by Marshall McLuhan Centennial
Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980) was already a famous Canadian name for my husband and me in our student days at the University of Manitoba where he too received his first degrees. You may have heard the phrases “the medium is the message”, “global village” and many others that he was noted for as a scholar and critic of modern mass communications.
Now you can hear him speak at this new website. We really enjoyed the excellent introduction by Tom Wolfe. (via)
Lots of resources on the net including the official McLuhan site listing all the world-wide events planned for this commemoration year as well as that of the official publisher. Makes me think I need to add some of his books to my reading list. How about you – are you familiar with McLuhan?
February 4, 2011 in Books, Concepts, Culture by Marja-Leena
He was well ahead of the game when it came to predicting the future of community and technology. Let’s hope things keep improving in the world.
Always a hero of mine. Amazing how with his phrase “the global village”, and everything that lay behind it, he anticipated the Internet, blogging etc.
Susan, yes, he had amazing visions of the future. Yes to hopes of improvement!
Joe, a hero of yours – great choice, I say!
He plays a small but vital role in Woody Allen’s Annie Hall. Woody is waiting in a cinema queue getting more and more irritated by a couple of NY intellectuals engaged in fanciful talk and who eventually invoke McLuhan to make a point. Woody steps out of the queue, grabs a guy who’s passing by, and says, “This is Marshall McLuhan. Tell them what they said wasn’t true.” Which McLuhan does. Celeb questionnaires often ask what magic power would the celeb most like; being able to conjure up the ultimate conversational putdown would be high on my list.
BB, if you go to the site I linked to, you’ll see that very scene! It’s quite funny.