The Monday Night Seminars carry on the tradition of Marshall McLuhan’s public seminars at the University of Toronto. They are designed to challenge prevailing cultural notions about technology and provoke new insight on the possibilities for a more equitable technological future.
All seminars take place in the same intimate Coach House setting where McLuhan once held court. In this up-close and personal environment, a range of thinkers: academics, activists, scientists, artists, designers, and planners will explore digital culture. Select seminars will be led by the Centre's Working Groups creating a bridge between research happening in the space and these public forums.
The Monday Night Seminars run from 6:00 – 8:00 pm. They are free of charge to attend, but registration is required through Eventbrite. A link is posted on social media when registration is open.
Images (right): Courtesy Robert Lansdale Photography Ltd and the University of Toronto Archives.
McLuhan’s The Mechanical Bride: Folklore of Industrial Man acts as inspiration for this year’s investigation of machinic logics in culture. Evolving from last year’s considerations in MsUnderstanding Media, the series asks what it looks like if we don’t believe the hype?
Delving into smart cities, data justice, robots + AI, hard + soft ware, quantified selfhood, alternative sensory experiences, and militaristic media, it raises questions: What is the consensual narrative of the “tech bro” today? What are the implications of this folklore on how we both understand and act in our day-to-day lives? What is the promise and where is it not being kept? How do we use technology to upend the machinic logics of the Mechanical Bro?
Speakers: Lisa Nakamura, Tara McPherson, David Parisi, Nasma Ahmed and the Digital Justice Lab, Mel Gregg, Natasha Dow Schull, Morehshin Allahyari, Simone Browne, Shannon Mattern, Geoffrey Winthrop-Young, plus more soon...
The complete program of discussions will be posted in the Fall.
Logo design: Jana Jifi
MsUnderstanding Media
September 18, 2017 - April 9, 2018
An international collaborative project that invited media scholars to visit the McLuhan Centre to engage with, and extend McLuhan’s formative insights, in conversation with feminist approaches to technology. The project, inaugurated in 2017 by Sarah Sharma, Director of the McLuhan Centre, was highlighted through the Monday Night Seminars and will be captured in a publication by the same name.
PROGRAM
How to MsUnderstand Media: Incubator, Gun, CRISPR and
the Fearless Girl
Anne Balsamo, University of Texas Dallas
Sarah Banet-Weiser, University of Southern California-Annenberg
Sara Martel, The Institute for Better Health
Judith Nicholson, Wilfred Laurier University
Spinning the Global with Textile Media
Radhika Gajjala, Bowling Green State University
Ganaele Langlois, York University
Dori Tunstall, OCAD University
Offsite Workshop: If McLuhan was a Spinster and Massaging
the Non-Human
Ganaele Langlois + Radhika Gajjala
Contemporary Textile Studio Cooperative
Automating Injustice
Rachel Hall, Syracuse University
Alex Hanna, University of Toronto
Rhonda McEwen, University of Toronto
Armond Towns, University of Denver
Platform Labour’s Algorithmic Frictions
Tero Karppi, University of Toronto
Safiya Noble, University of Southern California-Annenburg
Data Justice Across Environmental Publics
Beth Coleman, University of Waterloo
Michelle Murphy, University of Toronto
Media Labours of Love
Brooke Erin Duffy, Cornell University
Jenna Jacobson, Ryerson University
Leslie Shade, University of Toronto
Of Man Caves and Basements: Mapping Gender in Meatspace
Florence Chee, Loyola University Chicago
Emily Flynn-Jones, Wilfred Laurier University
Nicholas Taylor, North Carolina State University
Lurk Over Here: Digital Bystander Culture
Carrie Rentschler, McGill University
Wendy Komiotis, METRAC
Andrea Slane, UOIT
Glitching the Code of the Techno-Logic: the NO!!!BOT
Praba Pilar, Performance Artist
Shame Shame Shame (refresh)
Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Brown University
Susanna Paasonen, University of Turku
We Interrupt This Program: Indigenous Media Tactics in Canada
A book launch and discussion with:
John H.M. Kelly, CIRCLE
Miranda Brady, Carleton University
Terril Calder, Independent Film Director