Marshall McLuhan - Monday Night Seminar The McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology of the Coach House Institute, Faculty of Information, resumes the Monday Night Seminars at the University of Toronto’s legendary McLuhan Coach House.

 

 

Time: 6:00-8:00 pm
When: Four Mondays, starting Oct. 17 2011 (also: Oct. 31, Nov. 14, and Nov. 28)
Where: 39A Queen’s park Crescent East, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5S 2C3

Hosted by iSchool @ the University of Toronto, St. Michael’s College @ the University of Toronto, McLuhan100

Forty years ago, famous media theorist and professor Marshall McLuhan taught a series of legendary “Monday night seminars” in the celebrated Coach House—located on the physical, intellectual, and organizational boundary of the University of Toronto (UofT).
In his honour, the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology in the Coach House Institute of the UofT Faculty of Information is re-launching the Monday night seminar series at the Coach House. The program for fall 2011, “The Edge of Academe,” will begin on Oct. 17th, 2011.
The aim of the series is to renew the Coach House’s role as a space to enlist the most searching minds, the most intense visionaries, the fiercest imaginations—and give them a still, quiet place to unfetter their imaginations & (re)think the digitally-mediated world.

Context
McLuhan foresaw that expanding digital media would reshape the very fabric of society. His vision was cultural, not technological; his methods, to look askance, and ask probing questions. In his honour, we aim not at the (so-often fetishized) technologies, digital and social media, patterns of communication, and effects of information on society. Rather, the aim of the Monday night seminars will be at a higher level. How will we fashion discourse, community, culture, authority & expertise? What will be the cartographies of learning, responsibility, and compassion in this digitally mediated landscape? What will happen to learning, to inquiry, to critical intellectual debate? What will be the role of the university—and what will such a university be like?
We will set aside a priori commitment to institutional form, and imagine where intellectuals, (re)searchers, artists, practitioners and cultural activists can convene to explore the possibilities of inquiry, investigation, and debate. What would it be to recognize the far-flung forms of intense intellectual dialogues—from edgy seminars to off-beat journals to intense conversations in coffee-houses and parks? How can we exploit our familiarity with digital media and harness the technologies of change to unleash a vibrant future for profound, discontinuous, soul-redefining encounters?

Program for Spring 2012

18 June 2012, 6:00-8:00 pm
39A Queen’s park Crescent East, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5S 2C3

Making Sense of Place: Sidestage realities intersecting narratives of media influence

Discussants:

Joshua Meyrowitz, Professor & Chair of Communication Department, University of New Hampshire in Durham; Author of No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior

Shawn Micallef, Author of Frontal TO and Stroll: Psychogeographic Walking Tours of Toronto; Senior Editor Spacing; Co-founder [murmur], Toronto Star columnist, & 2011-2012 Canadian Journalism Fellow at University of Toronto’s Massey College

Derrick de Kerckhove, Professor emeritus, University of Toronto; Author of The Skin of Culture and Connected Intelligence

Probers:

Sharon Switzer – TBA, Artist; Director, TUFF and Art for Commuters; Programming curator at Pattison Onestop, which owns and operate

Dominique Scheffel-Dunand (Professor of Linguistics (York University); Director of McLuhan Program in Culture & Technology (University of Toronto)

http://www.eventbrite.com/event/3667619950/

7 May 2012, 6:00-8:00 pm
39A Queen’s park Crescent East, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5S 2C3

Digital Technologies and the Life of The Mind

Discussants:

  • Brian Cantwell Smith (Director, Coach House Institute)
  • Robert Gibbs (Director, Jackman Humanities Institute, UofT
Probe: Carolyn Taylor (Masters student, Elliot Allen Institute of Theology and Ecology, St. Michael’s College, University of Toronto)

9 April 2012, 6:00-8:00 pm
39A Queen’s park Crescent East, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5S 2C3

Books: The Humanistic Roots of The University

Discussants:

  • Elena Lamberti (Research Professor, Department of Foreign Languages and Literature, University of Bologna, Italy);
  • Eric McLuhan (Director, Media Studies at The Harris Institute for the Arts in Toronto; and McLuhan Centenary Visiting Fellow 2011-2012, University of Toronto);
  • Marc Glassman (Founder of TINARS (This Is Not a Reading Series) http://www.tinars.ca/)
Probe: Nachshon Goltz (Doctoral student, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University)

Background: Forty years ago, famous media theorist and professor Marshall McLuhan taught a series of legendary Monday night seminars in the celebrated Coach House located on the physical, intellectual, and organizational boundary of the University of Toronto (UofT). In his honour, the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology in the Coach House Institute of the UofT Faculty of Information has re-launched the Monday night seminar series. The aim of the series is to renew the Coach House’s role as a space to enlist the most searching minds, the most intense visionaries, the fiercest imaginations and give them a still, quiet place to unfetter their imaginations & (re)think the digitally-mediated world.

McLuhan foresaw that expanding digital media would reshape the very fabric of society. His vision was cultural, not technological; his methods, to look askance, and ask probing questions. In his honour, we aim not at the (so-often fetishized) technologies, digital and social media, patterns of communication, and effects of information on society. Rather, the aim of the Monday night seminars will be at a higher level. How will we fashion discourse, community, culture, authority & expertise? What will be the cartographies of learning, responsibility, and compassion in this digitally mediated landscape?

What will happen to learning, to inquiry, to critical intellectual debate? What will be the role of the university and what will such a university be like?

We will set aside a priori commitment to institutional form, and imagine where intellectuals, (re)searchers, artists, practitioners and cultural activists can convene to explore the possibilities of inquiry, investigation, and debate. What would it be to recognize the far-flung forms of intense intellectual dialogues from edgy seminars to off-beat journals to intense conversations in coffee-houses and parks? How can we exploit our familiarity with digital media and harness the technologies of change to unleash a vibrant future for profound, discontinuous, soul-redefining encounters?

 

Program for Fall 2011: “The Edge of Academe”

17 October 2011, 6:00-8:00 pm
39A Queen’s park Crescent East, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5S 2C3

New foundations (epistemology, ontology, ethics) for our digital world

Discussants:
— Pier Giorgio Di Cicco (City of Toronto second poet Laureate);
— Brian Cantwell Smith (Prof. of Information, Philosophy, Computer Science, Faculty of Information, Univ. of Toronto);
— Daniel Robinson (2011 McLuhan Centenary Visiting Fellow, Faculty of Information, Univ. of Toronto; Prof, Univ. of Western Ontario)
Probes:
— Lidija Sabados (Munk School of Global Affairs, Univ. of Toronto);
— Lisa Torjman (Manager, Social Innovation Projects, MaRS Discovery District)

31 October 2011, 6:00-8:00 pm
39A Queen’s park Crescent East, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5S 2C3

Artist as Harbringer of Cultural Change

Discussants:
— Maurice Benayoun & Florence Besançon (Université Paris 8 & École Nationale des Beaux Arts de Paris);
— Britt Welter-Nolan, Curator, Gladstone Hotel (not confirmed));
— Stephen Kline (McLuhan Centenary Visiting Fellow; Simon Fraser University)
Probe: Adam Lauder (York University)

7 November 2011

McLuhan100 THEN NOW NEXT International Conference and DEW Line Festival. Check conference program

14 November 2011, 6:00-8:00 pm
39A Queen’s park Crescent East, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5S 2C3

Artifact as Memory [canceled and rescheduled in Winter 2012]

Discussants:
— Daniel Caron, Library and Archivist of Canada, Library and Archive Canada (not confirmed)
— Seamus Ross (Dean, Faculty of Information, Univ. of Toronto)
— Shepard Fairey (Obey Giant Art and Studio Number One (not confirmed)
Probe: Martin Boyd (Translation studies, Glendon College, York University)

28 November 2011, 6:00-8:00 pm
39A Queen’s park Crescent East, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5S 2C3

The Edge, Metaphors of Being
Discussants:
— Seamus Ross (Dean and Professor, Faculty of Information, Univ. of Toronto) [tba]
— Lisa Steele and Kim Tomczak (Visual Studies Program Univ. of Toronto and cofounders of Media Arts Centre Vtape) 

— Paolo Granata (University of Bologna, McLuhan Centenary Visiting Fellow, University of Toronto)

Probe: Probe: Martin Boyd (Translation studies, Glendon College, York University)

5 December 2011, 6:00-8:00 pm
39A Queen’s park Crescent East, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5S 2C3

Performance, a Critical Path

Discussants:
— Sarah Garton Stanley (Theatre-maker and Director)
— Dennis O’Hara (Director of the Elliot Allen Institute of Theology and Ecology, St. Michael’s College at the University of Toronto)
— Peter-Kuno Murvai (PhD from École normale supérieure de Lyon, France)

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McLuhan Program – Coach House
Formerly Center for Culture and Technology
39A Queen’s park Crescent East
Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 2C3
St. Michael’s College at the University of Toronto

 
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