Eric McLuhan
Eric McLuhan (born 1941)[1] is a communications theorist and media ecologist, one of two sons of Marshall McLuhan.
Biography
Eric McLuhan received his BSc in Communications from Wisconsin State University in 1972 and his M.A. and PhD in English Literature from the University of Dallas in 1980 and 1982.[2] In 2007, he received the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity from the Media Ecology Association. In 2011, the University of St. Michael’s College in Toronto, Canada awarded him an L.L.D. of Sacred Letters.
Marshall McLuhan, Neil Postman and Eric McLuhan together coined the term 'media ecology ' during a conversation in 1967.[3]
Marshall and Eric McLuhan co-authored the books Laws of Media: The New Science (1990), Media and Formal Cause (2011), and Theories of Communication (2011). According to McLuhan associate Dean Motter, Eric also collaborated with his father on some books as a ghostwriter.[4]
His teaching experiences have been in the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology at the University of Toronto and with the McLuhan Program International. He was Director of Media Studies at the Harris Institute for the Arts in Toronto for 17 years. Prior to that he taught and tutored at York University, Dawson College and Ontario College of Art. Likewise, he was a founding partner at McLuhan and Davies Communications. He also performed the original Fordham Experiment.
McLuhan is the author of Electric Language (1998), The Role of Thunder in Finnegans Wake (1997) and The Sensus Communis, Synesthesia, and the Soul: An Odyssey (2015). He is also editor of the journal McLuhan Studies and has overseen several collections of his father's work: The Book of Probes (2011), Marshall McLuhan Unbound (2005, with Terrence Gordon), The Medium and the Light (2010); and the co-editor of Essential McLuhan (1997, with Frank Zingrone).
Recent work includes a collaboration with mime Wayne D. Constantineau, produced in a series called The Human Equation (BPS Books), which curiously includes a board game. Also forthcoming is: The Dance of the Ages: Egyptian Art of the Old Kingdom and Its Relevance to the Twenty-First Century, Cambridge Scholars Press.
Eric lives in Ontario, Canada, continuing in retirement to work on new books, projects & collections, his father's works, his own and with collaborators.
List of works
- City as Classroom (with Marshall McLuhan, Kathryn Hutchon), 1977
- Laws of Media: The New Science (with Marshall McLuhan), U of Toronto Press, 1988
- The Role of Thunder in Finnegans Wake, U of Toronto Press, 1997
- Electric Language: Understanding the Present, Stoddart, 1998
- The Human Equation, Book I: The Constant in Human Development and Culture from Pre-Literacy to Post-Literacy (with W. D. Constantineau), BPS Books, 2010
- Media and Formal Cause (with Marshall McLuhan), NeoPoeisis Press, 2011
- Theories of Communication (with Marshall McLuhan), Peter Lang, 2011
- The Human Equation, Book II: The Science of Investigation (with W. D. Constantineau), BPS Books, 2011
- The Human Equation, Book III: Know Thyself: Action and Perception (with W. D. Constantineau), BPS Books, 2012
- The Human Equation, Book IV: Mime and Media I (with W. D. Constantineau), BPS Books, 2016 [Forthcoming]
- The Human Equation, Book V: Mime and Media II (with W. D. Constantineau), BPS Books, 2016 [Forthcoming]
- Cynic Satire, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015
- The Sensus Communis: Synesthesia, and the Soul, BPS Books, 2015
Editor
- Essential McLuhan (with F. Zingrone), Stoddart, 1995
- Who Was Marshall McLuhan? (with F. Zingrone, W. Constantineau), Stoddart, 1996
- The Medium and the Light: Writings on Religion by Marshall McLuhan, (With Jacek Schlarek) Stoddart, 1998
- The Book of Probes (with W. Kuhns), Gingko Press, 2004
- McLuhan Unbound, Gingko Press, 2005
See also
References
- ↑ A History of Media, Chapter 7.2
- ↑ Eric McLuhan
- ↑ Anton, Corey (2016). "On the Roots of Media Ecology: A Micro-History and Philosophical Clarification" in Philosophies, pp.126-132
- ↑ Sanderson, Peter (October 1986). "Walt & Louise Simonson". Comics Interview (39). Fictioneer Books. pp. 62–63.
External links
- University of Toronto: Marshall McLuhan Studies: About Eric McLuhan
- Eric McLuhan homepage
- The New Nomads: Eight Characteristics of the Electric Mass Audience by Eric McLuhan
- Eric McLuhan in conversation with Laureano Ralón. Figure/Ground. August 1st, 2010