economies. The goal is to replace nature,with an art form perfectly accommodatedto the totality of human needs andaspirations. To move towards this goalmcluhan provided us insights into theart form’s major trajectories plus a kit oftools we can use to design it. Thetrajectories include: visual spacethinking being over-ridden by acousticspace thinking, reversal of the consumer-producer division, the user as content,and more. The tools include: the acoustic-space field approach, patternrecognition, figure / ground analysis, andminding the intervals between twotechnologies. As the art form isconstructed humankind’s final frontiermay not be the physical universe but therealm of awareness the mind has of itselfand of the world. It may be that humanconsciousness will program the globalart form to allow us to live and work asartistic l’earners.

mARC BélANGER designs technologiesfor unions. He was the head of thecomputer department of Canada’s largestunion and a teacher at the uN’s labourcollege. He is currently the newsproducer at Radiolabour - theinternational labour movement’s radioservice. He holds a PhD from SimonFraser university.

PANEL 1.2.3

Old and New ImageriesChair JOHN KEANE

VIC 215 FRIDAY OCT 14, 3:30 PM

12

The Ambiguity ofDisruption in theTelevision IndustryNATALIE KLYMMassachusetts Institute of Technology

(Or, Clay Christensen and MarshallMcLuhan Have Tea).The multichannel video programmingdistributors (mVPDs) have been facing thethreat of disruption by online videodistributors (oVDs) for the past decade.While circumstances are similar in Canada,the online video industry in the u.S. ismore mature. The battle is being fought onmany fronts including the content itself,cross-platform access, interactive services,delivery, and pricing. In this paper, wefocus on content as a key strategic variable,both independently and in relation to theother variables insofar as they affectcontent choices. While all oVDs areconsidered “entrants,” we distinguishbetween two categories: 1) those thatcompete on quality by offeringcomparable content choices (e.g., Netflix,Amazon, Hulu) and 2) those that competeon innovation by offering new contentforms and formats (e.g., youTube,Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, Periscope).While the growth of oVDs offering high-quality content has challenged theincumbents’ assumption that exclusiveaccess to such content is sustainable, therise of innovative content serviceschallenges even deeper assumptionsregarding the primacy and strategic valueof traditional content, whether inside oroutside the mVPD pay wall. The lattercategory thus stands to redefine televisionas an industry, as a product andexperience, and as a social institution.turnulla, a varius nunc consequat ut.

NATAlIE Klym is the Executive Director ofthe mIT Communications Futures Program.Her research focus is on the co-evolution ofthe Internet and the media industries.Previously, Natalie worked as an analyst atDigital 4Sight in Toronto. She has an mA inmedia Studies from Concordia universityand a BA in Economic Geography fromQueen's university. L@nklym

Screening the Tetrad– A Tetrad of ScreensNICHOLAS GRODSKY, JULIAHILDEBRAND, ERNEST HAKANENDrexel University

This paper illuminates the relevance of themcluhans’ (1988) tetrad model of human-made artifacts. They argue that the hiddenand unconscious dimensions of humantechnologies can be critically explored witha set of four questions derived frommcluhan’s (1964) original probes: Whatdoes a medium enhance, retrieve, reverseinto, and obsolesce? With a few exceptions,social scientific and humanistic literaturehave neglected this insightful tool. Afterproviding an overview of the literature, thispaper follows philosopher Harman (2013)in “taking mcluhan seriously” by applyingthe tetrad to the concept of the screen.Specifically, we fall back on the mcluhans’original tetrads of television, film,computer, and visual space to explore therelevant philosophic concepts of screens.The historic evolution of material screens(manovich, 1995) revealsphenomenological processes ofscreenness (Introna & Ilharco, 2011).Screenness describes an environment ofmediation irreducible to any materialscreen.

NICHolAS GRoDSKy is a doctoral candidatein Communication, Culture, and media atDrexel university. His dissertation workexplores the phenomenon known as sleepparalysis in film, television, and online.JulIA HIlDEBRAND is a doctoral candidatein Communication, Culture, and media atDrexel university’s College of Arts andSciences. With a background in comparativemedia studies, her current research interestsinclude mediated mobilities, media theory,and visual culture. ERNEST HAKANEN is Professor ofCommunication and Graduate Faculty inCommunication, Culture, and media atDrexel university. His research interestsinclude media studies, effects, and systemstheory. He is a former Annenberg fellow andauthor of Branding the Teleself (lexingtonBooks).

Extensions andContractions –McLuhan and CameraSurveillanceJEFF HEYDONWilfrid Laurier University

How does the witnessing of somethingchange or become problematic when theawareness of it is delivered by a distantcamera? CCTV is increasingly used as atool in the process of policing andmaintaining order in urbanenvironments. A power structuredemands that an image be transmittedregarding the status of a specific spaceand that the status of that space beupdated constantly. marshall mcluhansaw the effect of electronic media as theextension of the body – the modificationof the reach or the agency of the physicalform through the properties of media. Inlight of this, the case of CCTV isprincipally about the linking of a realworld event with an observer who isbeyond the reach of that event. In thatmoment, the image produced is both theexpansion of a particular determinationof agency and a consequent dissociationwith an immediate physical reality on thepart of the recipient. How does the use ofCCTV modify or problematize the waysecurity systems operate and what doesmcluhan’s theory of the extension of thebody through electronic media tell usabout the future of video surveillance?

JEFF HEyDoN is adjunct professor ofmedia studies at the CommunicationStudies Department, Wilfrid laurieruniversity and the Department of Arts,Culture and media and the Institute ofCommunication, Culture andInformation Technology at the universityof Toronto. His primary research areas aresurveillance, policing and media theory.L@JeffHeydon

Marshall McLuhanand Donald Trump:The Revenge of CoolPAUL LEVINSONFordham University

It may seem strange to characterizeDonald Trump, and his angry, aggressiverhetoric as "cool" in the mcluhanesquesense, but most of his statements,especially those on Twitter where hefrequently posts, contain almost nocontent. you can't say much anyway injust 140 characters, but Trump sayswhatever comes into his mind, claimingone day that he's "softening" his positionon immigration, the next day that he'sreally "hardening" his position, and theday after that he's softening. like all coolpresentations, this allows his supportersto see whatever they want to see in histweets and other statements. mcluhanmight have said that Trump as apolitician is all medium and no content.The dark side of this is that, just as thecool medium of television flipped intomaximum participatory violence in the1960s, so Trump and his ice storms ofcool have already begun flipping intoviolence at his rallies.

PAul lEVINSoN is Professor ofCommunication & media Studies atFordham university in NyC. His sciencefiction novels include The Silk Code(winner of locus Award for Best FirstScience Fiction Novel of 1999), BorrowedTides, The Consciousness Plague, ThePixel Eye, The Plot To Save Socrates,Unburning Alexandria, and Chronica. Hisnonfiction books, including The SoftEdge, Digital McLuhan, Realspace,Cellphone, and New New Media havebeen translated into 14 languages.L@PaulLev

13

VIC 212 FRIDAY OCT 14, 3:30 PMPANEL 1.2.4

Languages of CultureChair BRIAN RUSSELL GRAHAM

Language mattersand the hiddendimension ofglobalizationMICHAËL OUSTINOFFUniversity of Nice Sophia Antipolis

In 2001 The Economist considered asself-evident that English was the“language of globalization”. I will arguethat such a widely held view does nothold water. In order to understandtoday’s world, the all-English model isgrossly out of date as the BritishAcademy contended as early as 2009 inlanguages matters. In a multipolarworld, where globalisation isaccompanied by the unprecedenteddevelopment of information andcommunication technologies, using onlythe lingua franca is to be under-informedwith English now accounting for only30% of the Internet. Toronto as one of themost multicultural cities in the world andthe Toronto school are ideally placed totackle the sea change brought about bythe rebabelization of the global villagenow underway on such anunprecedented scale. The paramountimportance of languages was largelyhidden until only a decade ago. It hasnow come into full view. What remainhidden are the issues at stake, which canonly be fully understood from a vastlymultidisciplinary - and multilingual -perspective.

mICHAël ouSTINoFF is Professor inTranslation Studies at the university ofNice Sophia Antipolis (France) andAssociate Researcher at the ISCC/CNRS,Paris. His third book Traduire etcommuniquer à l’heure de lamondialisation (Translating andCommunicating in a Globalized World)was published by CNRS éditions in 2011.

From the Stone Age tothe Space Age andBackROBERT SCOTTRyerson University

Why the modern world needs to listen toindigenous peoples.This paper presents arguments for theinclusion of the voices of the world’s poorand indigenous people in all futuredecisions affecting the quality of humanlife on earth, and an end to ourtechnocracy’s unbridled consumption ofits resources. In his encyclical, on Care forour Common Home: laudato Si, (2013)Pope Francis I, a scientist himself,recognizes, as indigenous peoples havefor eons, our survival depends on thenatural environment; he exhorts us toseek collaborative approaches totechnological development which benefiteveryone across all religious divides. Fourarticles in Science (10 June 2016) explainhow local indigenous knowledge, ratherthan modern linear science or top-downconservation policies, can enhance thebuilding of collective global frameworks(e.g., The Paris Agreement), encourageglobal responsibility and solveincreasingly complex environmentalproblems. Before the currentenvironmental crisis, marshall mcluhanand Edmund Carpenter of the TorontoSchool of Communication explored theimpact of modern technologies on oralsocieties and the ensuing loss of respectfor the environment in literate culture.Their insights into and acknowledgementof indigenous values support the presentarguments for inclusivity. Perhaps beforewe populate new worlds among the stars,we should get things right on our own.

RoBERT B. SCoTT was former ActingChair, and later Program Director ofmedia Studies in the School of ImageArts, Ryerson university, until hisretirement in 1998 as ProfessorEmeritus. He studied under marshallmcluhan and has presented papers atinternational conferences on theatre andmedia, media education and marshallmcluhan.

A note on MarshallMcLuhan’s creativeendeavorsALUIZIO R. TRINTAUniversidade Federal de Minas Gerais

This is a prospective notice on marshallmcluhan, shrewd Canadian media,culture and technology theorist asregards his skillful probing techniqueand a general view on the possiblemethodological interrelation betweenunderstanding media and laws ofmedia. The former is about distincttemperatures of information and theirimpact on the understanding of themessages mass media effectivelyprovide; the latter is concerned withgestalt concepts such as ‘figure’ and‘ground’ as they alternate in a regularpattern that keeps them being repeated.As it is, abduction seems to be motivatedby the feeling that a daring hypothesis isin need whenever one wants to exploreand probe rather unexpected facts.moreover, abduction may serve as asuitable philosophical basis for revealinginsights into the nature ofrepresentational media as well as intosocial and cultural phenomena. Gestaltpsychology concerns itself with thephenomenon of ‘figure’ as contrastedwith ‘ground’ in perception of shades,besides holistic or multisensoryperception of an environment as whole.The programmatic use of metaphoricalimages and paradoxical statements aremade in order to provide original,innovative and illuminating theorycriticism in media studies.

AluIzIo R. TRINTA is an AssociateProfessor of theory of communication atthe Federal university of Juiz de Fora(State of minas Gerais, Brazil). He teachesmedia and digital literacy in the Facultyof Communication (Graduate Studies).His principal research interests aresemiotics and aesthetics as applied torepresentational media.

Filing The Bottom:Challenges in CultureAdoption andAdaptationHENRY GOMEZKing Cosmos Enterprises

Filing “The Bottom”: Challenges inCulture Adoption and Adaptation(Acculturation) Henry Gomez - Educator,Actor, Composer and Recording ArtisteAbstract This paper, influenced byresearch done by visual anthropologistand long standing mcluhan friend andcolleague, Edmund Snow Carpenter,focuses on Caribana, one of Toronto’siconic festivals, and a significant site ofartistic and cultural expression. Whileextensive studies have been done aboutthe economic impact of the festival, littlehas been done about the socio culturalaspects and their conflicts. Throughphotographs, recorded music, artefacts,video clips and personal narratives I willexamine one aspect of the CaribanaFestival - from its introduction to Toronto,through various stages of itsdevelopment to the present - to arguethat the “parade” can be seen as“acoustic space”. much like Carpenter’sart trader in Eskimo Realities, Toronto hasbeen “filing” it to make it fit a pre-existing paradigm and “stand up” to beviewed in the same way as the familiarSanta Claus or Saint Patrick’s Day Parade.The Caribana Parade has become a sitethat attracts almost one million peopleannually. This paper provides insight intoconflicts that have developed, and makessuggestions to assist with theirresolution.

HENRy GomEz is an educator, actor,composer and award-winning recordingartiste who has a passion for the media,cultural studies and lifelong learning. Heholds a masters degree in Theatre (yorkuniversity) and seeks to pursue a postgraduate degree in media and culturalstudies.L@RealHenryGomez

PANEL 1.2.5

Crossing DisciplinesChair DAVID NOSTBAKKEN

VIC 206 FRIDAY OCT 14, 3:30 PM

14

Semiotics as anAncillary Discipline inthe Toronto School ofCommunicationSTEPHEN HAROLD RIGGINSMemorial University

There are brief references in thebiographical literature on marshallmcluhan to the way his colleagues at theuniversity of Toronto reacted to his ideas.mcluhan felt intellectually isolated atToronto, although he did find a smallnumber of very supportive colleaguesand students. Northrop Frye’s reaction tomcluhan is summarized in detail in thebiographical literature, but theimplication is that the opposition tomcluhan from the lesser-known Torontoprofessors tended to be a result ofjealousy and narrow-mindedness.Actually, the university of Torontoharboured an exceptional number ofprofessors who were professionallyinterested in communication. Thispresentation tries to clarify some aspectsof the local institutional climate whichmcluhan confronted and documents analternative institution which wasfounded to study communication. Thepresentation concentrates on the careerof Paul Bouissac, whose career had somesimilarities with that of mcluhan, and onthe university of Toronto Semiotic Circle.Bouissac was the key organizer of theSemiotic Circle. Founded in 1973 as aninterdisciplinary association, the circlewas most active in the 1970s and 80sand resulted in numerous publications,conferences.

STEPHEN HARolD RIGGINS is an HonoraryResearch Professor in the Department ofSociology at memorial university ofNewfoundland. He is the author of ThePleasures of Time as well as editor ofBeyond Goffman, The Socialness of Things,The Language and Politics of Exclusion, andEthnic Minority Media. For the past decadehis research has been about the history ofhigher education in Canada.

ScientificizingMcLuhanSÉRGIO BASBAUMPontificia Universidade Católicade São Paulo

About the predicades of man-machine coupling and the tripleisomorphism hipothesis. In laws of media, his last work, marshallmcluhan has made a last attempt toassign a scientific status to his ideasabout media and culture, presenting hisnow famous tetrad and offering severalexamples of its application on media andother cultural phenomena. If we considermcluhanism from the point-of-view ofthe perceptual bias determined by aspecific media ecology circumstance,then one cannot avoid considering theenormous amount of research onconsciousness and the brain in the lastdecades, inquiring about media impacton brain connections. Taking as areference works from marshall mcluhan,maurice merleau-Ponty, Humbertomaturana, Evan Thompson and Alva Noe,this work departs from the idea thatmedia creates a kind of experience whichrelated to the epismtemic context fromwhich it emerges, to approach the formsand predicades of human-machinecoupling, specially in a digital culture,examining the hipothesis of a tripleisomorphism between machine-neuralprocesses-experience.

SéRGIo R. BASBAum is a teacher,researcher and artist. With backgroundsin music and cinema, he obtained hisPhD in Communication and Semiothics,and has done post-doc studies inPhilosophy. Currently teaches at the post-graduate studies program onTechnologies of Intelligence and DigitalDesign, at the Pontifícia universidadeCatólica de São Paulo (PuC-SP).

Robert Smithson andthe Cinematic Spacesof Wyndham Lewisand MarshallMcLuhanADAM LAUDERUniversity of Toronto

This paper reconsiders of the relationshipbetween the multidisciplinary practice ofthe American artist Robert Smithson andthe media analyses of marshall mcluhanand his mentor, the Canadian-bornprecursor of the Toronto School,Wyndham lewis. Smithson’s unrealizedproposal for an “earth map” to besituated on miami Islet and calling for100 tonnes of shattered industrial glassto be deposited on the rocky outcroppingin the Strait of Georgia materializes linksbetween the artist’s iconic Spiral Jettyand the Toronto School. like Spiral Jetty,the miami Islet proposal rehearses filmicallusions redolent of both mcluhan’sdiscourse on the simulacral “reel world”screened by cinema and lewis’s criticalgloss on Bergson’s foundationalcommentary on the filmic apparatus inCreative Evolution. Where previousSmithson scholars have read Spiral Jettythrough a Deleuzian lens, lewis’sinversion of Bergson’s critique of the“cinematographical method” ofdiscontinuous perception enforced by apragmatic intellect suggests a morelikely paradigm for the concrete comedystaged by Smithson’s earthwork. In itsparadoxical stasis and ponderousmateriality, Spiral Jetty’s cinematicdiscontents strongly recall lewis’scontrarian practice of “non-moral satire,”his antihumanist reworking of Bergson’stheorization of the comic.

ADAm lAuDER recently completed all ofthe requirements of a PhD in theGraduate Department of Art at theuniversity of Toronto (with convocationscheduled for November 2016). Hiscurrent research focuses on Canadianartists’ representations of “information.”He has contributed articles to scholarlyjournals including Amodern, CanadianJournal of Communication, Imaginations.

From Theatre Studiesto PerformanceStudiesFABRIZIO DERIUUniversity of Teramo

How the “Toronto School” influenced a bigparadigm shift in contemporaryhumanities. In the last decades of the twentiethcentury, Theatre Studies underwent amajor paradigm shift under the drive ofthe powerful concept of performance.Alongside traditional approaches centeredon Western notions such as theatre anddrama, the interdisciplinary and multi-cultural field of Performance Studiesemerged. Aim of the paper is to elucidatesome paths along which the “TorontoSchool” influenced this shift and tosuggest how these two intellectualtraditions can productively meet andcooperate in the theoretical framework ofthe post-disciplinary Humanities of thetwenty-first century. A key fact, wherebythese approaches can be put inrelationship, is that both were triggered bythe awareness of belonging to a period ofrapid metamorphosis in the humansensory apparatus from the age of literacytoward a new set of communication skillsand tools supported by electricity. Themain difference is that many extensions ofthe “Toronto School” have investigatedespecially the world of electric andelectronic media; while PerformanceStudies have addressed especially liveembodied practices and behaviors (eitherartistic or not). However, in acomprehensive “media ecology” approach,this gap is anything but unbridgeable, thelinking ground being orality as a cognitivecapacity.

FABRIzIo DERIu is Assistant Professor inTheatre and Performance Studies,university of Teramo, Italy; and facultymember of PhD Program in “music andPerformance Studies”, “Sapienza”university of Rome, Italy. main fields ofinterest: Performance Studies and Historyof Actors and Acting in contemporarytheatre, film and audiovisual media.

15

OPENING KEYNOTE

What does the Toronto School mean today?How about tomorrow?JOHN RALSTON SAUL

BADER THEATRE FRIDAY OCT 14, 5:30 PM

This conference is an impressive statement of the

breadth and impact of the Toronto School. I hope the

work done here will solidify, in people’s minds and

actions, both the roots and the implications of the

whole movement.

The biggest risk is that academic structures of

specialization may force a perfectly natural

concentration on the many details and off shoots of

this School. This is necessary, but it is not enough.

Such a splintering of knowledge may lead us away

from what the Toronto School actually looks like as a

movement – as a philosophical approach to how we

communicate with each other, how we remember.

We all know this. Of course we must know more

about each detailed aspect of the School’s theory. But

we must also take the big risks. Why does this school

of thought exist? Why does it matter? Where can it

lead us? How can it protect us from the passivity built

into micro-thinking – the possible loss of our sense of

direction. The greatest danger in all intellectual work is

the loss of a sense that we can use knowledge to help

society influence and shape its actions and directions.

This is an ethical obligation.

Let me point out one important aspect of this.

I am increasingly struck by the central role of

Indigenous theories and methods in shaping the ideas

of several members of the Toronto School. And for the

others, their focus on oral culture and mythology carry

the whole philosophy of the Toronto School onto

shared ground with Indigenous philosophy.

Once put together, these factors tell us something

important about the most profound implications of

The Toronto School.

JoHN RAlSToN SAul, is an award winning essayist and novelist.He is regarded as Canada’s leading public intellectual and hasbeen declared a “prophet” by Time magazine. His fourteen workshave been translated into twenty-eight languages in thirty-sevencountries. Some of his most important works include thephilosophical trilogy, Voltaire´s Bastards, The UnconsciousCivilization and The Doubter’s Companion with its conclusion, OnEquilibrium. His most recent essay, The Comeback, has changedthe conversation on Indigenous issues in Canada. Saul isPresident Emeritus of PEN International and co-Chair of theInstitute for Canadian Citizenship. Saul is a Companion of theorder of Canada and the order of ontario.

L@JohnRalstonSaul

WELCOMING RECEPTION

The Toronto School meetsToronto Art and Artists

ART MUSEUM FRIDAY OCT 14, 7:30 PM

Greetings: Barbara Fischer, director of the Art Museum andLuis Jacob, artist, writer, and guest curator at the Art Museum.

The event is part of the exhibition "Form Follows Fiction: Artand Artists in Toronto”, curated by internationally renownedToronto-based artist luis Jacob. The exhibition concentrates ona period of more than fifty years to consider the ways in whichartists visualize Toronto. Presenting a thematic clustering ofworks by eighty-six artists, the exhibition is premised on thetendency of artists in this city to favour performative andallegorical procedures to articulate their sense of place. Fourgestures – mapping, modelling, performing and congregating– serve as guideposts to a diverse array of artistic practices. The

exhibition is a constellation of symbolic forms, or memes, thatrepeatedly appear in the work of artists of differentgenerations; it presents a panorama of the blueprints thatartists have drafted over many decades to give form to life inone of North America’s largest cities.The exhibition signals the Art museum’s continued, energeticengagement with art and artists in Toronto, to foster researchand histories concerning sense of place.

Joanne Tod, “The Magic of Sao Paulo,” 1985. Oil on canvas, 213.4 x 170.18 cm.Collection of Mrs. Pamela Hallisey. Courtesy of the artist.Still from Oliver Husain, “Purfled Promises”, 2009. Video, 9:20 min.Courtesy of the artist and Susan Hobbs Gallery

university of Toronto Art Centre15 King’s College Circle, TorontoL@artmuseumuoft

PLENARY PANEL (C)

Ferment in the FieldChair ANNE MACLENNAN

BADER THEATRE SATURDAY OCT 15, 9:30 AM

16

The Canadian ImaginaryARTHUR KROKERUniversity of Victoria

The further and deeper the TorontoSchool of Communication travelled intoclassical history, the closer theyapproached the always enigmatic digitalfuture: its fatal contradictions, spectralhauntings and creative tensions. Withintellectual perspectives that hoveredbetween intimations of catastrophe andinsurgencies of hope, mcluhan,Havelock, Innis and Frye offerheightened perception concerningwhether the digital future will be abrilliant blast of creative energy or adeeply conservative repeating-machineof big data, fast algorithms and artificialintelligence. If, in the end, mcluhan’sprophecy of electronic culture as afabulous recovery of speech clashesdirectly with Eric Havelock’s chillinginsight that oral culture has about ittangible traces of a dead memorymachine then that would mean that weare presently living in the fatal fallout ofa technological society theorized ageneration in advance in all its tangiblepossibilities and broken dreams by theToronto School.

ARTHuR KRoKER is Canada ResearchChair in Technology, Culture and Theory &Professor of Political Science at theuniversity of Victoria. His most recentbooks include: Body Drift: Butler, Hayles,Haraway (university of minnesota Press);Exits to the Posthuman Future (Polity) ;and, with m. Kroker, Surveillance NeverSleeps (BlueShift Series, CTheory). Inaddition to introducing and editing themajor anthology, Critical Digital Studies(university of Toronto Press), Arthur andmarilouise Kroker edit CTheory(www.ctheory.net) which has beendescribed by le monde as “one of thethree leading electronic intellectualreviews in the world.”

The Toronto School ofCommunication: fromCommunication toMediationRICHARD CAVELLUniversity of British Columbia

There was no such thing as the TorontoSchool of Communication, and this is apaper about it.This remediation of Steven Shapin’sfamous beginning to The ScientificRevolution (1996) is meant to suggest thatthe Toronto School never had themonolithic structure that the designationimplies. In fact, there were threebifurcations: communications studies,media theory, and Medienwissenschaften(philosophy of media). This branching outderived from the post-alphabetic turnoccasioned by mid-twentieth centurycybernetics. The paper traces in this contextthe trajectory of the key member of theschool, marshall mcluhan, whose signalachievement was to found the discipline ofmedia studies in precise contradistinctionto communications studies through hisarticulation of the notion that the mediumis the message.

RICHARD CAVEll is the author of McLuhanin Space: A Cultural Geography (Toronto2002), Remediating McLuhan (Amsterdam2016), the editor of on the Nature ofMedia: Essays by Marshall McLuhan(Gingko 2016), and the curator ofspectresofmcluhan.arts.ubc.ca. He is Co-Founder of, and currently chairs, theBachelor of media Studies Program at theuniversity of British Columbia.

In the Wilderness,Heading TowardPromised LandsJOSHUA MEYROWITZUniversity of New Hampshire

marshall mcluhan, the most famousmember of the Toronto School, died on thelast day of 1980. But his reputation inmany circles had died years earlier. A longlist of “great minds” of the 1960s and1970s had declared him to be a charlatanor a lunatic. many of his books were out ofprint. Graduate students were oftencautioned by their professors not to takemcluhan seriously and not to cite him intheir research. He was characterized as aninsignificant artifact of the extremes of the1960s, best left in an amusing nostalgiacorner of an intellectual museum.Anonymous reviewers expressed hostilityto “mcluhanesque” thinking and research,sometimes even gloating over havingfinally banished references to mcluhanfrom scholarly journals and media-studiestextbooks. When mcluhan’s name didappear in print, it was often for purposes ofridicule and in examples of wrong-headedthinking about media. looking back now,however, we can see that there were social,technological, intellectual, andgenerational shifts in the 1980s that werelaying the groundwork for a 1990s (andbeyond) revival of interest in marshallmcluhan, the Toronto School, and in“medium theory” in general.

JoSHuA mEyRoWITz is Professor ofCommunication at the university of NewHampshire, where he has won thelindberg Award for outstanding Scholar-Teacher in the College of liberal Arts. He isthe author of the award-winning No Senseof Place: The Impact of Electronic Media onSocial Behavior (oxford university Press)and over 100 articles on media and societythat have appeared in scholarly journalsand anthologies, as well as in general-interest magazines and newspapers.

17

PLENARY PANEL (D)

Beyond the AcademeChair MARCEL DANESI

BADER THEATRE SATURDAY OCT 15, 11:30 AM

Gould as PhilosopherMARK KINGWELLUniversity of Toronto

In this talk I explore the work of GlennGould, world-famous piano performer,under the sign of 'philosopher'. That is, Iread in Gould's work, both his recordingsand his writings, a coherent if sometimespuzzling philosophy of music and media. His ideas about music were not inthemselves revolutionary, though he didemphasize aspects of interpretation thatwere, at his historical moment, against thegrain. more significantly, when combinedwith his thoughts about the media ofrecording and dissemination, his entiremusical existence acquires the status of anextended work of conceptual art. I will illustrate this thesis with selectionsfrom Gould's recorded playing as well ashis published theories.

mARK KINGWEll is a Professor ofPhilosophy at the university of Toronto anda contributing editor of Harper’s Magazinein New york. He is the author or co-author ofeighteen books of political, cultural andaesthetic theory; in addition to manyscholarly articles, his writing has appearedin more than 40 mainstream magazinesand newspapers. His most recent books arethe essay collections Unruly Voices (2012)and Measure Yourself Against the Earth(2015).L@markkingwell

Northrop Frye asSpiritual thinker andtheoristCLAUDE LE FUSTECRennes 2 University

Standing back from a work of art to get thewhole picture is Northrop Frye’s trademarkcritical gesture. This move, which he called“centrifugal”, is based on the assumptionof total coherence, both of a work of artand of the whole artistic field, a highlyunpopular stance in the current critical anddeconstructive context. Still moremarginalizing, though, is what mightarguably be considered as the reason forsuch holistic thinking: Frye’s spiritual turnof mind. As evidenced by the opening ofhis notebooks as well as by Robert D.Denham’s widely documented study ofFrye as Religious Visionary and Architect ofthe Spiritual World (2004), Frye’s wholeliterary theory rests on a vision of aspiritual (more than merely religious)nature. Far from this being an impedimentthough, Frye’s theory, particularlyconcerning verbal modes as expressed inWords with Power, may be put to verypractical use when it comes to analyzingthe impact of a text on a reader’sconsciousness. His most elusive modeparticularly, the kerygmatic one, provides aunique point of entry when one wishes toassess the spiritual power of a literary text.It is this practical spiritual type of criticismthat this presentation wants to address.

ClAuDE lE FuSTEC is Assistant Professor inAmerican literature at Rennes 2 university(France). Her latest publications includeNorthrop Frye and American Fiction (uTP2015), a study of uS fiction andtranscendence via Frye’s theory, as well asproceedings from a conference onTransdisciplinary Approaches to Spiritualityin the Arts and Sciences (Brussels, EmE,April 2015).

The Designscapes ofHarley Parker:From Book Arts toImmersive Installations GARY GENOSKOUniversity of Ontario Institute of Technology

Canadian artist Harley Parker (1915-1992)had a multi-faceted career, but is bestknown as head of exhibition design at theRoyal ontario museum (1957-67) and co-conspirator and collaborator with marshallmcluhan on multiple projects. Recentscholarship on Parker views him as acreative conduit for mcluhan’s ideas. Here I underline how Parker’s training inthe arts as a typographic designer was putto work on the print projects for which he isbest known, namely, on Explorations,Counterblast and Through the VanishingPoint, in the context of debates about the‘inventory book’ initiated by Jeffrey T.Schnapp and Adam michaels. Thisinvestigation is furthered by posing theway that translation modifies book art. I also resituate Parker’s link to installationand performance art in Canada byfollowing the line established by his sonBlake Parker as resident poet of theexperimental electronic band Intersystems(1967-69). The connection between thefather and son has not been explored, yetthe influences of elder Parker’s artisticpreoccupations inform the band’s mixtureof mcluhan’s ideas, psychedelia andkinetic art.

GARy GENoSKo is Professor ofCommunication and Digital media Studiesat the university of ontario Institute ofTechnology in oshawa, ontario. He isauthor of McLuhan and Baudrillard: TheMasters of Implosion and editor of MarshallMcLuhan: Critical Evaluations in CulturalTheory, Volumes I, II & III. L@genosko

18

PANEL 2.1.1 Roundtable

Edmund Carpenter and the Entanglementsof Anthropology and Media StudiesChair JANINE MARCHESSAULTParticipants CORA BENDER, KARINE BERTRAND, HART COHEN, PAUL HEYER, CATHIE SUTTON

VIC 213 CHAPEL SATURDAY OCT 15, 2:00 PM

CoRA BENDER teaches mediaStudies at the university ofSiegen. She is a CulturalAnthropologist specializing inmedia, Global Health, andIndigenous Cultures of NorthAmerica. She has held positionsat the J.W. Goethe university’sspecial research college“Knowledge Culture and SocialChange”. Currently, she iscompleting her second bookdealing with diabetes in thecontext of Indigenousmodernity.

KARINE BERTRAND is AssistantProfessor, Film and mediaStudies, Queen's university.She researches in the areas ofcommunications, film studiesand aboriginal studies.Completing in 2013 a thesis onAboriginal and Inuit cinemashe has also been working onsubjects such as the road moviegenre, American pop culture(punk rock scene of the 1970’s)oral practices of cinema andCanadian and Quebec films.

HART CoHEN is AssociateProfessor in media Arts in theSchool of Humanities andCommunication Arts at WesternSydney university, Australia. Hehas published widely in thefield of visual anthropology,communications and filmstudies. Cohen is co-author ofScreen media arts: anintroduction to concepts andpractices (oxford universityPress, 2009) and foundingeditor of the Global MediaJournal (Australian Edition).

PAul HEyER, Professor Emeritusof Communication Studies,Wilfrid laurier university. Hisbooks include Communicationsand History, Harold Innis, TheMedium and the Magician,Titanic Century, along with theco-edited text (with DavidCrowley), Communication inHistory, and with Bill Buxtonand michael Cheney, HarolInnis’s History ofCommunications, and HaroldInnis Reflects.

CATHIE SuTToN is ananthropologist and lecturer inthe material Culture Program atVictoria College, university ofToronto. She is currentlyworking on a curatorial projecton the culture of archaeology inearly 19th century ontarioentitled ‘Disinter’. Cathie tookTed Carpenter’s course at theNew School in the 1980s whilea graduate student atColumbia.

SATURDAY OCT 15 PARALLEL SESSIONS 2

Speakers on this panel will present new histories of media and communicationstudies examined through intersections with anthropology of art andIndigenous studies. The work of Harold Innis and Marshall McLuhan is widelyconsidered to form the "Toronto School of Communication" but this perspectivehas long neglected the contributions of the unorthodox cultural anthropologistEdmund Carpenter (1922-2011) to the Toronto School and to interdisciplinarymedia and communication studies in general.

Participants will present their research case currently funded by several a SocialSciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada INSIGHT award seekingto uncover Carpenter's research and methods when he was active (1948 -2011) using the then "new media" in anthropological and cultural research.While Carpenter's papers, media materials, and collection of Arctic art are in apreliminary phase of being archived, the goal of this project is to reassess hisposition within the history of media and communication studies through ahistoriographical study of his work.

19

VIC 206 SATURDAY OCT 15, 2:00 PMPANEL 2.1.2

Philosophical RootsChair TWYLA GIBSON

Object Oriented MediaStudies:A Comparative Studyof SurfacesMATT BERNICOGreenville College

marshall mcluhan is famous for craftinga theory of media that focuses onimportance of the media itself. yes, ofcourse, the Bible, Quran or Torah holdimportant religious and spiritualteachings, but the medium of printablelinear text and the form of the book itselfholds infinitely more importance. Thistheoretical move to focus on the mediumitself rather than its content has beenhugely important for orienting a newphilosophical movement: objectoriented Philosophy. object orientedPhilosophy and mcluhan’s work overlapat the point of an object and its surface.mcluhan and Graham Harman, thepatron saint of object orientedPhilosophy, both focus on the“background” elements of the mediumitself. The point of this paper is two fold.First, to provide a re-reading of mcluhanfrom the standpoint of object orientedPhilosophy in order to strengthen thebond between these theoreticaltrajectories. Second, to let this re-readinginform an approach to media studies thatcan also make an account of ontologyand metaphysics. The point isn’t tobackup media studies with philosophy,but instead inform philosophy withmedia studies.

mATT BERNICo teaches media Studiesand Communication at GreenvilleCollege, Greenville, Illinois, uSA. Hisresearch focuses on the intersectionsbetween media studies, speculativerealism and post-anarchist politicaltheory.

The Message is theMedium: toward apragmatist reading ofMarshall McLuhanNIALL STEPHENSFramingham State University

mcluhan’s most famous phrase, “themedium is the message” is sometimesinterpreted as announcing a kind of non-marxist materialism. By definition,materialism belittles or deniesimmaterial realities, and it is far fromclear that mcluhan is a materialist in thisrespect. Taking the reality andimportance of immateriality asaxiomatic, and as a source of uncertaintyand indeterminacy, I argue thatmcluhan’s aesthetic method tends toconfuse or conflate immaterial andmaterial aspects, and that mcluhanmight have done more to acknowledgethe uncertainty associated withimmateriality. The phrase “the messageis the medium” aims to signal apragmatist reading of mcluhan, in whichthe “message” evokes an immaterialitythat is not subordinate to materiality.Beginning with a vision of theentanglement of signal/message andchannel/medium as a basic fact ofexistence, I recognize the value ofaesthetic methods like mcluhan’s. I seekto avoid conflating the material andimmaterial, and to avoid reducing one tothe other. Construing mcluhan’sinterests as “ontological” and“phenomenological”, my aim here is toexplore how his ideas might be true orvalid as, in William James’s phrase,“instruments of action.”

NIAll STEPHENS is an assistant professorin the Communication Arts Departmentat Framingham State university, unitedStates. His interest in communicationarises from the concept’s ability to bridgethe material and immaterial. His workappears in the International Journal ofCommunication, Critical Studies in MediaCommunication, and elsewhere.L@niallstephens

The PhilosophicalTopicality of MarshallMcLuhanCARMINE DI MARTINOUniversità degli Studi di Milano

marshall mcluhan’s work had a singulardestiny; in some ways it came along toosoon and presented itself in theaccessible style of the maxim and of theslogan (the most renowned of which iscertainly «the medium is the message»),a style that, in mcluhan’s own categories,was not “visual” enough. Consequently,it was immediately “understood”, that isto say rapidly consumed andmetabolized by a wide array of critics, butmaybe not adequately “reflected upon”at the time. Today, marshall mcluhan’smedium theory comes back to influenceand inspire thought in a number ofdifferent fields. I have personally placedparticular focus on the fruitful connectionbetween mcluhan’s perspective and theinquiry into technics and its formativeand transformational effects on thehuman being. I am not referring hereexclusively or primarily to the issues thatarise around the post-human, but ratherto the anthropological andpaleoanthropological research that hasdeveloped over the last few decades andthat places the spotlight on the“technical nature” of man or, in moreaudacious terms, the technogenesis ofthe human being.

CARmINE DI mARTINo is an AssociateProfessor of Theoretical Philosophy in theDepartment of Philosophy at theuniversity of milan. His interests liemainly in Husserl’s phenomenology,Heidegger’s hermeneutics and theirrespective developments in the Frenchfield, focusing primarily on the problemsof language, writing, and the genesis ofmeaning, considered also in theirpragmatic-anthropological implications.

From Mimesis toWriting: MimeticTheory, Religion, andMedia EcologyPHIL ROSEMedia Ecology Association

Along with Girard and others, I maintainthat imitation is the foundational form ofcommunication, and that mimetic theorythereby contributes significantly to ourunderstanding of what merlin Donald(1991) refers to as 'mimetic culture,'otherwise to be understood as 'preverbalor prelinguistic culture'. In reference toscholars of the Toronto School and thoseassociated with it, here I investigate fromthe perspective of mimetic theory thedevelopment of myth, ritual, andviolence, first, briefly, in relation to themimetic and oral cultural contexts, andthen in connection with the emergenceof chirographic informationenvironments. In a nutshell, in additionto pointing out the significant lacunathat exists among communicationscholars and other media ecologists inrelation to the acknowledgement andscrutiny of mimetic culture - even asrecently as in Terene P. moran'sIntroduction to the History ofCommunications: Evolutions andRevolutions (2010) - this probe willreinforce the conclusion that theinvention of writing and reading, andtheir widespread adoption as culturalpractices, are perhaps the keycomponents involved in the civilizingprocess, through which we acquire thecapabilities of resisting the automatismof mimesis.

PHIl RoSE immediate Past President ofthe media Ecology Association, is authorof the books Roger Waters and PinkFloyd: The Concept Albums (2015),Radiohead and the Global Movement forChange: 'Pragmatism Not Idealism'(2016), and editor of the forthcomingvolume Confronting Technopoly:Charting a Course Towards HumanSurvival (2016).

PANEL 2.1.3

Innis ReloadedChair HENRIK G. BASTIANSEN

VIC 212 SATURDAY OCT 15, 2:00 PM

20

Innis’s Reflexive Critique andDefence of WesternCivilizationEDWARD COMORUniversity of Western Ontario

A reassessment of Political Economy in the Modern State.Innis’s transitional book, Political Economy in the modernState (1946), addresses a number of inter-related themes,most pressingly the need to redress the collapse ofWestern civilization. In this paper, PEmS is assessed as acoherent text that critiques this civilization and suggestshow to save it. In its seemingly disparate chapters, Inniscatalogues and elaborates what has shaped and isshaping the manycapacities/incapacities at hand. Paradoxically, however, Innis also believes thatreinvigorating this civilization (as opposed to itsrevolutionary replacement) constitutes the only source ofsalvation. The task going forward, then, appeared to be animpossible one; one requiring contemporary analysts totranscend the shackles of 1946 Canada (and the world) byre-discovering Western civilization’s roots in ancientGreece. In PEmS (anticipating his final six years of writing)Innis concludes that the Greek tradition is desperatelyneeded: holistic and dialectical thinking, cultural vibrancy,and a concerted effort to understand the complexities ofwhat is required to sustain peace are only possible by aconcerted inquiry into its philosophy and history.

EDWARD ComoR is a Faculty Scholar and Professor ofmedia Studies at the university of Western ontario.Currently, Comor is co-editing the re-publication ofHarold Innis’s Political Economy in the modern State. Hispublications include The Global Political Economy ofCommunication (1994), Communication, Commerce andPower (1998), and Consumption and the GlobalizationProject (2008).

A Dummy Sham ofDemocracy? JOHN KEANEUniversity of Sydney / WZB Berlin

Thinking with and against Harold Innis on time andspace, and space-time.The remarkable insight that any given medium ofcommunication has time and space effects wasemployed by Harold Innis in support of a more generalthesis for which later he won global fame: in matters oftime and space, he proposed, modern ‘westerncivilization’ is self-destructively unhinged, vulnerable toworryingly powerful political and economic forces drivenby their will to control vast territorial spaces at theexpense of a strongly shared sense of time past, and offuture visions. under modern conditions, he proposed,space kills time. By means of an immanent critique, thispaper contends, by contrast, that the unfinishedcommunications revolution of our time force (a) anabandonment of the death-of-time and tyranny-of-spacethesis proposed by Innis; (b) recognition of thegathering pluralisation of modes of time-consciousnessunder conditions of communicative abundance; and (c)awareness of the need for new concepts of space-time inorder to make sense of the emergence of new forms ofmonitory democracy that are without historicalprecedent.

JoHN KEANE, renowned globally for his creativethinking about democracy, was educated at theuniversities of Adelaide and Toronto (where he wasmentored by C.B. macpherson) and King’s College,Cambridge. He is currently Professor of Politics at theuniversity of Sydney and at the WissenschaftszentrumBerlin (WzB), and the author of the first full-scale historyof democracy for over a century, The Life and Death ofDemocracy.L@jkeaneSDN

Innis and InfrastructureLIAM YOUNGCarleton University

An emphasis on infrastructure is one of the mostimportant yet understudied intellectual contributions ofthe Toronto School, and in particular of Harold Innis.From the start, Innis’s work shows a sustained interest innetworks and environments of circulation, exchange,and communication. His early economic histories, andthe ‘dirt research’ that produced them, showed these tobe complex entanglements of natural, cultural, andtechnological material. These texts were excavations thatuncovered grids upon which colonial empires were built,monopolies of knowledge fortified, and communicationvectors established. Such topics show more than a familyresemblance to matters of concern related to the‘material turn’ in the humanities. I therefore argue thatcontemporary debates in media and communicationstudies focused on infrastructure, logistics, andmateriality, and which pursue archaeologies of digitalmedia, networks, and culture might return to Innis'swork—beyond the touchstone texts The Bias ofCommunication and Empire and Communication—tofind a trove of relevant conceptual and methodologicalmaterial.

lIAm ColE youNG is a faculty member of the School ofJournalism and Communication at Carleton university,where he teaches and writes about media theory, digitalculture, and histories of communication. His first book,List Cultures: Knowledge and Poetics from Mesopotamiato BuzzFeed is forthcoming from Amsterdam universityPress.L@lcyoung

21

VIC 215 SATURDAY OCT 15, 2:00 PMPANEL 2.1.4

Networked DataChair MATT RATTO

Digital content:neither orality norliteracyDAVIDE BENNATOUniversity of Catania

The data-based society at the proof of thetheory of the medium.The growing of the data culture plays andimportant role in shaping society.Technological trajectories of the dataculture and infrastructure of the actualworld are big data, cloud computing, andthe internet of things (IoT), embeddedwith an ideological narrative, respectivelyprediction, ubiquity, autonomoustechnology. The anthropologicalconsequences of this scenario deal withtwo concepts: the digital as ecosystemand the data as the extension of thesociety. The digital as ecosystem describesthe context of action and considersinternet as an environment. Societybecame based on three different layers:the people layer, the technology layer,and the information layer. The data as theextensions of the society describes thestrategy in which action takes place. Theanthropology of the today’s subject is adigital ecosystem where the data are theway in which society make its agency real.The aim of my argument is consideringthe data culture as the core of the socialprocesses in contemporary society, wherephysical world and the digital world areinterwoven and reinforced by the socialelement. The characteristics of the digitalcontent are very different from orality andliteracy, and the consequences are veryimportant for an anthropology of thecontemporary society.

DAVIDE BENNATo, PhD inCommunication Sciences, is professor ofSociology of Culture and Communicationand Sociology of Digital media at theDepartment of Human Sciences of theuniversity of Catania. His research topicsare: collective behaviors in social media,big data ethics, relationships betweentechnology and values, computationalsocial science.L@Tecnoetica

How the TorontoSchool ofCommunicationFostered NetworkedIndividualismBARRY WELLMANUniversity of Toronto & NetLab

Pundits since Jeremiah have cried oygevalt, worrying that social life is fallingapart millennia. Some have blameddigital media, substituting anecdotesand punditry for evidence. yet, if eachgeneration has been worse than thepreceding, we’d be in a Hobbesian warof all against all by now instead ofmerely worrying about texters stumblinginto us. our Netlab has been studyinghow people connect since the 1960s—incommunities, families, and at work.While things are transformed, they arenot falling apart. Two revolutions areimportant: 1) The turn from groups tosocial networks, accompanied by a hostof social and technological changes. Thisis mixed news to some, as it is a loss ofsecurely bounded home and communitybases but the gain of more flexible,individualized connectivity. 2) Theendemic incorporation of digital media—the internet and mobile devices—intopeople’s lives, supplementing–notreplacing—their in-person and phoneconnectivity. The result is “networkedindividualism”: individuals usingmultiple means of communication to bepartially connected to a variety ofnetworks. This enables a more flexible,less bounded life for many in developedand developing societies.

BARRy WEllmAN, sociologist , at theuniversity of Toronto for 47 years,founded the International Network forSocial Network Analysis. He currently co-directs the Netlab Network. A member ofthe Royal Society of Canada, Wellman isthe co-author of hundreds of papers, andthe co-author of Networked: The NewSocial Operating System.L@barrywellman

Inhabiting theTopo-DatagraphicalNetworkGABBY RESCH, DAN SOUTHWICK,MATT RATTOUniversity of Toronto

In the context of our efforts to developcomprehensive and interactive curriculafor critical engagement with data, wehave begun to outline an approachframed by what we are preliminarilyreferring to as a theory of scale-biasedmedia. This theoretical construct isinspired by, and shares temporal andspatial considerations with, Innis’s crucialideas, but enables us to elaborate oncritical facets of data visualizationsoftware that privilege and constrainspecific modes of zooming in and out. Inpresenting this paper, we will enact aninteractive mixed reality space in whichthe audience will be prompted to inhabita virtual and material landscape of data,what we call a topo-datagraphicalnetwork experience. Hypothesizing thisimmersive, embodied configuration asan alternative to cyberspace, dataspace,and networked futurity, we will inviteparticipants to explore what happenswhen we bring our bodies to bear onengagements with data. Inspired bymcluhan, we wonder what it could feellike to descend into the maelstrom of bigdata... to be data stormchasers... to movefrom the furious and frenetic outside intothe slowness of the middle.

GABBy RESCH is a PhD Candidate in theFaculty of Information who studiesmultimodal approaches torepresentation.

DANIEl SouTHWICK is a PhD Candidateat the university of Toronto (Faculty ofInformation).

mATT RATTo is an Associate Professor inthe Faculty of Information where hedirects the Semaphore Research Clusterand the Critical making lab.

Persistence ofCentralizedCommunicationStructures in aNetworked AgeBARUCH GOTTLIEBUdK Berlin

The Internet, as it emerged into civilianusage, was much celebrated for thedemocratic potential implied in its peer-to-peer networking structure. Such radicalegalitarian sociocultural potential of theflat topology has not been permittedopportunity to emerge due to thecentralising tendencies left over and stillprevalent from the foregoing age ofmedia concentration. Far from providingfor a utopian fundamental paradigm shiftin the distribution social power relations,the Internet, especially the WWW hasbecome the terrain of monopolisticbusiness practices built on the collectionand analysis of user data. Furthermore,against the structural tendency towardsopen source sharing of information on aglobal scale, innovation has focussed onenforcement of monopolist intellectualproperty regimes. This centralisationinforms how future networkedtechnologies will be built. This paper willexplore the notion of “audience territory”where user interaction data is extractedfor targeted advertising, coercion as wellas for law enforcement beyond nationalfrontiers Genuinely peer-to-peer, privacyrespecting communication is stifled forlack of investment. This paper will explorethe prospects of the still nascent potentialfor peer-to-peer and end-to-endcommunication on the Internet.

BARuCH GoTTlIEB currently lectures inphilosophy of digital art at the universityof Arts Berlin and is fellow of the VilémFlusser Archiv. He is curator of theexhibition series “Flusser & the Arts”based on the philosophical writings ofVilém Flusser, and initiator of"mcluminations" series of performativearchive events based on the videomaterial of marshall mcluhan.L@baruch

PANEL 2.2.1

SoundscapesChair MARK LIPTON

VIC 101 SATURDAY OCT 15, 3:30 PM

22

The embodiedepistemology ofindigenous musicperformanceMERY PEREZUniversity of Guelph

Hearing McLuhan from a Latin Americanperspective.The current environmental degradationand social crises surrounding indigenouscommunities in many latin Americancountries have moved activists to makeuse of the language of musicperformance in recent decades with thehope of bringing about social andenvironmental change. Focusing onrecent cases from the region, this paperexplores music as communication from aperformance theory perspective,considering some aspects of marshalmcluhan’s ideas on communication.These cases provide a starting point forthe consideration of some importantissues beginning with the definitions ofcommunication, development,sustainability and the role of musicalexpression within processes ofconscientization. We argue thatperformance for these activists,constitutes not just a tool forcommunication, but an embodiment ofit whereby the medium of musicbecomes the message itself, that is,through music performance, theyconcretely express their beliefs andhopes when it comes to environmentalsustainability, social relationships andcitizen engagement.

mERy PEREz is a PhD Candidate in theRural Studies program in the School ofEnvironmental Design and RuralDevelopment at the university ofGuelph. Her research focuses on music ascommunication for social andenvironmental change, particularly in theregion of Central America.

Schafer, Gould &Cage: Sound asEnvironmentSABINE BREITSAMETERDarmstadt University of Applied Sciences

The birth of new listening from the spiritof media.The 1960s and 1970s broughtfundamental changes to theunderstanding and concepts of music.Rooted in aesthetic shifts anddevelopments especially in the early 20thcentury, the concept of music startedfloating more and more from frontal tospherical: to the concept of sound asenvironment and the emergence of newauditory forms. These new aesthetics andforms, too, started to require a newlistening. In this paper John Cage, GlennGould and murray Schafer will exemplifycrucial aspects of this development of theexpansion of music. It will be shown, howthese personalities and their work relateto the rapidly growing importance ofmedia in the 2nd half of the 20th century,and to the way how they were discussedwithin the Toronto School. Whereas JohnCage participated in and contributed tothe mcluhanesque milieu of thoughtsmostly implicitly, Schafer shared many ofthe Toronto school’s ideas, influences andeven terminologies quite obviously. Gouldshared not only contemporaneity and theimmediate milieu of the Toronto Schooland its mcluhan backdrop. Down to thepresent he is one of the few musicianswho investigated and “lived” the influenceof media not only artistically but alsointellectually and practically.

SABINE BREITSAmETER is anexperimental radio maker, composer,curator and Professor of Sound andmedia Culture at Darmstadt uAS,Germany since 2006. Director ofnumerous symposia and art projects,including Documenta, zKm, ArsElectronica, World SoundscapeConference. Published and translatedMurray Schafer’s The Tuning of the Worldin German. Current research: 3D audio,its history and artistic innovations.L@culture_sb

The City as Studio,Exploring GlennGould’s TorontoGEORGE MARTINYork University

In 1979 renowned Toronto-born pianistGlenn Gould filmed a documentaryfeaturing him speaking to the camera atvarious sites around Toronto. Presentedwith an amusing blend of earnestnessand self-deprecating humour, GlenGould’s Toronto stands as a compellinghomage to Gould's beloved city. yetbeyond this, the film also hints at anopening into Gould’s uniqueunderstanding of how media,technology and environment intersect.Analogous to Gould’s withdrawal fromconcert performance to studio recording,Glen Gould’s Toronto also provides anoccasion to consider the city as a studio,as an infrastructure of media ecologywhere isolation and immersion co-existin dynamic tension. As part of ongoingresearch about urban space as mediatechnology, this paper aims to identify aconceptual affiliation between Gould’sinterpretation of Toronto’s cityscape anda notion of infrastructuralism as it isdeveloped in John Durham Peters’recent book in a section titled, aftermcluhan’s famous work, ‘understandingmedia’. Exploring this connectionthrough Gould’s documentary aims toelucidate ways the legacy of the TorontoSchool engages emergent work on urbanmedia ecologies.

GEoRGE mARTIN is a PhD student in theJoint Graduate Program inCommunication and Culture at yorkuniversity, Toronto. He received amasters of Science in Conservation fromthe university of Hong Kong beforeworking as a heritage consultant inToronto. His research addressesconnections between media, urbanismand historic narrative.L@gmartin113

Capturing the Song ofthe NightingaleIAIN BAIRDScience Museum Group

The first outside broadcast ever made bythe British Broadcasting Company from anatural location was the Nightingalebroadcast of 19th may 1924, in whichthe world-famous virtuoso cellist BeatriceHarrison performed a ‘duet’ withnightingales in her garden. There hasbeen little scholarly work carried outconcerning the cultural significance ofthese broadcasts and also on the effectsof the major advancement inmicrophone technology which made thebroadcasts possible – the marconi-Sykesmagnetophone, an improvedmicrophone developed for the early BBC.This paper explores the cultural andhistorical significance of the broadcastsin depth, with a particular emphasis ontheir emotive aspects, and explains therole of improved microphone technologyin these contexts. It is shown thatlisteners to the Nightingale broadcastwere invited to act as intermediaries inthe enchanting conversation betweencello and nightingale, between Art andNature, participating in a pleasurableprocess of ‘tuning their senses’ to a newperception of auditory space, and thatthe mixed euphoric, mournful andnostalgic feelings which accompaniedthe Nightingale broadcasts evidencedhuman sense ratios in a rapid process ofadaption to a new informationenvironment created by new technology.

IAIN loGIE BAIRD is an independentcurator, scholar and exhibitionsconsultant who has worked as a Curatorat the National media museum in Westyorkshire, Toronto's CBC museum andmzTV Television museum. Born inontario, he is a graduate of theuniversity of Toronto, now residing inyorkshire.

23

VIC 115 SATURDAY OCT 15, 3:30 PMPANEL 2.2.2

Pedagogical ShiftChair JAQUELINE MCLEOD ROGERS

The Web asClassroom.Understandinghypertext as the toolthat could help us onfacing the MaelströmALESSANDRO COLOMBIFree University of Bolzano

If the city could, and in the view of acontemporary pedagogue like the writerdefinitely should, be perceived andconcretely used as-a-classroom, asproposed in the second half of the 20thCentury by marshall mcluhan, we shouldmaybe consider that the biggestclassroom available nowadays, for thegood and the bad and as for “anythingelse”, can and should be recognized inthe whole World Wide Web and on hisinfinite, maelström-like, hypertextual,identity.

AlESSANDRo ColomBI is an Italianpedagogue and media ecologist,Associate Professor in the Faculty ofEducation of the Free university ofBolzano, enthusiast mcluhanian andPostmanian since the freshmen years,still struggling to help student seriouslygrasp and understand the power of these(and some others) wonderful authorsideas. A bit scared about the opportunityto finally visit the Toronto-Temple where"everything" started!

Eagles that swim.Toward a mediologyof educationMARIO PIREDDURoma Tre University

History and pedagogy are actually livingand evolving within media: anybodyusing and becoming familiar with aparticular medium, a bit of theirknowledge and experience is taking theshape of that same medium. That shapeis not living out of its time and context: ithas indeed its own history, bringing allits peculiar features and its educationalor self-educational worth. Nowaday thereis a massive presence of the Internetwithin non-formal and self-madeeducation experiences, while schoolsand universities – despite severalgovernment measures in many countries– still seem to slowly incorporate theInternet and its many mediascapes. Theaim of this paper is to use insights fromthe Toronto School and mediology tounderstand how the way mankinddeveloped communication techniquesaffected and still affects educationactivities and brainframes. This workstarts by assuming that a) there is noeducational experience or teaching andlearning activity without communication;b) any medium used to communicateand teach has a history and a pedagogybehind itself. In this theoretical framehistory explains how the medium wasborn, and its identity developmentthroughout time; pedagogy explains theshape taken, through knowledge andpractice by the medium itself.

mARIo PIREDDu is a Researcher at theDepartment of Education, Roma Treuniversity; lecturer of 'mass media, newmedia and network societies' at Iulmuniversity of milan. He deals withcommunication, media theory and learning.Selected publications: Mediología. Cultura,tecnología y comunicación (Gedisa 2014, co-editor m. Serra); Storia e pedagogia neimedia (Garamond 2012, co-author Robertomaragliano).L@logudoro

City as Classroom:Then, Now, NextKATHY HUTCHON KAWASAKI,ERIC MCLUHANIndependent scholars

City as Classroom: Then, Now, Next willbegin with a discussion of the state ofpedagogy in 1977 when this book waswritten. Next, Kathy and Eric will examinechanges that have occurred since then,including their effects on students’behaviour and educators’ responses tosuch behaviour. We believe that thecurrent development of inquiry-basedlearning means that pedagogy hasfinally caught up to mcluhan. Thepresenters will study ontario ministry ofEducation documents on the web,comparing these with similar passagesfrom City as Classroom. As well, realclassroom practice will be examined insome detail, using examples fromuniversity educators (such as michaelWesch, Kansas State) and actual lessonsand projects from high-school andelementary-school teachers in ontario.We will also examine the rate of progressin introducing inquiry-based learning.Finally, we will discuss some excitingnew trends and will speculate on thefuture of inquiry-based learning. Howwill our rapidly expanding technologicalenvironment affect students andteachers? Come prepared to join ourdiscussion!

KATHy HuTCHoN KAWASAKI, formerstudent of mcluhan, collaborator and co-author of City as Classroom with marshalland Eric mcluhan.

ERIC mCluHAN, award winning andinternationally known lecturer andauthor on communications and media,collaborator and co-author with his dad,marshall mcluhan.

McLuhan's MediaLiteracy:Figure/Ground Analysisfor the Digital AgeLANCE MASONIndiana University Kokomo

In 1977, marshall mcluhan, KathrynHutcheon, and Eric mcluhan created ahigh-school level media educationtextbook called The City as Classroom:understanding language and media. Inthis book, the authors employ abroadened conception of media inconjunction with a technique calledfigure/ground analysis as a way to helpstudents hone their perceptualawareness of their lived environments.Figure/ground analysis is a termemployed by Gestalt psychologists andwas first applied to media by marshallmcluhan as a way to perceive changes inmedia environments that mightotherwise remain invisible for users.Simply put, a figure is what youconsciously identify in yourenvironment; ground are the things youignore. Ground provides the conditionsunder which a figure emerges and assuch helps to shape perception of thatfigure. In other words, the reader orviewer notices the figure of the content,while ignoring the ground of themedium. While most of the exercises inthe City as Classroom text are stillrelevant today, new media environmentscontain distinct characteristics that callfor new considerations and exercises. Thepurpose of this paper is to construct theoutline of a media literacy pedagogyusing mcluhan’s conception offigure/ground analysis in ways that allowstudents to better perceive andunderstand the effects of 21st centurydigital environments.

lANCE E. mASoN is an AssistantProfessor of Education at Indianauniversity Kokomo. His scholarshipemploys pragmatism, semiotics, culturalstudies, and media ecology to explorechanging social dynamics and theirintersections with media literacy anddemocratic education.

PANEL 2.2.3

Extended BrainChair RITA WATSON

VIC 215 SATURDAY OCT 15, 3:30 PM

24

McLuhan’s Brain:The Toronto School’sLegacy of SpeculativeNeuroscienceMARCEL O'GORMANUniversity of Waterloo

In his biography of marshall mcluhan,Douglas Coupland pays special attentionto the media scholar’s brain. mcluhan’sbrain itself, prone to literal strokes ofgenius and able to generate a grapefruit-sized tumour, assumes an extraordinarystature in Coupland’s narrative. The brain isa parasitic visitor inside mcluhan’s head,driving the car while the professor sits inthe backseat, eyeing the rearview mirror. Itwould be easy to accuse Coupland ofbeing a cognitive determinist, but to do sowould ignore that he is merely carrying ona legacy of speculative neuroscienceestablished by mcluhan and othermembers of the Toronto School. Consider,for example, Eric Havelock’s conception ofthe “alphabetic mind” or Walter J. ong’ssuggestion that literacy is a result of“neurophysiological changes in thebicameral mind.” And then there ismcluhan’s view of “electric circuitry [as] anextension of the central nervous system.”This legacy of speculative brain sciencepersists today in contemporary mediatheory, including the work of Nicholas Carr,maryanne Wolf, and others. I suggest thatcontemporary advocates for Toronto Schoolmethodologies might turn a critical eyetoward cognitive determinism, and focusinstead on a broad, evolutionaryunderstanding of humans as technicalanimals.

mARCEl o'GoRmAN is Professor ofEnglish at the university of Waterloo andDirector of the Critical media lab. He isalso a practicing digital artist, and hismost recent book, Necromedia (u ofminnesota P), outlines a practice ofresearch-creation for media theorists.

Marshall McLuhanand the digital brainJOHN PICCHIONEYork University

The paper explores mcluhan’s thought inrelation to the research on the brain’smutations engendered by the electronicmedia. Recent studies in the field of theneurosciences reveal a direct interest inmcluhan’s theoretical framework,particularly the impact of media onhuman neurons and the anthropologicaltransformations that ensue.Fundamental tenets of his work (thedisplacement of linear logic andsequential thinking developed byalphabetic cultures) are confirmed by thework of neurologist such as NormanDoidge, Gary Small, and michaelmerzenich. The reconfiguration of thebrain by the new technologies posesscores of pressing issues, particularlywithin the realm of education. Thelearning experience is threatened byattention deficit, cognitive deficiencies,weakening of the abilities forconceptualization, and capacity ofabstraction. These inadequacies go handin hand with the writing and the culturalaptitudes of the average student. Thepsychological impact is equallydamaging: technological narcotization,depersonalization, anxiety, chronicfatigue, and a number of dissociativedisorders. The paper advocates a cultureof resistance towards the digital media,as both an educational necessity and apolitical stance. It is a technology thatresponds first and foremost to theeconomic demands of global capitalism.

JoHN PICCHIoNE teaches Italianliterature and culture at york university.Among his numerous publications, TheNew Avant-Garde in Italy: TheoreticalDebate and Poetic Practices (2004), Dalmodernismo al postmodernismo:riflessioni teoriche e pratiche dellascrittura (2012), and La scrittura, ilcervello, e l’era digitale (2016).

A Scientific Basis forHot and Cool MediaPerceptionPAUL HOFFERTUniversity of Toronto

one of marshall mcluhan’s most well-known ‘theories’ is that media can becharacterized as being hot or coolaccording to the amount of informationthey communicate. The lower theinformation, the higher the recipient’sneed to engage (become involved) withthe message and use her brain and mindprocesses to ‘fill the gaps’ in themediated information compared tounmediated information from naturalenvironments. mcluhan’s mediatemperature gauge has come underattack since its inception, causingconfusion among mcluhan supporters aswell as criticism from detractors.mcluhan himself was unhappy with theway he framed his proposal, although itwas and continues to be one of his mostpopular. A proposal is made to restatethe core of mcluhan’s hot and coolmedia work as a concise and easilytestable hypothesis and to use acceptedscientific and academic researchmethods to designed experiments andtest the hypothesis using crossdisciplinary fields of physics,neuroscience, and psychology. Theauthor suggests such a hypothesis alongwith methodologies that would eitherfalsify or prove it.

PAul HoFFERT is Chair of the BellBroadcast and New media Fund,Professor of music, law, and Informationat university of Toronto, former FacultyFellow at Harvard university, President ofthe Academy of Canadian Cinema, Chairof the ontario Arts Council, and founderof the Canadian Independent RecordProduction Association. He is a 2016-2018 mcluhan Centenary Fellow.

Wax Memory: ThePersistence of MediaDANIEL MARRONEIndependent scholar

The wax tablet is surprisingly resilient. Itshistorical lifespan exceeds parchment,paper, and almost any other mediumused to inscribe information – and itsmetaphorical applicability ranges fromdigital devices to philosophicalconceptions of memory. Notably, whenthe wax tablet was a standard part ofcomposition and communication, it wasnot unusual to conceive of memory itselfas a medium. “Since antiquity,” W. J. T.mitchell writes in Picture Theory,“memory has been figured not just as adisembodied, invisible power, but as aspecific technology.” From antiquity toroughly the sixteenth century, the waxtablet was a germinal part of the writingprocess – not only the tool with whichchildren learned to write, but also thestarting point for most ancient andmedieval texts. The literal persistence ofthe wax tablet through historycorresponds to its figurative recurrence inthe digital age. It serves as an exemplarof the persistence of media, as well asone of the most enduring metaphors formemory. A close examination of itsmetaphorical implications and historicaluse strengthens our understanding ofthe Toronto School’s periodization ofmedia, which is not a rigid chronology oftechnologies supplanting each other, butrather an evolving palimpsest.

DANIEl mARRoNE’s work often exploresthe semiotic operations of visual cultureand their unique capacity to representhistory, memory and longing for the past.He is the author of Forging the Past(university Press of mississippi, 2016).

25

VIC 212 SATURDAY OCT 15, 3:30 PMPANEL 2.2.4

New MediationsChair KEVIN DOWLER

Marshall McLuhan,radical software andthe emergence ofvideo cultureANGELA KREWANIMarburg University

The paper sets out to explore thedifferences in the cultural acceptance oftelevision in the German and Americancultures in the 1960s and early 1970s.While German television was assigned alower cultural status, uS-Americantelevision developed theoreticalstandards differing from the syndictednetworks. The emergernce of a genuinetheory of television was due to theteachings of marshall mcluhan and theinput of activist's groups such as RainDance and their journal Radical Software.Catering for a democratic approach totelevision, this group reitertedmcluhan's understanding of televisionand turned it into practical media work.

ANGElA KREWANI is Professor for mediaStudies in marburg, Germany since2004. member of the Canadian ResearchCenter in marburg. Fields of Research arecontemporary media forms, media artand mobile media. Former research ontelevision cultures, Hybride Formen(2001). Edited a book on McLuhan'sGlobal Village Today (2014) andApocalypse in Film. (2015). last book onmedia Art, Medienkunst. Theorie, Praxis,Ästhetik (2016).L@AngeKrewa

From Literary Theoryto Information Theory:McLuhan’s Fate orMcLuhan’s DestinyMALCOLM DEANUniversity of California, Los Angeles

McLuhan’s Fate or McLuhan’s Destiny.The story of mcluhan’s collaboration withEdmund Carpenter, and the idea ofacoustic space, is well known. less wellknown is how he quickly insisted onmeeting a young American who wasteaching a course on the Physics ofPoetry and the Poetry of Physics.mcluhan was eager to engage withscience.I think this brief history shows that whilethe origin of mcluhan’s work lies in thewomb of the Information Age, scientificdiscoveries and mcluhan Studies havegone their separate ways. mcluhan was ageneralist, and generalism is completelyout of favour in today’s academy. Is it mcluhan’s fate to be studied by adwindling group of sub-specialists, likethe work of Walter ong? or is the destinyof mcluhan Studies to recover his spiritof discovery, to match his insights withvast new scientific literatures?

mAlColm DEAN is Research Affiliate atuClA Human Complex Systems andHigher Cognitive Affinity Group at BrainResearch Institute — los Angeles,California. Interests in unified theories ofcognitive, cultural, and religious systems;Natural philosophy of Thermodynamics,Information, and Dynamic ontologies.

YouTube as a MediumJOHN MCMULLANMurdoch University

The Theory of Foundation Technologies asan Extension of Medium Theory.In contemporary media theory, digitaltools, platforms, and services, such asyouTube, are not understood as‘mediums’— which is a title reserved formaterial technologies of expression andcommunication. Instead, the networkeddigital computer is seen as a ‘meta-medium’ to end all mediums.Conversely, my theory of ‘foundationtechnologies’ provides scope for newdigital mediums to exist, by extendingInnis’s concept that human civilisationhas seen several epochs of historically-dominant mediums. It describes howwhen a foundation technology isintroduced to a society, it offers a unique‘proto-affordance’ – which is a low-levelaffordance that has the potential tosupport large-scale social disruptionthrough the new mediums thatsubsequently emerge. Each newfoundation technology thus brings withit the promise of its own specific periodof ‘new media’.

JoHN mCmullAN is a Screen ProductionAcademic at murdoch university. He iscompetent with a wide variety of movingimage forms, including livemixing/switching, music video,compositing, documentary, and onlinecontent production. John recentlyobtained his doctorate via a thesisfocused on digital platforms of moving-image distribution.

Reading Culture andIts MaterialityRYUICHI TANIGAWA, MASAKOMIYATA, MARIKO MURATA,HIROKI KEHARAKanazawa University, Aichi ShukutokuUniversity, Kansai University, KyotoUniversity of Art and Design

Creating an ‘Analog Electronic Book’ as aMode of Critique.With the emergence of the Kindle, atransition has occurred in recent yearsfrom paper books to eBooks. Whiledebates have formed about traditionalpaper books versus eBooks, the meaningof the eBook from a media studiesperspective has been neglected. In thispresentation, we report on the productionand release of our art installation ‘AnalogElectronic Book’ which sheds light on thesignificance of such perspective. In doingso, we borrow the ideas of the transitionof media communication by the TorontoSchool figures such as mcluhan, Innis,and ong. Despite differences in theplacement of emphasis, their studieselucidated that the rise and shift of mediahas had a profound impact on ourperception and sensibility of our body.The art installation highlighted this aspectof the media; it became a reverse TuringTest, so to speak, and people with highercomputer literacy were more likely to be‘deceived’ by the interface of the work. Iteventually proved that our mode ofsensibilities is not only historicallyconstructed, but is also easily lost inhistory.

RyuICHI TANIGAWA PhD, is a PrincipalInvestigator at the Institute for FrontierScience Initiative in Kanazawa university. mASAKo mIyATA is an associateprofessor of the Faculty of Creation andRepresentation at Aichi Shukutokuuniversity. mARIKo muRATA PhD, is a Professor atthe Department of Sociology, Kansaiuniversity, Japan. HIRoKI KEHARA is a radio artist and parttime teacher at the Department ofInformation Design, Kyoto university ofArt and Design.

FRIDAY8:00-9:00 Am Registration* VIC Foyer9:00 Am Opening Ceremony VIC 213 Chapel

9:30 Plenary Panel A VIC 213 ChapelThe Early DaysWilliam Buxton, Twyla Gibson, Brian Russell Graham

11:00 Coffee Break VIC Foyer

11:30 Plenary Panel B VIC 213 ChapelRoundtable: Explorations AgeChair: michael Darroch. Participants: Hart Cohen, Jerry Harp, Paul Heyer, Janine marchessault, Erhard Schüttpelz

1:00 Pm lunch VIC Foyer

2:00 Parallel Sessions 1.1 Victoria College1.1.1 Roundtable “mcluhan’s Seminars” VIC 213 Chapel1.1.2 unknown Innis VIC 2151.1.3 Frye, myth, and media VIC 2121.1.4 Preface to ong VIC 206

3:30 Parallel Sessions 1.2 Victoria College1.2.1 Religion unbound VIC 1011.2.2 City as medium VIC 1151.2.3 old and New Imageries VIC 2151.2.4 languages of Culture VIC 2121.2.5 Crossing Disciplines VIC 206

5:00 Coffee Break Bader TheatreEspresso Book launch lobby

5:30 Opening Keynote Bader TheatreJohn Ralston Saul

7:30 Pm Welcoming Reception Art museumThe Toronto School meets Toronto Art and Artistsuniversity of Toronto Art Centre

* Registration desk is available all through the conference

26

OCT

14 SATURDAY9:15 Am Greetings Bader Theatre

9:30 Plenary Panel C Bader TheatreFerment in the FieldArthur Kroker, Richard Cavell, Joshua meyrowitz

11:00 Coffee Break lobby

11:30 Plenary Panel D Bader TheatreBeyond the Academemark Kingwell, Claude le Fustec, Gary Genosko

12:50 Group Photo

1:00 Pm lunch VIC Foyer

2:00 Parallel Sessions 2.1 Victoria College2.1.1 Roundtable “Ted Carpenter” VIC 213 Chapel2.1.2 Philosophical Roots VIC 2062.1.3 Innis Reloaded VIC 2122.1.4 Networked Data VIC 215

3:30 Parallel Sessions 2.2 Victoria College2.2.1 Soundscapes VIC 1012.2.2 Pedagogical Shift VIC 1152.2.3 Extended Brain VIC 2152.2.4 New mediations VIC 2122.2.5 Transmedia VIC 206

5:00 Coffee Break Bader TheatreEspresso Book launch lobby

5:30 Plenary Panel E Bader TheatreThe School ExtendedRita Watson, B.W. Powe, Elena lamberti

7:30 Pm Special EventsGlenn Gould and Toronto School Alliance FrançaiseMargins and Marginalia Fisher libraryEdmund Carpenter mcluhan Centre

10:00 PmAfter SchoolSpaghetti & Karaoke Night mcluhan Centre

OCT

15

CONFERENCE AT A GLANCE

27

SUNDAY9:30 Am Plenary Panel F Bader Theatre

Feminist Perspectives on Culture and Technologyursula Huws, mark lipton, Sara Diamond

11:00 Coffee Break lobby

11:30 Plenary Panel G Bader TheatreRoundtable: The Powered up Mediumorganizer/Respondent: Sarah Sharma. Participants:Jack Bratich, Radhika Gajjala, James Hay, Ganaele langlois, Craig Robertson, Sara martel, Kamilla Petrick, Armond Towns

1:00 Pm lunch VIC Foyer

2:00 Parallel Sessions 3.1 Victoria College3.1.1 Roundtable “Still Radical” VIC 213 Chapel3.1.2 Bias in Humanities VIC 2153.1.3 Political Frames VIC 2123.1.4 Global Debates VIC 206

3:30 Parallel Sessions 3.2 Victoria College3.2.1 Awed by Science VIC 1013.2.2 Becoming Digital VIC 1153.2.3 Networking Humans VIC 2153.2.4 media literacy VIC 206

5:00 Coffee Break Bader TheatreEspresso Book launch lobby

5:30 Town Hall Meeting Bader TheatreRethinking the Global Villagein an era of Cities and Soft Power

7:30 Pm Awards Gala Dinner* Victoria Collegeoutstanding Paper Awards (Alumni Hall + Foyer)medium and light Award

*Tickets for guests available at the registration desk Dress code: semi-formal

OCT

16

WiFi Zoneusername: toschoolPassword: tnn2016

#TheTorontoSchool live-TweetingL

Mobile App Conference at hand“mcluhan Walks”Toronto in the footsteps of marshall mcluhan

Download Mehttp://uoft.me/tnn

AccessibilityWe are pleased to provide assistance.If you need help, please ask.

Conference Venues

1. Isabel Bader Theatre, 93 Charles St. West2. Victoria College, 91 Charles St. West

1st floor: VIC 101, VIC 115, Foyer2nd floor: VIC 206, VIC 212, 213 (Chapel), VIC 215

3. John M. Kelly Library, 113 St. Joseph Street4. McLuhan Centre, 39A Queen’s Park Crescent East5. Art Museum, 15 King’s College Circle6. Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, 120 St George St.7. Alliance Française, 24 Spadina Rd

Live Streamingwww.facebook.com/mcluhancentre

ST. JOSEPH ST.

BA

Y S

T.

BLOOR ST. W

MUSEUM

WELLESLEY ST. W

P

CHARLES ST. W

AV

EN

UE

R

D.

ST. MICHAEL’SCOLLEGE

HARTHOUSE

ROYALONTARIOMUSEUM

VICTORIACOLLEGE

HOSKIN AVE

ST

GE

OR

GE

ST

ST GEORGE

SP

AD

INA

AV

ES

PA

DIN

A R

D

HOLIDAYINN

PH

ILO

SO

PH

ER

'S W

AL

K

QU

EE

N’S

PA

RK

CR

ES

CE

NT

W

QU

EE

N’S

PA

RK

CR

ES

CE

NT

E

KING’SCOLLEGECIRCLE

21

5

7

34

6

SPADINA

BookstoreThe Toronto School holds a book exhibition offering conferenceattendees the opportunity to purchase publications

#selFrye Photo Contest

TRINITYCOLLEGE

ROBARTSLIBRARY

FACULTY OF ARTS& SCIENCE

FACULTY OFINFORMATION

INNISCOLLEGE

FACULTYOF MUSIC

VARSITYCENTRE

HARBORD ST

PANEL 2.2.5

TransmediaChair ANTHONY CRISTIANO

VIC 206 SATURDAY OCT 15, 3:30 PM

28

Changing Patterns ofLanguage andBehaviour and theNew Media ofCommunicationMARK STAHLMANRutgers UniversityBENJAMIN STOLZCenter for the Study of Digital Life

What has been called the "Toronto Schoolof Communications" was a satellite of amuch wider effort in the 1950s to translateWW II psychological warfare into a meansfor managing overall society during whatthen appeared to be an existentiallythreatened world situation. This widerenterprise was centered in New york Cityand it revolved around the various projectsfunded by the Rockefeller and FordFoundations and their affiliates, such asthe Social Science Research Council (SSRC).Recent technological developments,anticipated by Wiener and others, bringsus to wonder how humanity will respondto the new and radically different digital"media of communication" that nowdominate our lives and shape ourbehaviors and attitudes.

mARK STAHlmAN is President of theCenter for the Study of Digital life(CSDl). A retired Wall Street technologystrategist, investment banker and serialentrepreneur, his godfather was NorbertWiener, and he considers CSDl to be acontinuation of his father’s participationin Wiener’s “Genius Project” as well as adigital extension of marshall mcluhan'sCentre for Culture and Technology.

BENJAmIN STolz is a comparativescholar of pre-literate, medieval, andelectricity-bound socioculturalmovements. He has studiedanthropology, religion, and media atvarious institutions, including theuniversity of maryland, Wesleyanuniversity, Drew university, Rutgersuniversity, and the Center for the Studyof Digital life.

UnderstandingMonopolies ofKnowledge in BigData ContextJESÚS OCTAVIO ELIZONDOUniversidad Autónoma MetropolitanaCuajimalpa

The main goal of this paper is to describethe formation of monopolies ofknowledge in the context of Big Data. Toachieve this goal, we will use theepistemological frame of concepts in thework of Harold A. Innis. The essentialpremise here is that the history of aculture, nation, empire or civilization canbe understood through the study andobservation of the development of theirtrade, transportation and communicationnetwork (Innis). We intent to givemeaning to the context in which the BigData plays an essencial rol in the wayknowledge is managed (mayer & Cukier).We will show how the innian frameworkis pertient and useful because allows usto have a better understanding of thepresent historical trend in knowledgemanagement.

J. oCTAVIo ElIzoNDo was mcluhanFellow of the mcluhan Program inCulture and Technology in 2006.Recipient in two occasions of grants bythe International Council for CanadianStudies in ottawa: Faculty Research andFaculty Enrichment Programs. He ismember of the mexican Association forCanadian Studies since 2009. He isauthor of a book written in Spanishentitled Toronto School ofCommunications. Understandingtechnological change (2009).L@joe_martinis

Concept Over PerceptADAM PUGENUniversity of Toronto

The Digital/Tactile Interface as Ground ForUnearthing Marshall McLuhan’sDisembodied Idea.In this paper I propose new directions formarshall mcluhan’s media theory inorder to understand the experientialeffects resulting from the widescaletransition from a cultural environmentbased on analog television to one basedon digital media. I begin with the claimthat the immersive and imaginativeparadigm of analog television, whichmcluhan detailed so well, has beensuperseded by the much moreregimented and logically rigorousparadigm of digital technology. my claimis: now that the low information contentof analog electronic media has beendramatically raised through the discreteand logical coding of digital media, wecan say that we are once againexperientially bound to a technologicalenvironment which, like the high-definition content of the hot printedbook, stresses intellectual detachmentrather than collective immersion.

ADAm PuGEN is a PhD candidate at theuniversity of Toronto’s Faculty ofInformation and runs the graduateworkshop The New Explorations Group atthe mcluhan Centre for Culture andTechnology. His doctoral researchconcerns notions of embodiedsymbolism as developed in existentialistphenomenology and media ecology, andexplores the experiential structuresbehind digital media throughinvestigating the links between semiotics,sensory interplay, and mathematics.

Orality to Literacy toVideocyMARK SEDOREUniversity of Toronto

major changes were wrought on humanthought, knowledge-creation, and thestructure of society when writing andliteracy were introduced. one can argue(as three writers associated with theToronto School of Communications do)about the exact nature of these changes,and how long it might have taken forthem to be felt. However the medium ofwriting, as writing, has effectedenormous change on human civilization,particularly after the introduction of thealphabet to Greece roughly 2,800 yearsago, and as alphabetic literacy spreadover the following four centuries. Writingwas a technology that enabledcommunication to occur when thespeaker was not present—-whether thiscommunication was a cultural record tobe accessed over and over, whether thiswas the ephemeral daily business of astate, or whether this was a simplecorrespondence between friends. Byencoding words visually andpermanently, writing helped enable newways to teach, learn and think. Writing(both cuneiform and alphabetic writing),was thereby a revolutionary technology-—perhaps unsurpassed by anything else.This paper looks at the thought of EricHavelock, Harold Innis, and marshalmcluhan and, using a retrospective focuson ancient Greece, asks if we are todaywitnessing the early impact of a similarlyrevolutionary technology: videocommunication.

mARK SEDoRE is a PhD student in theFaculty of Information at the university ofToronto. His background is in media theoryand political theory. He is a professionalwriter and communications advisor whoseinterest in the Toronto School goes back tohis undergraduate days.

29

PLENARY PANEL (E)

The School ExtendedChair COSTIS DALLAS

BADER THEATRE SATURDAY OCT 15, 5:30 PM

Mind and Media: NewEvidence on a Core TenetRITA WATSONHebrew University of Jerusalem

mcluhan saw communication media asextensions of mind, and as having effectson the mentalities of their users. The rise ofelectronic media echoed a primary oralculture that predated the birth of cities andthe invention of writing. He predicted acrisis in the modern era as literatementalities that had evolved in literatecultures tried to integrate their effects.Written media, much studied in historicaland developmental contexts, have beenlinked to rationality and reflective analyticthought. Cognitive effects have beennotoriously difficult to isolate, as literacy isdeeply embedded in social practice andsaturates most cultural environments inthe modern era. This paper analyzes asystem of graphic signs that emerged inthe late Chalcolithic era, a primary oralculture. At the time of invention, the usesof writing are clearly distinct from the usesof spoken language. Furthermore, the signsystem can be seen as a technology ofintellect, linked to reflective analyticthought very soon after its invention, longprior to developing into a mature scriptwith the capacity to represent naturallanguage.

RITA WATSoN received her PhD at theuniversity of Toronto with D. R. olson.Recent publications include: “Archaic lists,Writing and mind” (Pragmatics andCognition, 21:3; 2013); Writing ScienceBefore the Greeks (Brill, 2011) with W.Horowitz; The Toronto School ofCommunication Theory (u. Toronto Press,200) with m. Blondheim.

Into the Unknown andNew: McLuhan-Frye,Electric Processing,Imagination, the Poeticsof Opening TimeB.W. POWEYork University

The marshall mcluhan-Northrop Frye matrixis a visionary legacy offering insights into theglobal theatre, electricity, imagination andidentity, quickening searches into the futurewhere the "medium is the massage" joinswith "the great code". This presentationappreciates seers who discovered pathwaysto recognizing present patterns andmanifestations, and then moves on toportray how these ideas and perceptions areshaping a 21st Century poetics. Electricprocessing and imagination inform therecognition that our crossroads is both aClosing Time and an opening Time:evolutionary hyperdrives--where paradigmsbreak down, new forms of consciousnessemerge; terror and fear simultaneouslysurge with visions of heightened formsof consciousness, keener hearts. The closingswe see in raging phenomena like the Brexit,xenophobia, terrorism, the rise of Trump andPutin; the openings, in the desire for peopleand ideas to cross barriers and boundaries,in the welcome to others and the creativeinventive new. our new mysteries are jolting,mythic, immersive, severe, ecstatic. Thiscarries the imperative of perceiving primaryshifts in awareness and sensibility. Beyondideology, we´re experiencing immediacy andtranscendence, darkening and illuminations,closing of minds, openings of the soul. Canwe sense what higher-lower frequencies areplaying out?

B.W. PoWE is a poet, philosopher, storyteller,essayist. An Associate Professor in theDepartment of English at Toronto's yorkuniversity, he teaches courses on visionariesand the mcluhan and Frye legacies. His newworks are Decoding Dust (poems, dramaticmonologues) and The Tigers of Perception (amulti-media lyric essay).

A Legacy to Retrieve:Outspreading the Schoolof Toronto OriginalStorytelling ELENA LAMBERTIUniversity of Bologna

In a famous letter to Walter J. ong,mcluhan wrote: “literature is not a subject,but a function – a function inseparablefrom communal existence”. Consistently,literature played a role in the developmentof what I like to define as ‘the originalstorytelling of the School of Toronto’,including all mythmaking on the‘existence/nonexistence’ of such a ‘School’.That original storytelling triggered braveand witty interdisciplinary exchanges tograsp evolving cultural and socialphenomena; by so doing, it helped toshape a variety of epistemological counter-environments that questioned leadingtheories of the time. literature offeredmodels and strategies to open up morelinear and dogmatic scholarlyinvestigations that changed the way welook at our world; a legacy that seemsmissing today, as literary studies are moreclear-cut subjects within well-disciplineduniversity programs, than driving forces ofchange. my paper aims to map andinvestigate ways to retrieve the literarylegacy of the School of Toronto to trigger acognitive and an emotional revolutionwithin our hyper-connectedintelligences/realities; the goal is todevelop alternative approaches to societaltroubleshooting and problem solvingthrough a conscious post-literate paideia.

ElENA lAmBERTI teaches North Americanliterature and media Studies at theuniversity of Bologna, Italy. She is theauthor of the award winning volumeMarshall McLuhan’s Mosaic. Probing theLiterary Origins of Media Studies (u of TPress, 2012), and of a variety of books andessays on Anglo-American modernism,literature and Technology, Culturalmemory, War literature.L@ElenaLamberti5

3030

SPECIAL EVENTS

A MULTI-MEDIA EXHIBITION

McLuhan on Campus:Local Inspirations, Global VisionsOctober 13 - December 20, 2016John m. Kelly library, St. michael’s College113 St. Joseph Street, Toronto

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

Explore the development of Marshall McLuhan’s theories in the contextof his academic and personal life at St. Michael’s College. McLuhan’scentral role in the rise of the Toronto School of Communication ispresented through artifacts, audio, texts, video and photographs selectedfrom archival repositories across the University of Toronto and theFederated Colleges of St. Michael’s, Trinity and Victoria. The exhibitionwill feature items drawn from the Special Collections and holdings at St.Michael’s, including material from the Sheila and Wilfred Watsonarchives, Donald Theall papers and Marshall McLuhan collection. Rareand intimate examples on display include McLuhan’s correspondenceand collaborations with friends and colleagues on campus such asClaude Bissell, Tom Easterbrook, Carl Williams, Harold Innis, EdmundCarpenter and Northrop Frye.

Exhibition Committee

matthew BrowerFaculty of Information (iSchool), university of Toronto

laura CunninghamJohn m. Kelly library, university of St. michael’s College;

Simon RogersJohn m. Kelly library, university of St. michael’s College

John ShoesmithThomas Fisher Rare Book library, university of Toronto

Kalina Nedelcheva, Katherine IngExhibition Assistants

www.stmikes.utoronto.ca

In collaboration with

3131

Glenn Gould and the Toronto SchoolWords, Music, Images

ALLIANCE FRANÇAISE SATURDAY OCT 15, 7:30 PM

24 Spadina Road, Toronto

Conceived as a moving and engaging evening of pictures,

performances, and conversations, this event will reflect on Gould's

relationship to Marshall McLuhan, technology and the so-called

Toronto School of Communication. This multimedia presentation

will feature prominent commentators, musical performances, and

screenings that will illuminate, celebrate and reassess the unique

legacy of one of the twentieth century’s most renowned and

internationally acclaimed Canadians.

With Caryl Clark, University of Toronto, Faculty of Music;  

Penny Johnson, pianist; 

John McGreevy, McGreevy Productions;

Paul Théberge, Carleton University;

and Lorne Tulk, Gould’s technician at CBC

Curated by Steve Hicks

Toronto

Photo by mark laurie, sculpture by Ruth Abernethy, courtesy of The Glenn Gould Foundation

In collaboration with

Music ProgrammeSet 1. Invention #1 in C-major, BWV 772; Invention #9 in F-minor, BWV 780;Sinfonia #5 in E-flat major, BWV 791; Sinfonia #14 in B-flat major, BWV 800.

Set 2. Selections from Goldberg Variations, BWV 988: Aria and Variations #1,3, 8, 13, 18, 29 & 30.

Set 3. Selections from Die Kunst der Fuge (The Art of Fugue), BWV 1088:Contrapunctus #1 & 4

Pianist, Penny Johnson pursues a Bach sound for 21st-century listeners, herapproach having been influenced by Glenn Gould and marshall mcluhan.underlying her work is a belief that music must have a moralpurpose.  Penny holds a Doctor of musical Arts degree from the manhattanSchool of music, as well, Bachelor and master of music degrees from theEastman School of music. A past semi-finalist at the 8th International J. S.Bach Piano Competition (Würzburg, Germany) and former contributingauthor for The Glenn Gould Foundation, Penny is a freelance pianist andserves on the board of directors for The Chamber music Society ofmississauga. www.pennyjohnsonpiano.com

FAC U LT Y OF M US I C

32

Margins and MarginaliaThe Formation of the Ideas of Frye, Innis and McLuhan

T. FISHER LIBRARY SATURDAY OCT 15, 7:30 PM

120 St George St, Toronto

The foundational ideas of three key figures of the Toronto School

can be found on the St. George campus of the University of Toronto:

the Harold Innis fonds, housed at the University Archives; Marshall

McLuhan’s heavily annotated working library, held at the Thomas

Fisher Rare Book Library; and the Northrop Frye fonds at the E.J.

Pratt Library of Victoria University. This special open house at the

Fisher is a rare opportunity to view highlights – including original

manuscripts, correspondence, and books – from all three

collections. Through this material, visitors will be able to gain

insights into the thinking of the three men, and how they formed

many of their ideas. Librarians and archivists from the Fisher Rare

Book Library and the University of Toronto Archives will be on hand

to answer questions.

Eric McLuhan and Andrew McLuhan will be on hand to speak on

the role Marshall McLuhan’s personal library played in his life and

research.

Curated by Loryl MacDonald and John Shoesmith

McLuhan Library CollectionIn 2014 the Thomas Fisher Rare Book library has acquired the workinglibrary of marshall mcluhan. The library, comprising more than 6000volumes, was used heavily by mcluhan in the writing of his mostfamous works, including Understanding Media, The Gutenberg Galaxyand The Medium is the Massage. A majority of the books bearmcluhan’s annotations and more than half of them contained material- including notes, manuscripts, and correspondence - laid into thebooks by mcluhan.Authors such as James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Walter J. ong, lewismumford, Etienne Gilson, Harold Adams Innis, among many others, arewell represented.mcluhan’s reading habits and the specifics of his focus are palpable inthe annotations that he produced during a lifetime of scholarship.objects of mcluhan’s obsession, such as James Joyce’s Finnegan'sWake, are riddled with layers of annotations.lists of both the books and added-in material, removed from the booksfor preservation, have been created.

http://fisher.library.utoronto.ca

In collaboration with

“A young Harold Innis”. Image property of university of Toronto Archives

Edmund CarpenterDialogues, Diversions & Digressions

MCLUHAN CENTRE SATURDAY OCT 15, 7:30 PM

39A Queen’s Park Crescent East, Toronto

Curated by MICHAEL DARROCH,

HART COHEN, PAUL HEyER and

JANINE MARCHESSAULT,

in collaboration with the Estate

of Edmund Carpenter.

Edmund “Ted” Snow Carpenter

(1922-2011) was Marshall

McLuhan’s closest collaborator

during the 1950s, and remained

a key dialogic partner throughout

McLuhan’s life. Overlooked for

his influence on Toronto School

scholarship, Carpenter worked in

CBC radio and TV in the 1940s

and 50s, contributing his studies

of Inuit concepts of space and

time to the very shape that early

communication and media

studies would take. Carpenter’s

cross-disciplinary research

included interventions in media

analysis, anthropology,

Indigenous arts and cultures,

archaeology, ethnography,

intercultural communication, and

cybernetics. McLuhan turned

frequently to Carpenter’s keen

sense of media and cultural

trends to nourish his own

scholarly digressions.

This public presentation will

showcase a selection of

interviews, collaborative film

experiments, and archival

materials representing

Carpenter’s lifework in research

scholarship and pedagogy

before and after his

collaborations with McLuhan.

33

Tomanik (wind-maker) mask (aka Summer/winter mask), Central yup’ik, Napaskiagmiut culture. Napaskiak,Kuskokwim River, Alaska, late 19th century. Collection Adelaide de menil & Edmund Carpenter, on long-termloan to the menil Collection, Houston; photo by Paul Hester.

PLENARY PANEL (F)

Feminist Perspectives on Culture and TechnologyChair LESLIE REGAN SHADE

BADER THEATRE SUNDAY OCT 16, 9:30 AM

34

From modernismto post-post-modernism:continuities anddiscontinuities inwomen's positions aspublic intellectualsURSULA HUWSUniversity of Hertfordshire

Political economist and second wavefeminist, ursula Huws is the niece ofJaqueline Tyrwhitt, a major figure in theToronto School of Communication. Thispresentation draws on personal memory aswell as broader analysis to reflect oncontinuities and discontinuities in thehistory of women as public intellectualssince the mid-20th century. Among otherissues, it explores the complex nexus ofinter-generational solidarities and rivalriesthat shape the way ideas are carriedforward and acknowledged,  the (positiveand negative) importance of role models,and the impact of paradigm shifts on thereputations and careers of women inpublic life. Finally, it reflects on what hasnot changed since Jaqueline Tyrwhitt firstarrived in Toronto and the challenges stillconfronting women intellectuals in the21st century.

uRSulA HuWS is Professor of labour andGlobalisation at the university ofHertfordshire and the director of AnalyticaSocial and Economic Research ltd in theuK. She is also the editor of the internationinterdisciplinary journal WorkOrganisation, Labour and Globalisation.

A Queer Feminist ScholarWalks into the TorontoSchool; Everyone is DeadMARK LIPTONUniversity of Guelph

Bang. most educated people — both todayand a century ago — see the emergence oftechnologies, the flood of inventions, assynonymous with Western Civilization;whether the case or not, there is a positiverelation between technical progress, mediaecology, and the advance of the humanspirit. Despite ongoing theoreticalstruggles and deep anxieties regarding thesocial consequences of technical progress,sufficient concentration has not been givento the human agents and agencies thathave the ability to restore balance to ourcivilization. often, agency is abandoned formore theoretical expulsions andexplosions. But renewed interest inscholars of the Toronto School and inmedia ecology helps to balance thepolyvalence perspectives oncommunication and media. The TorontoSchool’s media ecological approach, in thespirit of openness to change “detachesitself from prescriptive methods, fixedlogics, and epistemes, and it orients ustoward problem-solving knowledge orsocial visions of radical justice” (J.Halberstam, 2011, The Queer Art of Failure,Durham and london; Duke uP, 16-17). Thispresentation surveys my queer, feminist,and media ecological journey throughacademe identifying policies and practicesof “radical justice.”

mARK lIPToN is the author of the medialiteracy textbook Smoke Screens: FromTobacco Outrage to Media Activism (2002),has written numerous monographs on thesubject of communication, media, andeducation; is a co-editor of Visualizing theWeb: Evaluating Online Design from AVisual Communication Perspective (2010);and author of Research, Write, Create:Connecting Scholarship to Digital Media(with T. Gibson, 2014). L@marklipton

Immanence andIntervention - emergingmedia formsSARA DIAMONDOCAD University

The Toronto School analyzed the structuraland material qualities of medium(Havelock, mcluhan), and their networkedeffects (Innis) as communications media,charting the impacts of these on socialorganization, psychology and experience,the ways that media, “mould thepsychological and social shape of a society”(Derek deKerckhove (1989) “mcluhan andthe Toronto School of Communication”,mcluhan Program and Department ofFrench, university of Toronto). Building onthe assumptions that medium matters, mydiscussion will combine a feministperspective with software studies(Goriunova & Shulgin), digital materiality(Kroker, 2012; Scarlett, 2016), and post-digital aesthetics (Paul, 2015) to wonderabout the immanence of emerging formsof media such as selfies, data visualization,and virtual reality. I will provide examplesof creative interventions that consider thematerial impacts of medium.

SARA DIAmoND is the President of oCADuniversity, Canada's university of theimagination. She holds a PhD inComputing, Information Technology andEngineering from the university of Eastlondon. She is an appointee of the orderof ontario and the Royal Canadian Societyof Artists, and a recipient of the Queen’sDiamond Jubilee medal and the DigitalPioneer Award from the GRAND Networksof Centres of Excellence.L@OCAD

35

PLENARY PANEL (G) Roundtable

The Powered up MediumOrganizer/Respondent SARAH SHARMAParticipants JACK BRATICH, RADHIKA GAJJALA, JAMES HAY, GANAELE LANGLOIS, CRAIG ROBERTSON,SARA MARTEL, KAMILLA PETRICK, ARMOND TOWNS

BADER THEATRE SUNDAY OCT 16, 11:30 AM

SARAH SHARmA is Director of the mcluhanProgram in Culture and Technology,Associate Professor at university of Torontoat the ICCIT (mississauga) and with agraduate appointment at the Faculty ofInformation. She is the author of In theMeantime: Temporality and CulturalPolitics (Duke uP, 2014) which won theNCA Critical Cultural Book of the yearAward and explores issues related totechnology, speed, and social difference.L@sarahrsharma

The Electro-ConvulsiveTherapy machineJACK z. BRATICH is associate professor andoutgoing chair of the journalism andmedia studies department at Rutgersuniversity. His work applies autonomistsocial theory to social movement media,audience studies, and the cultural politicsof secrecy. Recently he publishedTransnational Flashpublics: Social Mediaand Affective Contagions from Egypt toOccupy Wall Street.L@jbratich

SpindleRADHIKA GAJJAlA is Professor School ofmedia and Communication and ActingDirector, American Culture Studies atBowling Green State university.Her work that engages themes related toglobalization, digital labor, feminism andsocial justice. Published books includeCyberculture and the Subaltern (lexingtonPress, 2012) and Cyberselves: FeministEthnographies of South Asian Women(Altamira, 2004).L@cyberdivalives

RefrigeratorJAmES HAy, Professor & Director, Instituteof Communications Research, College ofmedia, university of Illinois--urbana-Champaign. Prof. Hay is also the co-authorof Better Living through Reality TV, and theformer Editor of Communication &Critical/Cultural Studies.

Textile (Shipibo Embroidery)GANAElE lANGloIS is Assistant Professorat Department of Communication Studies,york university. Her research interests lie inphilosophy of communication, criticaltheory and media studies. She published abook entitled Meaning in the Age of SocialMedia (Palgrave, 2014). She has recentlyco-edited a book entitled CompromisedData? From Social Media to Big Data(Bloomsbury, 2015).L@GanaeleLanglois

Filing cabinetCRAIG RoBERTSoN is Associate Professorof media Studies at Northeasternuniversity. In his research he uses theissues and concerns of media history andmedia theory to explore the relationshipbetween information and paper. He is theauthor of The Passport in America: TheHistory of a Document (2010).L@craig2robertson

IncubatorSARA mARTEl received her PhD from theJoint Graduate Program in Communicationand Culture at york university/Ryersonuniversity, Toronto. Her doctoral workfocused on the use of photography withinhospital bereavement support in neonatalintensive care settings. She continues toresearch communication and culturalpractices in relation to grief, mourning,and end-of-life processes.L@smarteltweets

Street CarKAmIllA PETRICK, postdoctoral researcherin Interdisciplinary Studies (lakeheaduniversity) & lecturer in CommunicationStudies (york university). Kamilla holds adoctorate in political science and two priordegrees in media studies. Her researchinterests include social movements,political economy, temporality, collectivememory, and the role of technology insocial transformation.L@KamillaPetrick

PrintARmoND ToWNS is Assistant Professor atuniversity of Denver. His research interestsexplore the intersections between blackradicalism, media and cultural studies,rhetoric, and feminist, queer, and blackgeographies. His work draws from diversetheories, including rhetorical theory, blackstudies, media theory, interculturalcommunication, postcolonial studies,(black) feminist theory, cultural geography,and political economy.

This plenary roundtable invites media theorists to engage

in the McLuhanesque critical media practice of the

Medium is the Message. Panelists have been invited to

consider how particular media objects alter the pace,

pattern, and scale of human life and organization. This

panel asks in the context of a challenge to the Toronto

School what it means to ruminate on media objects

without a theory of power and social difference? This

panel forefronts media objects of everyday life that

cannot be disarticulated from intimate, local, and global

social inequalities. What is the political salience and

cultural relevance of McLuhanesque medium theory for

feminist, postcolonial theory, labor studies, media history,

and critical race?

36

PANEL 3.1.1 Roundtable

Still Radical: McLuhan's and Frye's Importancefor Contemporary Visual ArtistsChair BRUCE ELDERPresenters BRUCE ELDER, STEPHEN BROOMER, IHOR JUNYK AND ISABEL PEDERSEN, IRINA LYUBCHENKO, IZABELLA PRUSKA-OLDENHOF

VIC 213 CHAPEL SUNDAY OCT 16, 2:00 PM

R. Bruce ElderColourist Art asElectrologic: Faraday, Maxwell, andColour

R. BRuCE ElDER is Professor atRyerson university. His filmshave been presented in soloscreenings at New york’smuseum of modern Art, Berlin’sKino Arsenal, and Paris’ CentrePompidou and in retrospectivesat Anthology Film Archives, theArt Gallery of ontario, and theCinematheque quebecoise. Heis the author of Image andIdentity: Reflections onCanadian Film and Culture, apioneering study on thephilosophical contexts ofCanadian art and film.

Stephen Broomer Strange Codes:Purposeful Difficulty inAvant-Garde Cinema

STEPHEN BRoomER is afilmmaker whose films havescreened at the TorontoInternational Film Festival, theSan Francisco Cinematheque,and lincoln Center. His book,Hamilton Babylon, was recentlypublished by university ofToronto Press.

Ihor Junyk and Isabel PedersenFearmonger: Affectivewearable media and thedigital uncanny

IHoR JuNyK is an AssociateProfessor of Cultural Studies atTrent university. His interestsinclude digital humanities andmedia archaeology. Hipublished Foreign Modernism:Cosmopolitanism, Identity, andStyle in Paris (university ofToronto Press, 2013).

ISABEl PEDERSEN is a CanadaResearch Chair in Digital life,media, and Culture and is thefounder of the Decimal lab atthe university of ontarioInstitute of Technology. She isauthor of Ready to Wear: ARhetoric of Wearable Computersand Reality-Shifting Media.

Irina lyubchenkoEverything isEverywhere: NorthropFrye’s Double Vision andKazimir Malevich’s NewRealism

IRINA lyuBCHENKo is afilmmaker and a PhD Candidatein the Ryerson university / yorkuniversity Joint GraduateProgram in Communicationand Culture.

Izabella Pruska-oldenhofMarshall McLuhan’sAcoustic Space, JuliaKristeva’s Chora, andMedia Poetics

IzABEllA PRuSKA-olDENHoF isan artist, scholar and AssistantProfessor at the School ofImage Arts, Ryerson universityin Toronto. Izabella’s writings oncinema, art, dance, technologyand culture, have appeared inParol, Canadian Journal of FilmStudies, and in anthologies onmedia arts and on screendance, including a chapter inthe Oxford Handbook ofScreendance.

SUNDAY OCT 16 PARALLEL SESSIONS 3

37

VIC 215 SUNDAY OCT 16, 2:00 PMPANEL 3.1.2

Bias in HumanitiesChair HOOLEY MCLAUGHLIN

Canadian andGerman Media TheoryANTHONY ENNSDalhousie University

unlike critics associated with theBirmingham School, who primarily focuson media content and reception, Germanmedia theorists more often applyepistemological and philosophicalquestions to the study of media. Thisapproach is largely inspired bymcluhan’s famous claim that “themedium is the message.” FriedrichKittler, a leading figure in German mediatheory, even acknowledges that “withoutthis formula...media studies itself wouldnot exist as such in isolation or with anymethodological clarity.” Kittler’semphasis on the military origins ofmedia technologies has perhapsobscured the foundational significanceof mcluhan’s work, yet this paper willtrace the influence of Canadian mediatheory on German media theory byexploring the concepts and ideascommon to both movements, such astheir shared focus on the materiality ofcommunication, the interconnectionsbetween technology and physiology, thenotion of media networks asenvironments, the role of mediatechnologies in the formation ofsubjectivity, and the effects of mediaglobalization. Although German mediatheorists have also been accused oftechnological determinism, thetremendous success of this movementclearly illustrates the continuedrelevance of Canadian media theory, asthere remains a pressing need for atheoretical approach that addresses theepistemological functions of mediatechnologies.

ANTHoNy ENNS is Associate Professor ofContemporary Culture at Dalhousieuniversity. His edited collections includeSonic Mediations (2008) and VibratoryModernism (2013), and his translationsinclude Friedrich Kittler’s Optical Media(2010), Sybille Krämer’s Medium,Messenger, Transmission (2015), andWolfgang Ernst’s Chronopoetics (2016).

A Second Way toRead McLuhan’sFootnotes to InnisANDREW CHRYSTALLMassey University

Footnotes split or double a text, and theyinvite, if not necessitate, participationand/or consideration of the gap andinter-relation(s) between two texts—bodyand footnote. The resultant split ordoubling of a text by a footnote(potentially) creates and affordsaudience/reader's significant space(s) forparticipation and involvement. And, ifmcluhan’s footnotes to Innis can be readas exemplars we might also add scopefor wild hallucination. Here this paperaddresses itself to the mcluhan⇔Innisrelationship by focusing on mcluhan’stwo, oft-cited claims— in The GutenbergGalaxy, and in the “Introduction” toInnis’s Bias of Communication—that hiswork is a “footnote” Innis. The aim of thearticle is to compliment attempts toilluminate the “theoretical identity” ofthe Toronto School.

ANDREW CHRySTAll is anunderwhelming jazz guitarist, dedicatedto surfing. He held a marshall mcluhanCentenary Fellowship for 2015-16.L@chipbody

The Ruin of ClassicalMedia Theory and theTask aheadERHARD SCHÜETTPELZUniversity of Siegen

Classical media Theory (esp. mcluhan,Virilio, Baudrillard, Flusser, Kittler) wasbased on success stories of the West, hadan eschatological twist, and claimed athreefold impact of media: on the sensesor the sensorium, on the social patterns,and on the world views of media users.These three asymmetries were part of thepopularity of CmT, but were challengedby three "symmetry principles" inScience and Technology Studies (successand failire, human and non-human, Westand Non-West). What remains of CmTafter going through the acid bath of STS?

ERHARD SCHüETTPElz is Professor ofmedia Theory at the university of Siegen.Principal Investigator, CollaborativeResearch Center "media of Cooperation",university of Siegen. Former Director ofthe Graduate School "locating media",Siegen. organizer of the Research Project"Trance mediums and New media",Siegen. Research on questions of mediaAnthropology, Actor Network Theory, andthe histories of Science, media, andWorld literature.

Digital Reading as aHuman-MachineRelation: thinking themateriality of thedigitalLUIZA SANTOSUniversidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul

History of reading is also the history ofwriting tools: changes in the devicesused to store and transmit written wordshave been modifying both readingpractices and meanings. As in theemergence of the codex, we now standin another revolution that involves thewriting materiality: digital publication.Following up the historical andcommunicational bias of the TorontoSchool on this matter, this papersearches for approaches thatcomprehend digital reading through thematerialities of communication andmakes initial reports on this topic. FromKitller’s perspective, we understand thatthe computer is a writing tool that iscapable of reading and writing by itself,and by doing so it is no longer a simpletool. By considering digital reading as ahuman-machine relation, we propose tothink about the consequences, rupturesand continuities of our relation with thewritten word that is no longer the printedword.

luIzA SANToS is a PhD candidate atFaculty of librarianship andCommunication at Federal university ofRio Grande do Sul, Brazil. She has amaster’s degree in Social Communicationfrom Pontifical Catholic university of RioGrande do Sul and a bachelor’s degreealso in Social Communication fromuniversity of Passo Fundo.

PANEL 3.1.3

Political FramesChair DANIEL PARÉ

VIC 212 SUNDAY OCT 16, 2:00 PM

38

Innis on Ice: ExaminingNHL Hockey as aSpace-Binding MediumNIEL SCOBIEUniversity of Western Ontario

Hockey is arguably Canada’s mostpopular sport and plays a crucial role inour national consciousness and brandingto the world. Although the game isplayed and viewed at numerous levels,the National Hockey league receives themost exposure due to frequentnationwide broadcasts. Since the late1800s, hockey has grown from a looselyorganized activity played on frozenponds to a multi-billion dollar industryand emblem of Canadian identity.Harold Innis recognized how print, thetelegraph, and radio, in addition towaterways, and railroads, worked tocollapse space and create a worldviewthat emphasized the administration ofvast territories, and the commodificationof time. Furthermore, as Edward Comornoted, Innis also “recognized,organizations, institutions, andtechnologies as ‘communication media’in that they constitute core structuresthrough which people interact andhistory unfolds” (2001, 280). Therefore,by using the criteria above, NHl hockey isarguably a space-binding mediuminsofar as it plays a central role in thecreation, proliferation, and maintenanceof a recognizable Canadian identity. Thispaper analyzes the multiple levels thatNHl hockey operates as a space-biasedmedium and questions the implicationsof a possible conflation between sport,nationalism, and militarism.

NIEl SCoBIE is a SSHRC-supporteddoctoral student in media Studies atWestern university whose scholarlyinterests include Canadian popularculture and music in addition tocurriculum design. He was recentlypublished in Critical Studies inImprovisation, and is currently co-authoring two essays to be published inforthcoming edited anthologies.L@nielscobie

Proem:The Toronto SchoolPHILIP MORAISIndependent Scholar

This paper explores “the medium is themessage” and other hermeneutics ofmarshall mcluhan as precedents ofmedia literacy as situated by the metricsfound in the scholarship of Eric A.Havelock and Harold A. Innis. mymethodology initially retrieves Havelockof Preface to Plato (1963): moving aheadmillennia in the development of theuniversity system, mcluhanpedagogically rejecting content-basedunderstandings of communications was(like with Plato) a realization of a culturalshift in which he was participating: massmedia. His stance is not for oral mimesis,nor literate psyche, but sensory poiesis or“media poetics” since neither otheroption frees users from being “Narcissusas narcosis.” Poiesis or “to make” in thecase of marshalling mcluhan medialiteracy means splitting medium fromcontent as if it was a consonant from avowel, an epiphany out of modernismwith roots in scholastic philosophy andkeys to autonomy in the “global theatre”:an invention and intellectual discoveryarguably on par with any of Westerncivilization. The place of marshallmcluhan in the learning of our time isthen discernible with context from Innisof The Bias of Communications (1951)on the “monopoly or oligopoly ofknowledge.”

PHIlIP moRAIS has been an author offiction and non-fiction publications since1999. He is an alumni of the mcluhanProgram in Culture and Technology as wellas a member of the media EcologyAssociation. Philip currently lives in Toronto.

Drone Warfare: 21stCentury Empire andCommunicationKEVIN HOWLEYDePauw University

Drone Warfare: 21st Century Empire andCommunication This paper, part of alarger project that examines drones froma social-construction of technologyperspective, considers drone warfare inlight of Harold Innis’ seminal work onempire and communication. leveragingleading-edge aeronautics with advancedoptics, data processing, and networkedcommunication, drones represent anarchetypal “space-biased” technology.Indeed, by allowing remote operatorsand others to monitor, select, and striketargets from half a world away, and inreal time, these weapon systemsepitomize the “pernicious neglect oftime” Innis sought to identify andremedy in his later writing. With Innis’time-space dialectic as a starting point,then, the paper considers drones, andnews and official discourse surroundingthese killing machines, in light of a long-standing paradox of American culture:the impulse to collapse the geographicaldistance between the united States andother parts of the globe, whilesimultaneously magnifying the culturaldifference between Americans and otherpeoples and societies. In the midst of theworldwide proliferation of drones, thisquintessentially sublime technologyembodies this (dis)connect in important,profound, and ominous ways. Keywords:drone, empire, Innis, time-spacedialectic, war on terror.

KEVIN HoWlEy is Professor of mediaStudies at DePauw university. He is authorof Community Media: People, Places, andCommunication Technologies (2005) andeditor of Understanding CommunityMedia (2010) and Media Interventions(2013). Dr. Howley is working on a newbook Drones: Media Discourse & thePolitics of Culture.

What PriceResearch?DOMENICO FIORMONTEUniversità Roma Tre

Knowledge Monopolies and GlobalAcademic Publishing.In this paper we seek to expand theconcept of ‘monopolies of knowledge’ ascoined by Harold Innis in his later writingsand try to detect not only its manifestationsand effects on academic practice and itsrole within neoliberalism, but itsexclusionary effects on internationalacademia and multi-lingual researchpractices. Although Innis did not provide aformal definition of the term “monopoly ofknowledge”, he was convinced that“mechanization has emphasizedcomplexity and confusion; it has beenresponsible for monopolies in the field ofknowledge and it becomes extremelyimportant to any civilization, if it is not tosuccumb to the influence of this monopolyof knowledge, to make some critical surveyand report.” (Innis 2008: 190).

DomENICo FIoRmoNTE is lecturer inSociology of Communication at theDepartment of Political Sciences of theuniversity of Roma Tre. His researchinterests include digital humanities, digitalphilology, social and cultural criticism ofdigital media. His latest book is The DigitalHumanist. A critical inquiry (Punctum2015) with T. Numerico and F. Tomasi.

39

VIC 206 SUNDAY OCT 16, 2:00 PMPANEL 3.1.4

Global DebatesChair GARY GENOSKO

Inspired by Innis?A Study of his Legacyin ScandinavianMedia StudiesHENRIK GRUE BASTIANSENVolda University College

To what degree have Scandinavian mediascholars been inspired by Harold Innis?The paper examines the growth ofhistorical research in Nordic media studiesand finds a remarkable boom startingaround 1990. During the late 1990s andearly years of the 2000s, scholars inScandinavia published a lot of historicalstudies of press, film and broadcasting.These efforts is here seen as a “quest forbasic knowledge” on each single medium.But after that, Denmark, Norway andSweden have developed more advancedworks, synthesizing this knowledge intomore complex works on their nationalmedia histories. Bastiansen show howeach country developed different solutionsto this task. He then shows to what degreethe different media histories have relatedthemselves to Harold Innis, and here healso include personal experience. Thepaper ends with a discussion whetherthere is a legacy after Innis in Scandinavianmedia studies. Bastiansen’s personal viewis that he look at such works as a kind ofintellectual infrastructure we need to buildaround the media – helping us tounderstand them, analyze them, discussthem and criticise them. In thesearchivements, Innis is still inspiring newscholars, also in Scandinavia.

HENRIK G. BASTIANSEN, professor atFaculty of media and Journalism at Voldauniversity College, Norway. Publicationsin press and broadcasting history as wellas general media history. Interested inthe field of media and communicationhistory and its historiography, methodsand theories.

McLuhan in Poland.Polish interpretations:then, now, nextKALINA KUKIELKO-ROGOZINSKAAssociation for Adult Education inSzczecin

The proposed paper is to show thepresence of marshall mcluhan’s ideas inPoland. Referring to the title of theconference, I would like to focus both onthe past and the present time, discussingthe most recent interpretations andapplications of his theories, including myown book. I would also like to speculate onthe possible future place of mcluhan inPolish academic and popular-scientificdiscourse. Speaking of Poland, one mustnote that for several decades it was one ofthe countries of the communist bloc,closed to the free flow of ideas, especiallythose from the West. It has an impact onselection of fragments of mcluhan’s textstranslated into, as well as on theirsubsequent interpretations. For severaldecades these circumstances haveimposed on Polish readers the specificattitude towards mcluhan. They haveapproached him in definitely critical andironical manner, yet, above all, they saw hisworldview as unjustifiable optimismresulting from fascination with functioningand impact of modern media. I belong tothe young generation of Polish scholarsconcerned with the mcluhan’s thought.His theory has been accompanying me foryears and I guess it will set a path to myscientific and everyday inquiries. I agreewith Rita leistner, who noted that "onceyou start looking for marshall mcluhan, it'simpossible not to see traces of himeverywhere."

KAlINA KuKIElKo-RoGozINSKA is agraduate of The Graduate School forSocial Research at the Institute ofPhilosophy and Sociology of the PolishAcademy of Sciences in Warsaw. A holderof The mcluhan Program Scholarship(2006). She received The Pierre SavardAward (2016), prizing her book BetweenScience and Art: Artistic Theory andPractice Depicted by Marshall McLuhan.

Scholarship at theMarginsCOLLETTE SNOWDENUniversity of South Australia

The Toronto School and AustralianCommunication and Media Studies.The work and influence of the earlyToronto School is well-known toCommunication and media scholarsglobally, if not always understood,applied well or acknowledged. However,the contribution made by the founders ofthe Toronto School to the field continuesby either directly or indirectly informingdebates about media, media effects,technology, globalisation, mediaregulation and ownership and the socialand economic power and influence ofcommunication. This paper is concernedwith the influence of the Toronto Schoolon Australian scholarship in the field ofCommunication and media studies. Theinfluences of the Toronto School, and thecommonalities between Canada andAustralia scholarship will be outlined. Inparticular, it examines this influencethrough the work of marshall mcluhan,which for a brief period was a dominantparadigm in Communication and mediaStudies in Australia. Consequently,mcluhan’s work has informedscholarship and educational policy onmedia studies, school and universitycurricula, and public debates aboutcommunication and media issues.

CollETTE SNoWDEN’s research focuseson the impact of new technologies andcommunication processes oncommunication practices, ontechnological transformation of mediaprocesses and practices, and thecombined effects on language, society,and its institutions. my work is informedby experience as a creative practitioner,as a journalist and in corporate andpolitical communication.

Bringing McLuhan toBrazil: seekingconnections betweenDécio Pignatari andAnísio TeixeiraRODRIGO M. BARBOSAFederal University of Pernambuco

mcluhan left its mark by embracing anunusual type of research and that put himtogether with other authors in a prominentposition. The influence of mcluhan sincethe 60’s have been disseminated all overthe globe (Carey, 1998; Buxton, 2012, p.580) and in Brazil was no different.mcluhan’s work inspired importantBrazilian thinkers, proof of this are thetranslations of his books into Portuguese.We will focus here on the perspective oftwo of these translators in order tounderstand what they perceived inmcluhan’s project to engage in translatinghis works. Anísio Teixeira was one of themain Brazilian educators, and wasresponsible for the reform in highereducation in Brazil and one of the foundersof the university of Brasilia. on the otherhand Décio Pignatari was a teacher, poetand intellectual, and one of the leadingthinkers of the concrete movement inliterature in Brazil together with thebrothers Haroldo and Augusto de Campos.The two found in mcluhan importantaspects of their projects. This articleattempts to elucidate the relationship ofthese two authors with the work ofmarshall mcluhan and his contribution tothe development of the education,communication studies and technology.

RoDRIGo mIRANDA BARBoSA isprofessor at university of Pernambuco(uFPE-CAA), holds a master’s anddoctoral degree in CommunicationStudies at university of Brasília (unB) onthe concentration of Theories andTechnologies of Communication. He isspecialized in Communication Studies.L@rodrigobarba

PANEL 3.2.1

Awed by ScienceChair ROBERT LOGAN

VIC 101 SUNDAY OCT 16, 3:30 PM

40

Visionaries of magneticimagery: The legacy ofMarshall McLuhan and NikolaTeslaNINA CZEGLEDYUniversity of Toronto

marshall mcluhan and Nikola Tesla lived more than fiftyyears apart, came from different backgrounds, haddissimilar education, applied different philosophical andpragmatic strategies and worked in distinct fields. Inshort two people could hardly been different, yet,significantly, they were both polymaths and shared aholistic vision of a world in continuous change whereeverything is inter-linked and forms elements inperpetuity. Perhaps a comparison between theviewpoints and prophecies of mcluhan and Tesla isunexpected, even unlikely. Nevertheless Tesla andmcluhan’s prophetic vision regarding the electronic ageand communication based on their overall grasp ofcomprehensive progress deserve a brief investigation.

NINA CzEGlEDy, artist, curator, scholar, collaboratesinternationally on art& science& technology projects.She has exhibited and published widely won awards forher artwork and has initiated, lead and participated inforums and festivals worldwide. The paradigm shifts inthe arts, the changing perception of the human bodyand its environment inform her work.

Intellectual property, thebiotic foundation of mediaecology, and the naming offeral catsLIOR LERMAN,JONATHAN SHOHET GLUZBERGIndependent scholars

The language surrounding copyright, patent, andtrademark law has succumbed to the metaphor thatunderstands information as property. This paper seeks tode-fuse this paradigm and to undermine it through theuse of a different metaphor that regards information as asymbiotic life-form.This metaphor is derived from Robert K. logan’sspeculative line of argument about the biologicalfoundation of media ecology (2016), which conceives ofculture as a living symbiotic organism. This metaphor issampled, extended, and re-mixed with Donna J.Haraway’s writing on companion species (2008), to askwhat kind of organisms cultural artefacts are, and todevelop a new vocabulary by which to draft a non-proprietary license agreement that articulates a relationof care between artists, scientists, their work and thepublic domain. This proposed license privileges, nonethe less, specific bonds between authors and theinformation in which they are invested and involved.

lIoR lERmAN is a multimedia and performance artistcurrently based at the Royal Central School of Speechand Drama in london (uK). Her artistic practiceexamines questions of meaning and storytelling at thefulcrum between the mechanical and the digital age.

JoNATHAN SHoHET GluzBERG london (uK) based artistand educator. His practice fluctuates between humorous,minimalistic cartoons and technically elaborate digitalaudio visual compositions.

Marshall McLuhan’s LiteraryMetaphors: Insights on Timeand Space as Coordinates ofPerceptionAMANDA SEVILLADuquesne University

This presentation attends to several literary metaphorsexpounded by marshall mcluhan that emerge fromspecific works, including a particular focus on theinfluence of Harold Innis and, in subtler ways, G. K.Chesterton. This focus includes a hermeneutic line inmcluhan’s work that offers interpretations of socialperception, communication, and culture. Theseperceptions are by no means linear, as they arecoordinates on a plane of experience and often result ina retrospective understanding of cultural shifts.modernity is a time marked by anticipation of newerversions of the currently new innovations, according tomcluhan, and this results in effects sometimes beingmistaken for causes of social change. mcluhan’s ideason changing social perceptions encourage anintellectual probing of social anxiety, boredom,explosion, and implosion. Whether mcluhan writesabout the breakdown of the centralized family or thedreamer in a small town who longs for city life, we cansee that social perceptions are immediately relevant totime, space, and lived experience. The purpose of thisinquiry is to explore some of the ways mcluhanexamines real life through deeply intellectual probes.

AmANDA SEVIllA is currently working on the latterchapters of her dissertation, “Discarnation: Expoundingon marshall mcluhan’s Critique of modern Subjectivity,”at Duquesne university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Shelives in Northeast ohio, where she works in the Englishdepartment at youngstown State university.L@AmandaLSevilla

41

VIC 115 SUNDAY OCT 16, 3:30 PMPANEL 3.2.2

Becoming DigitalChair SEAMUS ROSS

Ours Is A Battery Life:infrastructuralism,materiality, andendology of mediaMARCIO TELLESUniversidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul

In this communication, I want to lookinto what made Network Societypossible: lithium-ion batteries. This oftenoverlooked piece of technology powersour light-processing machines by storingenergy transmitted through power lines.To put it bluntly, the ubiquity of analways-on culture is only ubiquitous ifour batteries are fully charged becauseeven Internet browsing may beconstrained by the materials assembledin the form of battery. Therefore, our lifeis a “battery life”. What I am calling for isan “endology” of media: if ecology refersto external relations, “endology refers tothe interactions between internalrelational elements composing an entityand the tensions they produce in thedevelopment of a thing”, as Bryant says(2011). As engineers set out to design anew gadget, unexpected technologicalexigencies play a role in the ways thatmedia technologies are developed. It isnow the time to study the raw materialswith media technologies are made of. Asmedia are changing the bios of humanlife, media are also changing the physisof Earth. By investigating the extraction,production and utilization chains of thelithium-ion batteries we may come tograsp the very foundation of our digitaldreams.

mARCIo TEllES is a PhD student at Facultyof librarianship and Communication atFederal university of Rio Grande do Sul,Brazil. He received a bachelor's degree inSocial Communication and a master'sdegree in Communication andInformation from the same institution. Heis interested in media studies andcommunication theory.

Automation: or whencomputersreconfigured our wayof thinkingJAKOB LIENLinkoping University

In this paper I will analyze thephenomenon of automation in twoSwedish novels from the 1960s. The termautomation, I will argue, has beentransformed from a technical term usedin a manufacturing context in the late1940’s to a powerful expression used incultural debate as well as a central tropefor a variety of aesthetical practices.Important for the expansion of theconcept is marshall mcluhan’sunderstanding media (1964), where hein the chapter “Automation: learning aliving,” claims that automation willradically change the organization ofsociety and the human subject’s positionin it. Automation “is a way of thinking, asmuch as it is a way of doing,” he writesand continues: “It ends the olddichotomies between culture andtechnology, between art and commerce,and between work and leisure.” In theSwedish novel, The Tale of the BigComputer: A Vision by Hannes Alfvén(1966), automation plays a crucial roleon a representation level, as a centraltheme in the book, and in The SignalGame (1966) by Torsten Ekbomautomation reconfigures the currentwriting modes and challenge not onlywhat is possible to write, but also how.

JAKoB lIEN is Ph.D. student at theDepartment of Culture and Communicationat linköping university and a member ofthe research project RepRecDigit(blog.liu.se/reprecdigit). He is one of the co-founders of the Nordic interdisciplinarynetwork Sensorium: Aesthetic mediaAnArchaeology (www.liu.se/sensorium). Hisresearch interests include media history andperspectives on digital technology andliterature.

OptimisticCannibalism andCybernetic AnxietyGRAEME NORTHCOTEUniversity of Waterloo

An Extended Reading of CulturalMythologies.marshall mcluhan’s famous extensionthesis, although widely controversial andin some circles hotly contested, remainsone of the most useful conceptualprobes with which to examine the natureof media in relation to the human. In thispaper, I apply the extension thesis as aconceptual link between two seeminglydiverse cultural constructions: the figureof the cyborg, and the figure of thecannibal monster. Each figure representsa locus for a complex array ofmythological narrative and discourse.This paper argues that viewing theseapparently contrasting mythos in parallelreveals that each is ultimately anexpression of tension between extensionand cohesion of the human being, asarticulated in the extension thesis ofmcluhan’s media theory. The cyborgfigure of contemporary culture and themythological cannibal monsters areanalyzed in these terms as narrativegrapplings with socioculturalexperiences of the historically fraughtrelationship between the humanself/body and the mediatechnostructures in/through which itnecessarily exists. This commonconceptual core, I argue, explains thestriking thematic similarities betweenrepresentations of the cyborg and thecannibal monster, as well as thetheoretical discourse surrounding them.

GRAEmE NoRTHCoTE is a PhD Candidateat the university of Waterloo, in theDepartment of English language andliterature. His research has focused onmedia and communication studies,particularly in relation to cross-culturalnarrative and mythological figures.

Digital Epistemologyand Early ModernModes of ThoughtJONAS INGVARSSONUniversity of Skövde

Evoking McLuhan’s juxtapositions in theDigital Age.In this presentation, I will claim that theconnections between our own digital ageand early modern modes of thought –such as emblematics, curiosity chambers,fragment aesthetics and the salon culture– bear resemblance to marshallmcluhan’s method of juxtaposing theage of television with Rennaissanceculture. By studying early modern modesof thought, we can understand our owntechnological times better. But also: Bycritically reflecting upon contemporarytechnological culture, we will gain newunderstanding of early modern andpremodern aesthetics and rhetorics, andthe epistemological/ontologicaldiscourses embracing them. This is amedia archaeological approach, that Ilabel as a digital epistemology: thedigital here is not primarily seen as a setof gadgets, machines or electronicnetworks, but rather – just as, forexample, the genre of emblematics – asa mode of thought. This approach todigital culture bear strikingresemblances with marshall mcluhan’sapproach to media analysis – he tootreated media as a lens for observingculture, history and society. In mypresentation, then, I will focus on thejuxtapositioning of digital culture andearly modern modes of thought.

JoNAS INGVARSSoN, is associateprofessor in media, Narrative Arts, andAesthetics at university of Skövde,Sweden. He is currently involved in theresearch project Representations andReconfigurations of the Digital inSwedish literature and Art, 1950-2010(RepRecDigit, funded by the SwedishResearch Council), where he explores thenotion of digital epistemology as ananalytical tool for culture analysis.

PANEL 3.2.3

Networking HumansChair ELENA LAMBERTI

VIC 215 SUNDAY OCT 16, 3:30 PM

42

Environments:the given,the represented,the inducedANDREY MIROSHNICHENKOIndependent scholar

How media will reshape sensorium,McLuhanian extrapolations.marshall mcluhan noticed that electricityturned us away from “visual space” backto “acoustic space”. But here is a paradox:even though the acoustic, three-dimensional space of electric mediasimulates the natural perception ofreality, the reality of electric media is notnatural. It’s created, or, better to say,induced. media evolution leads us togradual resettling from the physical worldto the “best” one, which is the virtual one;from the given, through the represented,to the induced. Along the way, mediaevolution sentences us to be entirelyimmersed into the new environment withall our five (or more) senses, just as wehave existed in the real world, until now.Technologies have always beenenhancing “natural” sensation by, forexample, artificial flavours or othersenses’ augmentations, but theenhancement has been boosteddrastically with the advent of digitalmedia and such technologies asimmersive media, augmented reality, andvirtual reality. The paper observespractical cases and oncoming changes insensorium, such as angelism anddismissal of gravity, transition frombiological networking to socialnetworking, the financial sense, the senseof others, and the thirst for response.

ANDREy mIRoSHNICHENKo is a mediaresearcher, a coordinator for the RussianAssociation of Futurologists, Fulbright-Kennan scholar (2012-2013), and theauthor of Human as media. Theemancipation of authorship (2014). Afterworking in print media for twenty years,miroshnichenko wrote the book WhenNewspapers Die (2010), which became abestseller in Russian media circles.

Translatio Mediorum:The Toronto Schooland the EpicEncyclopaediaLUKE ARNOTTUniversity of Western Ontario

This paper revisits the medieval conceptsof the translatio imperii (the transfer ofrule) and the translatio studii (thetransfer of learning) and argues that,implicit within the work of the TorontoSchool, is the recognition of a kind oftranslatio mediorum, or a transfer ofmedia, in which new media technologiestake up the cultural work of seeminglyobsolete forms. “Translatio mediorum”looks specifically at the epic and how itrelates to the seminal work of HaroldInnis, Eric Havelock, and Northrop Frye,among others. It reveals how one legacyof the Toronto School has been a series ofconcepts which, in their later applicationto once-“dead” media forms, have hadrenewed significance in explaining theresurgence of new media epics in thecontemporary popular imagination.Although their interest in epics as suchwas often tangential, the Toronto Schooltheorists laid the groundwork for anunderstanding of the epic and its culturalfunction that was no longer tied to anyparticular genre or medium oftransmission. The epic may have had itsorigins in orally-transmitted heroicpoetry, yet its defining feature is that itcomes in the most technologically-complex and “encyclopaedic” mediumavailable at the time of its creation.

luKE ARNoTT holds an mA inComparative literature and a PhD inmedia Studies from the university ofWestern ontario. Dr. Arnott’s researchfocuses on genre theory and the epic,including its manifestation in new mediacontexts. He teaches undergraduatecourses on video game culture andmedia theory.

Playful Expressions:Video Game Mods asMedia ofCommunicationALLEN KEMPTONUniversity of Toronto

This paper looks at video gamemodifications (mods) within the contextof mcluhan’s (1964) stance that gamesare a “media of communication.” Givenrecent public exposure of mods andmodding by the gaming industry, modsare increasingly being played and made.using theories of play and culture fromauthors such as Caillois (1958), Bakhtin(1965), and Grimes and Feenberg(2009), I consider the role of mods asforms of playful expressions andinterpersonal communication inmcluhan’s terms. With a brief look at thehistory of modding as a practice and themeaning it has conveyed to players, Ifocus on two primary aspects of mods asa media of communication. First, I look atways mods form a dialogue betweenplayers and authors, focusing on mods asa “translation” of experience for theplayer. The second part integrates thecommunity aspect, bearing in mind theidea that games “are extensions of socialman and of the body politic”, focusing onthe dialogue that occurs through modsbetween players, authors, and theircommunities. Concluding, I stress theimportance of mods in video gameexperience, as more people seek toutilize and make them, changing theirexperience and interpretation of a game.

AllEN KEmPToN is a PhD Student at theuniversity of Toronto’s Faculty ofInformation. His interests lie at theintersection of human experience andtechnology, particularly video games.Allen’s work is theory-centered andfocuses on bringing together play,games, and social structures under aphenomenological lens.

ResonantConnections:McLuhan and theNew Literary PracticeSTUART PURCELLUniversity of Glasgow

This paper applies the key concepts ofmarshall mcluhan’s co-authoredposthumous works, The laws of media[1988] and The Global Village [1989], tonew literary practice. Taking Davidmitchell’s recent novel and Twitter work,Slade House [2015] and @I_Bombadil[2015], as a case study example of newliterary practice, it demonstrates the needfor a media-based perspective thataddresses cross- and multi-media writingand accounts for the specificities of themedium as an inextricable part of the workitself. The “resonant connections” indicatedby this paper’s title therefore operate ontwo distinct levels. Firstly, in applyingmcluhan’s tetrad – his “laws of media” – toDavid mitchell’s Slade House and@I_Bombadil, the way in which the authormakes resonant connections between hisworks by extending his literary practice andthreading it through the functionalcharacteristics and structural biases of anewer medium is illuminated andarticulated. Secondly, in applying the keyconcepts of mcluhan’s co-authoredposthumous works to new literary practice,a critical vocabulary can be established thatdescribes new methods and modes ofexperimental writing yet to be fullyformulated in the field.

STuART J. PuRCEll holds degrees inBusiness law and marketing, andEnglish literature from the university ofStrathclyde, and a masters inmodernities from the university ofGlasgow. He is currently completing anAHRC-funded PhD in English literatureand media Theory at the university ofGlasgow, focusing on new literarypractice.L@stujampur

43

VIC 206 SUNDAY OCT 16, 3:30 PMPANEL 3.2.4

Media LiteracyChair ALEX KUSKIS

The extensions ofMcLuhan, and thechallenges andsuccesses incarrying McLuhan'sideas into publiceducationNEIL ANDERSEN, CAROL ARCUSThe Association for Media Literacy

The extensions of mcluhan, and thechallenges and successes in carryingmcluhan's ideas into public education –Neil Andersen and Carol Arcus Theevolution of technologies—in particularwireless devices and easy production anddistribution—have created enormousopportunities and challenges for studentlearning. The City as Classroom hasarguably become both The World asClassroom and The Self as Classroom. Sohow might mcluhan’s ideas address andsupport 21st century educationchallenges? How might his theories bemade accessible and serviceable tochildren and youth? ‘Acoustic space’ is amore important metaphor now than ithas ever been as our online experienceputs us at the centre of our virtual world.Students need to know and understandtheir relative positions, locations,affordances and responsibilities(sometimes referred to as DigitalCitizenship). Students need to know andunderstand the benefits and hazards of avariety of media technologies and formsso they can use them ethically and safely.They also need to develop strategies thatwill help them balance their media diets,their physical and mental health. So whydoes digital literacy curriculum lackmcluhan’s perspective?

NEIl ANDERSEN is President of theAssociation for media literacy (ontario). CARol ARCuS is Vice President of TheAssociation for media literacy, an ontarioorganization since 1978.

McLuhan and the‘Agency’ Question or‘Media Technology &Its HistoricalTrajectory’ANTHONY CRISTIANOUniversity of Toronto

Drawing chiefly from the worksunderstanding media and The laws ofmedia, the aim of this paper is tounderstand and question mcluhan’sposition on agency, that it, to investigatethe historical trajectory of mediatechnology and the agent or agencybehind its alleged movement forward.The issue rests dormant in the idea thatmedia are an extension of humanabilities and have the potential ofimproving our lot, which originated withthe first scholar of electronic media:marshall mcluhan (1911-1980). The focus of this paper will be directed atarriving at workable answers to theagency questions, and toelucidate the position of andcontribution to the same, given bymcluhan’s studies and insights.

ANTHoNy CRISTIANo is a film and mediascholar. His artistic and scholarly workhas been published internationally—countries include uS, uK, Norway,Poland, New zealand, and Italy. He is theuRAm media Studies section-editor atthe university of Toronto Press, andcurrently teaches in the ‘Books andmedia Program’ at St. michael’s College.

Students’ Learningwith an IntersubjectiveNarrative Media FormYUKO TSUCHIYAHiroshima University of Economics

Disaster Risk Reduction andUnderstanding Others.marshall mcluhan stated “the medium isthe message” and proclaimed thatpeople should be affected not by themedia content but its form. We recognizethe world differently through differentmedia forms. In this research, I focus onthis interaction between media formsand world perception, and propose touse it for pedagogy. I discuss designing amedia workshop about “linking” digitalstorytelling for disaster risk reductioneducation and understanding others.Great earthquakes, landslides, andtyphoons—Japan has recently sufferedfrom a lot of big disasters. It is importantthat disaster victims’ experiences arehanded down to the next generation.However, receiving victims’ experiencesis not easy. Since young receivers do nothave real experiences, it is difficult toimagine and feel what actuallyhappened and to accept their own lives.In this workshop, through the storygeneration activity based on a fieldworkinterview, participants give meaning toothers’ experiences and make sense ofthem. others’ experiences are no longersomebody else’s problems and others’stories become a part of their ownstories. By examining a workshop held inHiroshima, I would like to show a storylink to connect people’s experiences bymeaning-making acts in an inter-subjective media form.

yuKo TSuCHIyA is an Associate Professorat the Faculty of Economics, Hiroshimauniversity of Economics, Japan. Shereceived m.A. in communications fromNew york university and m.A. ininformation studies from the universityof Tokyo. Her research currently focuseson creative media literacy and digitalstorytelling for community engagement.L@yukonyunyu

McLuhan’s IdeasApplied to EmpiricalResearchVARVARA CHUMAKOVANational Reserach University

How TV Constructs the Social Space inRussian Villages.The main aim of this paper is to show theapplication of marshall mcluhan’s tetrad,visual and acoustic spaces, and clichéand archetype. These methodologicalinstruments were applied to the study ofmedia consumption and usage inRussian rural areas. The basis of thisresearch is formed by four expeditionsconducted in villages of Kostroma region(June 2012), Rostov-on-Don region(June-July 2013), Republic of Tatarstan(may 2014) and Irkuts region (2014). Wemade in-depth semi-structuredinterviews with permanent residents ofthe village, which showed thier attitudeand perception of the TV content. First,clichés in TV content enhance thefragmentation of reality; alienation ofthe village from other country; the mythof "the good tsar and bad boyars"; andthe immediacy of life. Second, the ideasof dialoge in culture; the connectivenesswith other country; “the bright future”are obsolete. Third, the fears of theoutside; and the idea of the permanentruler are retrieved from the archaic past.Finally, the borders around the villageare reversed into virtual consumption ofglobal events; and the present time ofthe village is reversed intopseudonostalgy about uSSR.

VARVARA CHumAKoVA is teacher atDepartment of media of Communication,media and Design Faculty, NationalResearch university Higher School ofEconomics (moscow, Russia). She earneda PhD in Cultural Studies from StateInstitution of Art Studies (moscow,Russia). The topic of PhD is “Herbertmarshall mcluhan’s Conception: themedia in Social and Cultural Dynamics”.

TOWN HALL MEETING

Rethinking the Global Villagein an era of Cities and Soft PowerCurated by DAVID NOSTBAKKEN. Chair GAIL LORD.Participants JOSH BASSECHES, KAREN CARTER, RITA DAVIES, GAIL LORD, NAMUGENYI KIWANUKA, MARK SURMAN

BADER THEATRE SUNDAY OCT 16, 5:30 PM

44

JoSH BASSECHES is the Director and CEoof the Royal ontario museum. He played acentral role in the decade-longtransformation pf the Peabody Essexmuseum in Salem massachusetts. He wasthe Executive Director of the Harvardmuseum of Natural History. He holds anmBA from Harvard university and is a PhDCandidate in the History of Arts andArchitecture at the Boston university’sGraduate School of Arts and Science. Hisvision is to enhance the relevance andimpact of “the museum”.L@ROMtoronto

KAREN CARTER is Executive Director ofmyseum of Toronto. She is co-founder ofBlack Artists’ Network and Dialogue(BAND), the organization dedicated to thepromotion of black artists in Canada andabroad. She has over twenty years ofexperience and volunteering in a range ofarts, culture and heritage settings inToronto. She has a BA in History and latinAmerican and Caribbean Studies, Bachelorof Education, and a master of Arts degreein Sociology and Equity Studies.L@KCintoronto

RITA DAVIES is Chair of the ontario ArtsCouncil. She was formerly the Director ofCulture for the City of Toronto, andprevious to that was the Executive Directorof the Toronto Arts Council. most recently,Rita established Culture Capital, whichprovides consulting services on culturalplanning, cultural policy development,and governance and board development.She has sat on a number of not-for-profitarts boards, including the Art of TimeEnsemble, Fall for Dance and Theatre Passemuraille.L@ConseilartsON

GAIl loRD is co-founder and co-presidentof lord Cultural Resources. With Barry lord,she is co-editor of The Manual ofMuseum Planning (1991, 1999, 2012),coauthor of The Manual of MuseumManagement (1997 and 2009) and Artists,Patrons and the Public: Why CultureChanges. In Cities, Museums and SoftPower (2015) Gail demonstrates why andhow museums and cities are using theirsoft power to address some of the mostimportant issues of our time. In 2014 Gailwas appointed officer of the order of Artsin France, and in 2016 was awarded theorder of Canada.L@Gail_Lord

NAm KIWANuKA is a multi-platformjournalist and the new host of The Agendain the Summer at TVo, ontario’seducational broadcast service. Nam hasworked with CNN, BET, NBA TV, Sportsnet,ET Canada and much/mTV Canada. She haswritten for the Toronto Star, The Globe andmail, xoJane.com, upscale magazine, theHartford Courant, Jane magazine, was theeditor of the African Business Journal, andwas a columnist for BBC Focus on Africamagazine. Nam was also named EmergingFilmmaker for the Class of 2013 by theReelWorld Film Festival.L@namshine

mARK SuRmAN is Executive Director ofmozilla, the global community that keepsthe web open and free, and a loudproponent of universal web literacy. Part ofhis work is to protect the open web. marklaunched maker Party and mozillalearning Networks — major initiativesthat help people teach and learn the web.mark is a prominent thinker and thoughtleader — his analysis and opinions havebeen featured in The Washington Post,NPR, CNN, Fast Company and dozens ofother publications. L@msurman

Soft power is the exercise of influence throughattraction, persuasion, and agenda setting ratherthan military or economic coercion. For two dayswe have been discussion the impact, influence andenduring value of a group of thought leaders whocame to represent the “Toronto School”. This townhall enthusiastically throws open the door to thecity. The City will be the “Toronto School” classroomfor the evening. Here members of the class willexplore the influences of soft power in civicdiscourse, cultural change and and collectiveintelligence. For the last year the McLuhan Centrefor Culture and Technology has been engaged in a

community building exercise of consultations,Monday Night Seminars, workshops, labs and booksalons under the banner of “City as Classroom”.These activities and the Town Hall Meeting aredesigned to embrace the shaping influence of arts,cultural, civil society, business and industry andemerging communities within the city. From theTown Hall to the halls of learning and back again,the Toronto School will be envisioned as asustainable and value force having found its placein the city and the global community that hascongregated in Toronto for the conference.

45

Instagram Photo Contest

TAKE A PICTURE OR ASELFIE WITHNORTHROP FRYE

Be creative!

O # TAG IT #selFrye

Upload the phototo your Instagramand tag #selFryeto be enteredinto the contest

WIN

Follow @mcluhancentreand win a “Cool Medium” T-shirt

)

AWARDS GALA DINNERSchool is out. Let us play!

Over a fresh Canadian food galaxy and wine of critical

anatomy and fearful symmetry, join with friends and

colleagues to toast our collaboration of thought and

discussion.

There will be special guests, and greetings to cheer on

our growing community having seen the “then” and

“now” and looking to pursue the “next”. Outstanding

paper awards will be announced.

Surprises and prizes as good cheer arises.

Menumesclun Spring mix with Cherry Tomatoes, Feta and Citrus VinaigretteSeasonal and locally Sourced Fresh Vegetablesmushroom RisottoGrilled Breast of Chicken with a Wild mushroom and Vic Riesling PanJus Reduction, or oven Roasted Quinoa and Soy Cheese stuffed BellPepper served with a Sundried Tomato BisquePumpkin Cheesecake Tart with Toasted Pumpkin Seed Brittle andCinnamon Whipped CreamSelection of White and Red WineFair Trade Colombian Coffee, orange Pekoe Tea

Tickets for guests available at the registration desk Dress code: semi-formal

VICTORIA COLLEGE SUNDAY OCT 16, 7:30 PM

The Medium and the Light Award

Inaugurated as part of the mcluhan Centenary celebrations atSt. michael's College, university of Toronto, in 2011, Themedium and the light Award is an ongoing program of Themarshall mcluhan Initiative (mmI) at St. Paul's College, theuniversity of manitoba, marshall’s first post-secondary almamater. late mmI Co-Director Richard J. osicki (1946-2012)established the award to acknowledge “a person, group ororganization that has made a significant contribution toreligious communication inspired by observations andnotions put forward by marshall mcluhan." The award, inspired by the work The Medium and the Light:Reflections on Religion (1999), posthumously edited by hisson Eric and Fr. Jacek Szklarek, recognizes those who focusattention on mcluhan's Catholic faith and/or his Canadianprairie roots as integral to his work and who thereby extendthat work in probing the effects of media and communicationstechnology on human beings.

2016 recipient will be announced during the banquet.

Past Recipients:2011 Fr. Pierre Babin, omi (1925-2012)2012 Dr. Thomas Cooper2013 Dr. Eric mcluhan2014 Fr. John J. Pungente, S.J.2015 Richard J. osicki (1946-2012;

awarded posthumously)

St. Paul’s CollegeMarshall McLuhan Initiative

Espresso B k LaunchThere is no time to waste. Meet the authors

during the break as they present their books

with microphone in hand, each with ten

minutes of fame to inspire.

It is a Gutenberg moment. Some will launch their

new books. Some will remind you of past must-

reads. Some will take you in unexpected

directions, as McLuhan would say, “Where no

man has set foot!”

you will have a chance to mix it up with the

authors, who will of course have their texts

available for purchase, or will direct you to the

appropriate vendor. Enjoy a coffee with

colleagues in a moment of animated literary

exchange.

Friday October 14

Saturday October 15

Sunday October 16

At 5:00 PM, Bader Theatre, Lobby

The Toronto School holds a book exhibitionoffering conference attendees theopportunity to purchase publications.

Head over to the VIC Foyer!

5%

OFF

SELECTED

CONFERENCE

TITLES

You wrote it yourself.Why not publish it yourself?The u of T Bookstore’s Book PoD service providesoptions for print copies of your work. using theEspresso Book machine, we can produce perfectbound books with a black-and-white interior andfull-colour cover. This is a cost-effective way to printshort runs.

Already know it will be a best seller?We can arrange for larger print runs, as well asbooks with colour interiors.

For more information visitbookpod.uoftbookstore.com

What we offerCost effective short runslow set-up feesonline sales supportPrinting of rare, public domain booksChoose from over 4 million books, including

titles from the university of Toronto librariesdatabase

47

CONFERENCE SPEAKERS

ANDERSEN Neil, 3.2.4ARCuS Carol, 3.2.4ARNoTT luke, 3.2.3BAIRD Iain, 2.2.1 BARBoSA Rodrigo m., 3.1.4BASBAum Sérgio, 1.2.5BASSECHES Josh, Town Hall m., oct 16BASTIANSEN Henrik Grue, 3.1.4BElANGER marc, 1.2.2BENDER Cora, 2.1.1BENNATo Davide, 2.1.4 BERNICo matt, 2.1.2BERTRAND Karine, 2.1.1BRATICH Jack, Plenary G, oct 16BREITSAmETER Sabine, 2.2.1 BRoomER Stephen, 3.1.1BuEll Timothy, 1.1.4 BuxToN William, Plenary A, oct 14CARTER Karen, Town Hall m., oct 16CAVEll Richard, Plenary C, oct 15CHANDlER Curry, 1.2.2CHENEy michael, 1.1.2CHRySTAll Andrew, 3.1.2CHumAKoVA Varvara, 3.2.4CHuNN Ian, 1.1.3CoHEN Hart, Plenary B, oct 14; 2.1.1ColomBI Alessandro, 2.2.2ComoR Edward, 2.1.3CRISTIANo Anthony, 3.2.4CzEGlEDy Nina, 3.2.1DARRoCH michael, Plenary B, oct 14DAVIES Rita, Town Hall m., oct 16DE KERCKHoVE Derrick, 1.1.1DEAN malcolm, 2.2.4 DERIu Fabrizio, 1.2.5DETTloFF Dean, 1.2.1DI mARTINo Carmine, 2.1.2DIAmoND Sara, Plenary F, oct 16ElDER Bruce, 3.1.1ElIzoNDo Jesús octavio, 2.2.5ENNS Anthony, 3.1.2ERIoN Gerald, 1.2.2FIoRmoNTE Domenico, 3.1.3FuyARCHuK Andrew, 1.2.1GAJJAlA Radhika, Plenary G, oct 16GAlEWICz Cezary, 1.2.1GARloCK George, 1.1.1GENoSKo Gary, Plenary D, oct 15GIBSoN Twyla, Plenary A, oct 14GIllIES Donald, 1.1.1GomEz Henry, 1.2.4

GoTTlIEB Baruch, 2.1.4 GRoDSKy Nicholas, 1.2.3HABERFEllNER Helga-liz, 1.1.1HAKANEN Ernest, 1.2.3HARP Jerry, Plenary B, oct 14HAy James, Plenary G, oct 16HAyNES W.lance, 1.1.4 HEyDoN Jeff, 1.2.3HEyER Paul, Plenary B, oct 14; 1.1.2; 2.1.1HIlDEBRAND Julia, 1.2.3HoFFERT Paul, 2.2.3HoWlEy Kevin, 3.1.3HuTCHoN KAWASAKI Kathy, 1.1.1; 2.2.2HuWS ursula, Plenary F, oct 16INGVARSSoN Jonas, 3.2.2 JuNyK Ihor, 3.1.1KEANE John, 2.1.3KEHARA Hiroki, 2.2.4 KEmPToN Allen, 3.2.3KINGWEll mark, Plenary D, oct 15KIWANuKA Namugenyi, Town Hall m., oct 16KlASSEN Helmut, 1.1.3Klym Natalie, 1.2.3KREWANI Angela, 2.2.4 KRoKER Arthur, Plenary C, oct 15KuKIElKo-RoGozINSKA Kalina, 3.1.4lAmBERTI Elena, Plenary E, oct 15lANGloIS Ganaele, Plenary G, oct 16lAuDER Adam, 1.2.5lE FuSTEC Claude, Plenary D, oct 15lERmAN lior, 3.2.1lEVINSoN Paul, 1.2.3lIEN Jakob, 3.2.2 lIPToN mark, Plenary F, oct 16loGAN Robert K., 1.1.1loRD Gail, Town Hall m., oct 16lyuBCHENKo Irina, 3.1.1mARCHESSAulT Janine, Plenary B, oct 14mARRoNE Daniel, 2.2.3mARTEl Sara, Plenary G, oct 16mARTIN George, 2.2.1 mASoN lance, 2.2.2mClEoD RoGERS Jaqueline, 1.2.2mCluHAN Eric, 1.1.1, 2.2.2mCmullAN John, 2.2.4 mCRAE laura, 1.1.3mEyRoWITz Joshua, Plenary C, oct 15mIRoSHNICHENKo Andrey, 3.2.3mIyATA masako, 2.2.4 moRAIS Philip, 3.1.3muRATA mariko, 2.2.4

NoRTHCoTE Graeme, 3.2.2 NoSTBAKKEN David, 1.1.1o'GoRmAN marcel, 2.2.3olSoN David, 1.1.1ouSTINoFF michaël, 1.2.4 PEDERSEN Isabel, 3.1.1PEREz mery, 2.2.1 PETRICK Kamilla, Plenary G, oct 16PICCHIoNE John, 2.2.3PIREDDu mario, 2.2.2PoWE B.W., Plenary E, oct 15PRuSKA-olDENHoF Izabella, 3.1.1PuGEN Adam, 2.2.5PuRCEll Stuart, 3.2.3RAlSToN SAul John, Keynote, oct 14RATTo matt, 2.1.4 REIlly Father leo, 1.1.1RESCH Gabby, 2.1.4 RIGGINS Stephen Harold, 1.2.5RoBERTSoN Craig, Plenary G, oct 16RoDRIGuES Cathy, 1.1.1RoSE Phil, 1.1.2; 2.1.2RuSSEll GRAHAm Brian, Plenary A, oct 14SANToS luiza, 3.1.2SCHüTTPElz Erhard, Plenary B, oct 14; 3.1.2SCoBIE Niel, 3.1.3SCoTT Robert, 1.2.4 SEDoRE mark, 2.2.5SEVIllA Amanda, 3.2.1SHARmA Sarah, Plenary G, oct 16SHoHET GluzBERG Jonathan, 3.2.1SNoWDEN Collette, 3.1.4SouTHWICK Dan, 2.1.4 STAHlmAN mark, 2.2.5STEPHENS Niall, 2.1.2STolz Benjamin, 2.2.5STouT Andrew, 1.2.1SuRmAN mark, Town Hall m., oct 16SuTToN Cathie, 2.1.1TANIGAWA Ryuichi, 2.2.4 TEllES marcio, 3.2.2 ToWNS Armond, Plenary G, oct 16TRINTA Aluizio R., 1.2.4 TSuCHIyA yuko, 3.2.4VAN DEN BERG Sara, 1.1.4 WATSoN Rita, Plenary E, oct 15WEllmAN Barry, 2.1.4 WRoBEl Ruthanne, 1.1.3youNG liam, 2.1.3zlATIC Thomas D., 1.1.4

W

48

Across2. Enchanting quality7. Aristotelian cause10. Along with Fiction, and

Displacement12. The Reel World13. Author of Fighting for Life15. Author of A Descent into the

Maelstrom16. Expert Systems18. Canadian pianist19. Jacqueline of the Toronto School23. The most populous

metropolitan area in Canada24. Won thing25. Italian saint28. To receive or come to have

possession29. An Inventory of Effects31. A kind of space32. Guidance Automation Toolkit34. Be Happy37. Jamaican reggae singer39. I don’t remember40. Author of Laws of Media43. Another kind of space48. Gigabit Ethernet49. Human Interface link51. Computer mouse's Inventor52. Charitable giver54. Digital Audio Tape55 Not in the pink56. our permanent address58. maximum Expected operating

Value59. of course60. Professional wrestler Tonga Fifita63. I don’t explain64. Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-

Century Studies67. The Timid Giant69. Counter70. uS Department of Justice71. Plant type72. Period of darkness77. As classrom79. A fellow or tutor of a college82. Tom of the Toronto School 83. ontario84. Holiday85. zener cards87. Author of The Cod Fisheries 89. Just-made94. Alberta95. Jakarta’s island97. Innis’s native city98. Harley of the Toronto School102. organitzacio del Tractat de

l'Atlantic Nord

105. Technical information106. Author of The Crucifixion of

Intellectual Man107. The poor man’s credit card110. Innis’s concept111. Not cool112. A kind of kebab114. The Scent of Time 115. Profile of the Crowd116. Things voyagers bring home117. Bucky the genius

Down1. The upper part2. To be understood3. Author of The Wealth of Nations4. Highway hazard5. Resonant utterance or word6. Italian neo-marxist theorist and

politician 7. Author of The Bush Garden8. less cooked9. Academic Performance Index

10. Author of From Cliché toArchetype

11. laws of media12. The message14. No Good17. Acoustic or Visual 20. Absence of sound 21. Third go around22. The Social Hormone24. It creates privacy26. Internet Service27. Association of Gospel ministries

International30. Grammatical case32. Sigfried, historian33. Author of The Other Hemisphere35. Superhero36. Co-author of Take Today38. Dorothy, the anthropologist41. Stylish42. The antennae of the race44. Ted of the Toronto School45. Delivered

46. No Discernible Effect47. The mother of necessities50. Educated, according to Frye53. open office55. A relative57. Stimulate, as an appetite58. She learns to write61. Alessandro Volta62. Not be serious64. International literacy Institute65. Thomas in the learning of His

Time 66. Computer Science68. Internet archive69. mechanical73. Industrial society74. Guatemala75. Human Resources76. Primary or secondary78. Then, Now, Next79. Digital Input80. Smallest of the Great lakes81. Noon

86. Prefaced87. Horror novel88. Software Development Kit90. Author of The Will to Believe91. Saint92. Adrien, american professional

boxer 93. The village96. Ilia, Soviet-born actor99. Blackberry100. Kind of alcohol101. Author of The Hidden

Dimension103. like, similar to104. Atlas contents107. mobile108. Disorderly crowd109. Educational research112. Download manager113. Folio

Puzzle me this! James Joyce’s puns were crossroads of meaning according to inveterate punster MarshallMcLuhan. A bit of a puzzle to some. But cool. Here is a chance to untangle the puzzle ofwords that meet at the crossroads of the Toronto School.Be the first to complete the puzzle and win a “Cool Medium” T-shirt!

WHAT'S NEXT

49

This fall the McLuhan Centre for Culture & Technology at theUniversity of Toronto is stepping out of the university and intothe city, to better understand who we are, what matters to us,and where we might be going in a networked and rapidlychanging world.The McLuhan Salons will take place in six different dynamiccity locations further dissolving the boundaries of the universityand the city in bringing the multi-disciplinary multi-practiceapproaches to bear made famous by Marshall McLuhan. The McLuhan Centre and these six salons are committed tobreaking down the silos of academic disciplines, theuniversity and society, public and private enterprise, art,

business, civil society and individuals in order to release theenergy of new and outrageous ideas, innovative thought, andtransformative understanding and action.The McLuhan Salons position the city as instructive inrethinking the larger interconnected global village. Thecollectivity of our global thought, actions and generationalevolution are the defining principles the global humancondition which we wish to explore.Each Salon will commence with moderated probativediscussion within a panel of top leaders and thinkers, and willengage the audience.

www.mcluhansalons.ca

Rethinking the Global Village

Six standout eventsSix big ideas

Six Toronto hot spots

Inaugural SalonWednesday November 2, 20166:00 PM, Toronto City Hall100 Queen St W, Toronto

Curators: Paolo Granata and David Nostbakken

NightSEMINARS

MONDAY A roster of programs for Fall2016/Winter 2017 brings togetheran eclectic mix of innovators and

thinkers from the university and thelarger global village.

The McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology, Faculty ofInformation (iSchool) at the University of Toronto, is pleasedto announce a Fall 2016/Winter 2017 rollout of events.Weekly sessions carry on the “Monday Night Seminar”tradition of McLuhan, where open, frank and sometimesexplosive exchange takes place in the same intimate CoachHouse setting where McLuhan once held court.This program of events is designed to challenge notions,provoke thought and help us imagine our collective future.

2016/2017 theme:“The new shape of things: Big Data, Big Stories”

Inaugural SeminarMonday November 7, 20166:00 PM, McLuhan Centre39A Queen’s Park Crescent E, Toronto

www.mcluhan.utoronto.ca

50

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Honorary PatronThe Hon. ELIzABETH DOWDESWELL

Lieutenant Governor of Ontario

Honorary CommitteeLARRy ALFORD, University of Toronto Libraries; RANDy

BOyAGODA, University of St. Michael’s College in theUniversity of Toronto; DAVID CAMERON, Faculty of Artsand Science, University of Toronto; DERRICk DE

kERCkHOVE, University of Toronto; WENDy DUFF, Facultyof Information (iSchool), University of Toronto;CHARLIE kEIL, Innis College, University of Toronto; GAIL

LORD, Lord Cultural Resources; MICHAEL MACMILLAN,Blue Ant Media; DON MCLEAN, Faculty of Music,University of Toronto; MICHAEL MCLUHAN, MarshallMcLuhan Estate; DAVID MULRONEy, University of St.Michael’s College in the University of Toronto;WILLIAM ROBINS, Victoria University in the University ofToronto; DOMINIQUE SCHEFFEL-DUNAND, york University;NORA yOUNG, CBC.

Conference ChairPAOLO GRANATA, University of Bologna, VisitingProfessor University of Toronto

Organizing CommitteeSEAMUS ROSS, McLuhan Centre for Culture andTechnology, University of Toronto; DAVID NOSTBAkkEN,McLuhan Centre for Culture and Technology,University of Toronto; ANGELA ESTERHAMMER, VictoriaCollege, University of Toronto; MARk MCGOWAN, St.Michael’s College, University of Toronto.

Program CommitteeWILLIAM BUxTON, Concordia University; VITTORE

CASAROSA, University of Pisa; RICHARD CAVELL,University of British Columbia; COSTIS DALLAS,University of Toronto; MARCEL DANESI, University ofToronto; MICHAEL DARROCH, Windsor University; kEVIN

DOWLER, york University; DANIEL DRACHE, yorkUniversity; BRUCE ELDER, Ryerson University; GARy

GENOSkO, University of Ontario Institute ofTechnology; SARA GRIMES, University of Toronto; JERRy

HARP, Lewis & Clark College; SUSAN HODGETT, Ulster

University; MARk kINGWELL, University of Toronto;ELENA LAMBERTI, University of Bologna; ROBERT k.LOGAN, University of Toronto; ANNE MACLENNAN, yorkUniversity; JANINE MARCHESSAULT, york University; ERIC

MCLUHAN, Independent Scholar; JOSHUA MEyROWITz,University of New Hampshire; PAUL MOORE, RyersonUniversity; JEREMy PACkER, University of TorontoMississauga; DANIEL PARé, University of Ottawa; MATT

RATTO, University of Toronto; LESLIE REGAN SHADE,University of Toronto; JILL ROSS, University of Toronto;STEPHEN RUPP, University of Toronto; SARAH SHARMA,University of Toronto Mississauga; GABRIELLE SLOWEy,york University; LANCE STRATE, Fordham University;RITA WATSON, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

“McLuhan on Campus” Exhibition CommitteeMATTHEW BROWER, Faculty of Information (iSchool),University of Toronto; LAURA CUNNINGHAM, John M.kelly Library, University of St. Michael’s College;SIMON ROGERS, John M. kelly Library, University of St.Michael’s College; JOHN SHOESMITH, Thomas FisherRare Book Library, University of Toronto, kALINA

NEDELCHEVA, kATHERINE ING, Exhibition Assistants.

Guerrilla VolunteersEMMA FINDLAy-WHITE (coordinator), BRENDA BONGOLAN,ANGELA CAO, STACy COSTA, ROWAN DALkIN, kELLy DON,SOLI DUBASH, AISLIN FLyNN, SHAUNIE FRONTIN, SHAQ

HOSEIN, ALICE kIM, DANIELLE MEADE, MARCO PICCOLO,ALExANDER SHENOUDA, kelvin SHEUNG yU, JESSICA

TURNER, BRENNA WILLIAMSON, MEGAN WILSON.

Thanks toCHRISTOPHER ADAMS, University of Manitoba; FRANCISCO

ALVAREz, Heritage Toronto; ROBERTO ALVAREz, ExecutiveAssistant to John Ralston Saul; JESSICA BARR,University of St. Michael’s College Archives; CAMILLE

BEGIN, Heritage Toronto; CAROLyN BENNETT, Office ofthe Lieutenant Governor of Ontario; ENNIS BLENTIC,Innis College, University of Toronto; MENAHEM

BLONDHEIM, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; GIOVANNI

BOzzO, Italian Cultural Institute Toronto; SHAUNA BRAIL,University of Toronto; CARMEN CACHIA, John M. kellyLibrary; CARyL CLARk, Faculty of Music, University of

51

Toronto; THOMAS CONNELLy, Office of the LieutenantGovernor of Ontario; ALEATHA COx, Faculty ofInformation, University of Toronto; GLENN CUMMING,Faculty of Information, University of Toronto; JULIA

CULPEPER, Victoria University in the University ofToronto; BRIAN CHARLES CURRAN, University of TorontoBookstore; ROBERT DAVIDSON, Northrop Frye Centre;LUCA DE BIASE, Nòva Sole24Ore; ADELAIDE DE MENIL, TheRock Foundation; SARA DIAMOND, Ocad University;ANNE DONDERTMAN, T. Fisher Rare Book Library,University of Toronto; MATTHEW DOyLE, University ofSt. Michael’s College; SHEILA EATON, University of St.Michael’s College; PAUL ELIE, Georgetown University;kATHRyN ELTON, University of St. Michael’s College;HOWARD ENGEL, University of Manitoba, MarshallMcLuhan Initiative; SILVIA FABBRI; Father JAMES FARGE,Centre for Medieval Studies; LUIGI FERRARA, GeorgeBrown College; THOMAS FINAN, Walter J. Ong Archive,Saint Louis University; BARBARA FISCHER, Art Museum,University of Toronto; ALISON FORRESTER, University ofSt. Michael’s College in the University of Toronto;CRISTINA FRIAS, International Council for CanadianStudies; MARNEE GAMBLE, UofT Archives and RecordsManagement Services; SAL GRECO, RyersonUniversity; PATRICIA GUéRIN, Alliance FrançaiseToronto; SALLy HAN, Economic Development &Culture, Toronto; ROBERT HARRIS, CBC; STEVE HICkS,Faculty of Music, University of Toronto; SHERIL HOOk,John M. kelly Library, University of Toronto; PENELOPE

IRONSTONE, Canadian Communication Association;PENNy JOHNSON, pianist; LIESL JOSON, John M. kellyLibrary; NISH kANDASAMy, University of St. Michael’sCollege in the University of Toronto; TREVOR kELLy, Tanzan Graphics; ROBIN kESTER, Faculty of Arts andScience, University of Toronto; TyS kLUMPENHOUWER,UofT Archives and Records Management Services;STEVEN kOSCHUk, University of St. Michael’s College;AGNES kRUCHIO; ALEx kUSkIS, Media EcologyAssociation; SyLVIA LASSAM, Trinity College; THIERRy

LASSERRE, Alliance Française Toronto; ALICE LEE,George Brown College; BRIAN LEVINE, Glen GouldFoundation; ROMI LEVINE, University of Toronto News;kAREN LOLLAR, Media Ecology Association; BRETT

LUNCEFORD, Media Ecology Association; LORyL

MACDONALD, T. Fisher Rare Book Library; kATE

MARSHALL, Heritage Toronto; ROBERTO DANTE MARTELLA,Grano; JOHN MCGREEVy, McGreevy Production;JAQUELINE MCLEOD ROGERS, University of Winnipeg;ANDREW MCLUHAN; GLEN MENzIES, Faculty ofInformation, University of Toronto; SEAN MOONEy,Chief Curator, The Rock Foundation; TERRy NICHOLSON,Economic Development & Culture, Toronto; kATHLEEN

O'BRIEN, Faculty of Information, University of Toronto;DAVID OLSON, University of Toronto; TOM OSBORNE,Victoria University in the University of Toronto; MIRA

OVANIN, Lord Cultural Resources; CIDALIA PAUL, OcadUniversity; GORDON PEPPER, Saskatchewan FilmpoolCooperative; JANIS PETERS; FAyE PERkINS, ReallyRecords; DOMENICO PIETROPAOLO, University of Toronto;DENISE PINTO, Jane’s Walk; STEPHEN POSEN, GlennGould Estate; JAy PRATT, Faculty of Arts and Science,University of Toronto; ADAM PUGEN, Faculty ofInformation, University of Toronto; JAMIE QUADROS,Victoria University in the University of Toronto; MARIA

QUIROz, Victoria University in the University ofToronto; ROBIN RIx, Office of the Lieutenant Governorof Ontario; RAy ROBERTS, Glenn Gould Estate; PHIL

ROSE, Media Ecology Association; ALESSANDRO

RUGGERA, Italian Cultural Institute Toronto; FELICITy

SCHERk, Economic Development & Culture, Toronto;JAMES SCOTT, Walter J. Ong Archive, Saint LouisUniversity; LEONA SEELy, McLuhan Centre for Culture &Technology; kATHERINE SHyJAk, Faculty of Information,University of Toronto; DAVID SkINNER, york University;STEFAN SLOVAk, University of St. Michael’s College;MAUREEN SMITH, Art Museum, University of Toronto;MARTIN STIGLIO, Associazione Archi; PAUL THéBERGE,Carleton University; kALVIN TROUP, Media EcologyAssociation; LORNE TULk; kEVIN VALBONESI, LordCultural Resources; SANDRA VALDETTARO, CiudadUniversitaria Rosario; SARA VAN DEN BERG, Walter J.Ong Archive, Saint Louis University; MANDA VRkLJAN,John M. kelly Library; yONI VAN DEN EEDE, VrijeUniversiteit Brussel; MAITRI VOSkO, Innis College,University of Toronto; SONIA WAITE, Holiday Innyorkville; BENJAMIN WESTSTRATE, Innis College,University of Toronto; RUTHANNE WROBEL, University ofManitoba, Marshall McLuhan Initiative.

@mcluhanCHI@mcluhancentre@mcluhancentre www.thetorontoschool.ca

L