Transforming McLuhan

Repositions Canadian media and culture thinker Marshall McLuhan as a uniquely important critic of modernity, resisting uncontrolled technological change. Including contributors who represent diverse academic perspectives, this book rejects the view of McLuhan as an uncritical herald of technotopia.

«Marshall McLuhan was the first to theorize and to develop a concept of media, indicating their importance to all areas of society and culture. Today media are far more pervasive than in the 1950s and 1960s when he wrote. Yet his work has still not received its due attention. ‘Transforming McLuhan’ will begin to correct this oversight.» (Mark Poster, Professor Emeritus of History and Film and Media Studies, University of California-Irvine; Author of ‘What’s the Matter with the Internet?’ and ‘Information Please’)
«‘Transforming McLuhan’ re-reads the McLuhan phenomenon in light of today’s media-saturated, 24/7 news and smartphone world. Here we meet again with the visionary Tiresias in the Underworld whose dark sayings once lit the late afternoon of the twentieth century. These critical readings create a time-out to question him again and to open space-time interstices for alternate thoughts and alternate actions.» (Michael Heim, Author of ‘Electric Language’, ‘The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality’, and ‘Virtual Realism’)
«‘Transforming McLuhan’ offers a rich and textured reconsideration of Marshall McLuhan’s ideas, resituating him within critical media studies. The book wrestles with McLuhan’s legacy, both building on his accomplishments and moving beyond them. The book demonstrates how McLuhan’s work is a better match for current multi-dimensional and ambivalent understandings of media and culture than it was for the narrower conceptions that guided those who dismissed McLuhan in his own time. The provocative and well-written essays persuasively engage in what I have called ‘morphing’ McLuhan with other key theoretical frameworks. As a result, Transforming McLuhan illustrates that cultural theorists have much to learn from McLuhanism, but that McLuhan’s perspective also has much room for enrichment from critical media studies.» (Joshua Meyrowitz, Professor, Department of Communication, University of New Hampshire; Author of ‘No Sense of Place: The Impact of Media on Social Behavior’)

«Marshall McLuhan was the first to theorize and to develop a concept of media, indicating their importance to all areas of society and culture. Today media are far more pervasive than in the 1950s and 1960s when he wrote. Yet his work has still not received its due attention. ‘Transforming McLuhan’ will begin to correct this oversight.» (Mark Poster, Professor Emeritus of History and Film and Media Studies, University of California-Irvine; Author of ‘What’s the Matter with the Internet?’ and ‘Information Please’)
«‘Transforming McLuhan’ re-reads the McLuhan phenomenon in light of today’s media-saturated, 24/7 news and smartphone world. Here we meet again with the visionary Tiresias in the Underworld whose dark sayings once lit the late afternoon of the twentieth century. These critical readings create a time-out to question him again and to open space-time interstices for alternate thoughts and alternate actions.» (Michael Heim, Author of ‘Electric Language’, ‘The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality’, and ‘Virtual Realism’)
«‘Transforming McLuhan’ offers a rich and textured reconsideration of Marshall McLuhan’s ideas, resituating him within critical media studies. The book wrestles with McLuhan’s legacy, both building on his accomplishments and moving beyond them. The book demonstrates how McLuhan’s work is a better match for current multi-dimensional and ambivalent understandings of media and culture than it was for the narrower conceptions that guided those who dismissed McLuhan in his own time. The provocative and well-written essays persuasively engage in what I have called ‘morphing’ McLuhan with other key theoretical frameworks. As a result, Transforming McLuhan illustrates that cultural theorists have much to learn from McLuhanism, but that McLuhan’s perspective also has much room for enrichment from critical media studies.» (Joshua Meyrowitz, Professor, Department of Communication, University of New Hampshire; Author of ‘No Sense of Place: The Impact of Media on Social Behavior’)

Paul Grosswiler is the author of The Method is the Message: Rethinking McLuhan Through Critical Theory (1998), as well as 30 articles and book chapters. He teaches in the department of communication and journalism at the University of Maine.