The conference is the message: Scholars gather to discuss Marshall McLuhan

U of M alumnus Marshall McLuhan’s 1967 book The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects became a bestseller and his thought continues its vast influence on media analysis and media studies today.

The Medium is the Massage by Marshall McLuhan.

The book’s title is a play on McLuhan’s oft-quoted saying, “The medium is the message,” and characterizes technologies as an extensions of humans, “illustrating how our senses are massaged and our perceptions altered as these devices become integral parts of our lives.”

It followed 1964’s Understanding Media, which according to McLuhan biographer Terrance Gordan, focuses on “the media effects that permeate society and culture, but McLuhan’s starting point is always the individual, because he defines media as technological extensions of the body.”

To celebrate and further explore that ongoing influence, the UM Archives and Special Collections will host the Jan. 18 afternoon symposium called Marshall McLuhan: Winnipeg/World: Global Village/Counter-Environment.

Presenters are: Howard Engel, The McLuhan Initiative, Winnipeg; Jacqueline McLeod Rogers, Rhetoric, Writing, and Communications Dept., University of Winnipeg; Terence Russell, Asian Studies Centre, University of Manitoba.

Two spreads from The Medium is the Massage by Marshall McLuhan.

Marshall McLuhan: Winnipeg/World: Global Village/Counter-Environment

Date and time: Jan. 18, 1 to 4 p.m.

Location: University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections, 330 Elizabeth Dafoe Library, Fort Garry Campus

Parking: http://libguides.lib.umanitoba.ca/c.php?g=503099&p=3444621

For more information: (204)474-6350 or archives [at] umanitoba [dot] ca