Archive for the ‘Literature’ Category


You’ll find Included in this collection a selection of public presentations and thoughts on our spiritual and ecological crises, including reflections on Jacques Ellul, Simone Weil, Teilhard de Chardin, Marshall McLuhan and Anne Carson, lyrics for an unfinished rock opera, a dramatic homily on Harry Potter, meditations on Dune Part One, Nomadland and Eternals, poems […]



A Review of Adeena Karasick’s Book, Massaging the Medium: Seven Pechakuchas – By Robert K. Logan Although as the editor of the journal New Explorations, I have assigned the review of Adeena Karasick’s book Massaging the Medium: Seven Pechakuchas to Steve Hicks, I decided to also review her book, as I so enjoyed reading it. […]



To Marshall McLuhan   You were right, dear professor, the great vortex came in time whirling us into the pond in which Narcissus saw his                          beauteous reflection.   No longer an extension of the hand, the mouth, the ear, no longer a tool, […]



It’s a book, No – it’s a poem, No – it’s a diary, No – it’s an art book No – it’s a searing analysis of today’s politics, No – it’s an indictment of the misuse of digital media seen through the lens of media ecology, No – it’s a review of poetry and song […]



Click on the image to read the text The J. R. de J. Jackson Lecture Thursday, March 14, 2019 – 4:15 pm Thursday, March 14, 2019 – 6:00 pm 91 Charles St. West, Victoria College Chapel In the University of Toronto Paula McDowell, English Dept., New York University Paula McDowell specializes in eighteenth-century British studies, […]



R.H. Thomson performs the role of Marshall McLuhan during his time of decline & aphasia I attended a pre-opening performance of The Message last week. I was not impressed by either the play or production I witnessed, indeed I was disappointed. I know R.H. Thomson to be a highly regarded and skilled actor, but he […]



Hugh Kenner (1923-2003) By Michael Dirda, Critic, October 10, 2018 “Questioning Minds: The Letters of Guy Davenport and Hugh Kenner” has been for me, and will be for many others, the most intellectually exhilarating work published in 2018. In roughly 1,000 letters, mainly from the 1960s and ’70s, two of the great literary polymaths of the second […]



               Marshall McLuhan’s library at U of T holds 6,000 publications, mostly books (photo by Romi Levine) (Click on image to expand view)  Second UNESCO Memory of The World designation for U of T, fifth overall for Canada University of Toronto professor and famed media theorist Marshall McLuhan’s legacy continues […]



What do Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, media theorist Marshall McLuhan and Canadian popular culture have in common? This is the question that Mark A. McCutcheon seeks to answer in his new book, The Medium Is the Monster: Canadian Adaptations of Frankenstein and the Discourse of Technology, published in 2018 by Athabasca University Press. In this unique and penetrating analysis, McCutcheon […]



The Medium Is the Monster: Canadian Adaptations of Frankenstein & the Discourse of Technology About the Book: Technology, a word that emerged historically first to denote the study of any art or technique, has come, in modernity, to describe advanced machines, industrial systems, and media. McCutcheon argues that it is Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein that effectively reinvented the meaning of […]