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Our in-person Monday Night Seminars are on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Visit our Research page to see our 2020/21 events!
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, approximately two weeks before each event date.
Images (right): Courtesy Robert Lansdale Photography Ltd and the University of Toronto Archives.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - WINTER 2020
Cancel Service, Remove Line
JANUARY 27, 2020
A packed Town Hall on Cancel Culture with 4 hot takes from Beverly Bain, Sarah Hagi, Elisha Lim, and Christine Shaw.
Smooth Operator
FEBRUARY 24, 2020
A night on the dark side of social media's content moderation industry with Dr. Sarah T. Roberts.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - FALL 2019
Line Dead, Repair Calls
SEPTEMBER 23, 2019
Jayna Brown and Steven Jackson opened the season on September 23 with a thought-provoking discussion of the relationship between technological repair and care for end-times!
Unlisted
NOVEMBER 4, 2019
Sandy Stone and Cassius Adair ask what's the Hot MessAge lurking in the Trans/Desire/Computer trifecta?
Unlimited Family Plan
OCTOBER 21, 2019
Sophie Lewis in conversation with Sarah Sharma about the relationship between reproductive technology, automation, gestational justice and Sophie's new book Full Surrogacy Now (Verso, 2019).
Hot Line, Cold Call
NOVEMBER 18, 2019
Yuri Furuhata, Mél Hogan, and Chris Russill cooled us down with their hot take on Environmental Media: sweaty Zuckerberg, smart air-conditioning, site-specific weather control and the geopolitics of planetary imaging.
Call Forward
DECEMBER 2, 2019
Skawennati shared her current project, Calico & Camouflage, a fashion line of Resistance Wear. Co-presented with the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA).
Of Other Internets
JANUARY 28, 2019
A night of nets - the soviet net, the queer net and ARPA-net. Nick Dyer-Witherford, Cait McKinney, and Ben Peters asked: how do specific network structures determine different political possibilities?
ctrl alt DIRT
FEBRUARY 11, 2019
A discussion about designing digital strategies and technological tactics beyond respectability, hygiene, and publicness. We lost ctrl, thought alt, and got into the DIRT with Zach Blas (Glodsmiths, University of London), T.L. Cowan (University of Toronto), and Jasmine Rault (University of Toronto).
deBrogramming App Studies
FEBRUARY 25, 2019
A discussion of where a new sub-field of study—App Studies—should or could be heading with Stefanie Duguay, Aphra Kerr, and David Nieborg.
Source Code: Illegible
MARCH 18, 2019
A discussion with Simone Browne (University of Texas, Austin) and the McLuhan Centre PhD Illegible Media Working Group members: Jessica Lapp, Rianka Singh, Karen Dewart McEwen, and Rebecca Noone.
A Pedestrian View of Sidewalk
MARCH 4, 2019
A discussion of Sidewalk Toronto with Beth Coleman, Shannon Mattern, and Bianca Wylie.
New Technological Ir/rationalities
APRIL 1, 2019
A discussion with Sun-ha Hong (Simon Fraser University), Selena Nemorin (University College London), and Whitney Phillips (Syracuse University).
platform mechanics and the undercommons
SEPTEMBER 17, 2018
A night with Lisa Nakamura (Gwendolyn Calvert Baker Collegiate Professor in the Department of American Cultures at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor) and Tara McPherson (Chair and Professor of Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts and Director of the Sidney Harman Academy for Polymathic Studies) on the logics of the platforms: how platform mechanics facilitates white supremacist activity, the machinic desire for authentic contact with others, and how racial empathy is becoming increasingly automated.
CTRL:CMD:EXE <an evening on media war>
OCTOBER 22, 2018
An evening on a media theory for war with Megan Boler (University of Toronto), Jeremy Packer (University of Toronto), and Geoffrey Winthrop-Young (University of British Columbia).
#Fitter #Happier #MoreProductive
NOVEMBER 19, 2018
A night with Melissa Gregg (Intel Corporation), Alison Hearn (University of Western Ontario) + Natasha Down Schull (New York University).
Building: <Black> <Feminist> / <Queer><Digital> <Justice> Query: Community Activators
OCTOBER 1, 2018
Presented by this year’s McLuhan Centre Working Group, Black Technoscience “Here”: community organizers and researchers Ladan Siad (Data Justice Researcher, Technoscience Research Unit, Toronto) and Nasma Ahmed (Director, Digital Justice Lab, Toronto) in conversation on how data justice practices and visions are being created among Black feminist/queer data justice communities in the city of Toronto and beyond.
Senses_Sensibilities + Touch_Technology
NOVEMBER 5, 2018
A night thinking through how discourses of technological touch have been led by the logics of #MechanicalBro with Rhonda McEwen (University of Toronto) and David Parisi (College of Charleston).
Re/Figuration: Digital Tactics 4 Digital Colonialism
DECEMBER 3, 2018
A inspiring night with New Media Artist, Morehshin Allahyari (New York City).
MsUnderstanding Media
September 18, 2017 - April 9, 2018
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