New Explorations: Studies in Culture and Communication
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City as Classroom: Then, Now, Next
No full textCity as Classroom arrived in the 1970s and plunged the user into what has
subsequently become known as inquiry-based learning. The technique of asking openended
questions used then was much freer than inquiry nowadays. No answers were
given at the back of the book; this disturbed teachers at the time. Now, a great many
schools and boards are adopting the inquiry-based approach and trying to adapt it to
existing procedures: an awkward fit, a round peg in a square hole. The next phase of
educational development will see the student becoming more actively involved in
testing, gaming, and working as an environmental activist with regard to innovations and
technologies of communication—all as an integral part of the learning process
McLuhan’s Brain: A Probe into the Toronto School Legacy of Neuroscience Fiction
No full textIn his hagiography of Marshall McLuhan, Extraordinary Canadians: Marshall
McLuhan, Douglas Coupland devotes a large portion of his discussion to the
media scholar’s brain, which takes on a peculiar agency. It would be easy to
accuse Coupland of being a cognitive determinist, but to do so would ignore the
important detail that he is merely carrying on a legacy of speculative
neuroscience established by McLuhan and other members of the Toronto
School. The legacy persists today in the work of such scholars as Nicholas Carr,
Maryanne Wolfe, Bernard Stiegler, and N. Katherine Hayles. This paper offers a
brief overview of the legacy’s past and present, ultimately promoting a future of
neuroscientific speculation for brains that can engage in both slow, careful
reading and hyperactive, generative invention
The Artist’s Emergent Journey
No full textTo examine computers as a medium in the style of Marshall McLuhan, we must understand the origins of his own perceptions on the nature of media and his deep-seated religious impetus for their development. First we will uncover McLuhan’s reasoning in his description of the artist and the occult origins of his categories of hot and cool media. This will prepare us to recognize these categories when they are reformulated by cyberneticist Norbert Wiener and ethnographer Sherry Turkle. Then, as we consider the roles “black boxes” play in contemporary art and theory, many ways of bringing McLuhan’s insights on space perception and the role of the artist up to date for the work of defining and explaining cyberspace will be demonstrated. Through this work the paradoxical morality of McLuhan’s decision to not make moral value judgments will have been made clear. 
Probe: David French on Monoculture, and Walter J. Ong’s Thought
No full textProbe: David French on Monoculture, and Walter J. Ong’s Though
CAN AI REINVENT COMMUNICATION? A Marshall McLuhan Odyssey and Probe
No full textCAN AI REINVENT COMMUNICATION? A Marshall McLuhan Odyssey and Prob
McLuhan Up Close and Personal: A Review of Chase Joynt’s Vantage Points: On Media as Trans Memoir (2024, Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 256 pages)
No full textMcLuhan Up Close and Personal: A Review of Chase Joynt’s Vantage Points: On Media as Trans Memoir (2024, Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 256 pages
MYSTERIA: OR, IN DEFENCE OF ENDLESS REFLECTION
No full textMYSTERIA: OR, IN DEFENCE OF ENDLESS REFLECTIO
Probe: Philip Shenon’s 2025 Book Jesus Wept, and Walter J. Ong’s Thought
No full textProbe: Philip Shenon’s 2025 Book Jesus Wept, and Walter J. Ong’s Though