Understanding Media Intensive
Understanding Media Intensive is a 12-part look at media theorist Marshall McLuhan’s major 1964 work Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, taught by Andrew McLuhan, Director of The McLuhan Institute. In an age where our media environment conditions and structures our reality in increasingly potent ways, Understanding Media provides important foundational knowledge on how our cultural traumas and tropes are embodied in technologies. This course will provide lecture and discussion on Part One of the book, which puts forth a set of tools for exploring human technologies and innovations as a means to regain agency in the midst of our increasingly disorienting online lives.
Lectures will include explorations and explanations of never-before-seen author annotations, historical documents, and personal accounts. Time will also be spent on the two introductions by Marshall McLuhan, and an introduction “Foreword is Forearmed,” written in 2002/2003 by Eric McLuhan but never published. A scrapbook of materials around the publication of the book in 1964 compiled by Marshall’s wife Corinne McLuhan, containing reviews and interviews, will add further context to how the book was received and provide insight into the material under discussion.
Experience Level
Beginner to Advanced. Effort will be made to accommodate all levels of familiarity and understanding with Marshall McLuhan’s work.
Requirements
- Computer/device to watch or listen to lectures and participate in Q&A.
- Participants are asked to use a physical copy of the 2003 Gingko Press “Critical Edition” of Understanding Media, as it includes both of Marshall McLuhan’s introductions, and for easy reference to page numbers, as well as to receive full benefit from deep immersion in printed text.
- Pen and paper
Date: October 3, 2020 – December 19, 2020
Time: 02:00 pm to 05:00 pm EST
Location: Virtual
Cost
$600 USD (Live Access)
Engage in weekly lectures, live chat, and Q&A with Andrew McLuhan
$360 USD (Audit Access)
View documented weekly lectures following each session