Herbert Marshall McLuhan was born on the 21st of July in 1911 in Edmonton, Alberta. He earned a BA from the University of Manitoba in 1934 and a Masters of Arts in 1935. He received a scholarship to study at Cambridge, where, in 1942, he earned another BA and MA. Several years later, he returned to Cambridge to complete a PhD in 1942 with his thesis, “The Place of Thomas Nashe in the Learning of his Time". In 1937, he converted to Catholicism and in 1938, he married the drama student Corrine Lewis. Together they had 6 children. In 1946, McLuhan moved to Toronto where he joined the English Faculty as St. Michael’s College. It was during this time that he began seriously studying communication and media. During his lifetime he wrote a number of critically acclaimed, and occasionally controversial, books in the field that explored how culture and media are intimately intertwined, establishing himself as a leading public intellectual in communication studies. Some of his best known books include The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962), Understanding Media (1964), and The Medium is the Massage (1967). He remained at the University of Toronto for the rest of his career where he taught, wrote and served as the director of the University's Center for Culture and Technology. In the same time period, he also acted as a consultant to different corporations and select governmental organizations. He supervised Sheila Watson as she pursued her doctoral thesis at the University of Toronto and they subsequently became friends and worked together in various capacities. He died on December 31, 1980.
Header Image: Robert Lansdale Photography/University of Toronto Archives
McLuhan and the catholic university
McLuhan believed the university, drawing on the Christian liberal arts tradition, could serve each key facet of contemporary society- the electronic, the democratic and the corporate -while simultaneously fulfilling the needs of the student who are themselves deeply embedded in all of these interconnected environments. A self-described apocalyptic, he believed that, “Our only hope is apocalypse” or the salvation promised by the coming of God. This belief, according to McLuhan, provides the Catholic with the knowledge, “that the human race is particular has been assumed into the life of the Divine Logos, which is Christ”, enabling them to better understand, and thus better positioning them to act, to transform the present moment. While this belief has the potential to justly anchor the contemporary Catholic university, McLuhan y did not integrate it with a meaningful power analysis and was, arguably, naïve about the dangers and negative impacts of the contemporary, Eurocentric neoliberal university on both students and society more broadly. McLuhan did not consider the ways that the whiteness and ongoing corporatization of the Catholic university would undermine its ability to produce critically thinking, civic minded, morally driven citizens and Catholics. Thus, his vision for the contemporary university is a hopeful but naïve one.
Collection
Essays
“Culture is our business”
“The humanities in the electronic age”
“New media and new education”
“The University in the electric age”
“The public and private sectors in the electric age”
“Art as anti-environment”
“The new education”
“The future of education”
“Adopt a college”
“English literature as control tower in communications study”
“Alternatives to the university”
“Love”
Books
The Medium and the Light
“Culture is our business”
“The humanities in the electronic age”
“New media and new education”
“The University in the electric age”
“The public and private sectors in the electric age”
“Art as anti-environment”
“The new education”
“The future of education”
“Adopt a college”
“English literature as control tower in communications study”
“Alternatives to the university”
“Love”
Books
The Medium and the Light
MARSHALL McLuhan “Education of Free Men in Democracy: The Liberal Arts"
In this article, McLuhan argues that post-secondary education in any society that claims to be free and democratic, must teach the liberal arts. McLuhan defined the liberal arts explicitly as those disciplines reiterated and/or defined by Thomas Aquinas in the European Christian tradition, which allow free men to, “realize their own humanity.” For McLuhan, the most important of the liberal arts disciplines was “the art of speech.” Which is a skill of, “the most immediate practical concern” in a democratic society according to McLuhan because, “democracy … requires intense cultivation of language, of the teachings of human association.” He wrote that the “art of speech” should be foundational in a liberal arts education both because of its importance to democratic society and communal existence and because it, “naturally looks to, and leads on to, the speculative virtue of wisdom and science.”
McLuhan, Marshall. “Education of Free Men in Democracy: The Liberal Arts ", 1943, Box 1 File 3, Marshall McLuhan Collection,
University of St. Michael's College Special Collections and Archives, Toronto, Canada.
This essay can be found in the University of St. Michael's College, Marshall McLuhan Collection, Fonds
McLuhan, Marshall. “Education of Free Men in Democracy: The Liberal Arts ", 1943, Box 1 File 3, Marshall McLuhan Collection,
University of St. Michael's College Special Collections and Archives, Toronto, Canada.
This essay can be found in the University of St. Michael's College, Marshall McLuhan Collection, Fonds
Marshall mcluhan “The public and private sectors in the electric age “
In this essay, McLuhan argues that, “Our (society’s) job is to discover an education adequate for a corporate world citizen (which must also)…enable the private values to be incorporated in the new electric technology of the corporate electric age.” McLuhan believes that in the electronic age, the university is essential to both the corporate world and public security apparatus, turning it into “the organs of perception of the entire society.” He argues that the university is not yet prepared to fulfill this role but is fundamentally optimistic that the university, by embracing its’ roles and providing a liberal arts education, can become adapted to the electronic age.
McLuhan, Marshall. “The public and private sectors in the electric age “, 1964, Box 3 File 117, Marshall McLuhan Collection, University of St. Michael’s College Special Collections and Archives, Toronto, Canada.
This essay can be found in the University of St. Michael's College, Marshall McLuhan Collection, Fonds
McLuhan, Marshall. “The public and private sectors in the electric age “, 1964, Box 3 File 117, Marshall McLuhan Collection, University of St. Michael’s College Special Collections and Archives, Toronto, Canada.
This essay can be found in the University of St. Michael's College, Marshall McLuhan Collection, Fonds
Marshall Mcluhan “The humanities in the electronic age"
In this essay, McLuhan argues that the humanities are best suited to meet the demands of the corporate, electronic age because they allow us to most clearly perceive the “unified language” of history and to understand how it weaves itself into the contemporary environment and will inform the future. Thus, as McLuhan believes that the electric age no longer allows, “the possibility of the separate” and that higher education has become “a necessity of production”, in this essay, McLuhan argues for the broad adoption of a producer-oriented liberal arts education embedded in the European tradition of the humanities. He believes that such an education is needed to prepare North American students to live well in what he would name the contemporary corporate, electronic and democratic age.
McLuhan, Marshall. “The humanities in the electronic age",1964, Box 1 File 47, Marshall McLuhan Collection, University of St. Michael's College Special Collections and Archives, Toronto, Canada.
This essay can be found in the University of St. Michael's College, Marshall McLuhan Collection, Fonds
McLuhan, Marshall. “The humanities in the electronic age",1964, Box 1 File 47, Marshall McLuhan Collection, University of St. Michael's College Special Collections and Archives, Toronto, Canada.
This essay can be found in the University of St. Michael's College, Marshall McLuhan Collection, Fonds
Marshall Mcluhan The Medium and the Light: Reflections on Religion
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This book is a collection of decades of McLuhan’s material, including speeches, essays and various remarks, on religion, and more specifically, on Christianity. In the book, McLuhan offers insights on Christian theology and explores the ways he believes the Church and North American Catholicism must adapt to survive and thrive in the contemporary, electronic, globalized world. Ranging from his opinion on how Christians are best situated to perceive the changes in and environment of the contemporary world to his opinion on the growing secularization of North American society, this book is a necessary read for anyone who wishes to understand McLuhan’s relationship with and opinions on Christianity and Catholicism.
McLuhan, Marshall. The Medium and the Light: Reflections on Religion. Edited by Eric McLuhan and Jacek Szklarek, Wipf & Stock, 2010. Print. Read Book: WorldCat UofT |
Marshall Mcluhan “The Playboy Interview: Marshall McLuhan”
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In this 1969 interview with Playboy magazine, McLuhan discusses his perspective on the enormous power of media to shape environment, and thus, all of our lives. McLuhan discusses how he views history primarily through the lens of the development of media and illuminates how he primarily conceptualized history as interconnected yet discrete periods of linearly progressing time most powerfully defined by different mediums. He continues on to describe the effects of the corporate, electronic 20th century on education, children, states and society at large and warns that institutions and individuals must both understand and take part in the ways technology and media is globalizing and changing the world in order to survive.
McLuhan, Marshall. Interview with Playboy Magazine, “The Playboy Interview: Marshall McLuhan”, March 1969. Read Article: WorldCat UofT |
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