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http://sim.management.dal.ca/Images/Continuing_Education/IM_Public_Lectures/
IM%20Public%20Lecture%20Logo.jpgPublic Lecture

Marshall McLuhan at 100: Centenary Year Reflections
Presented by Dr. Terrence Gordon 

Date: Thursday, November 3rd, 2011
Time: 12:00-1:00pm
Location: Dalhousie University, Kenneth C. Rowe Building, Room 1020

Abstract

At the height of his popularity on the international lecture circuit in the
1960s and '70s, Marshall McLuhan was both hailed for evoking a future of
universal understanding and unity through computer technology and vilified
for contributing to the demise of print culture.  One hundred years after
his birth and thirty years after his death, building on the enduring legacy
of his writings depends on avoiding such simplistic and radical
interpretations of the framework that McLuhan offered for a full
understanding of the relationship between culture and technology.  This
presentation distils essential McLuhan, including rarely explored dimensions
of his thought, in order to shows its relevance to twenty-first century
life.

 

Speaker Information

http://sim.management.dal.ca/Images/Continuing_Education/IM_Public_Lectures/
Terrence%20Gordon.JPGDr. Terrence Gordon began his teaching career in the
Department of Romance Languages at the University of Alberta, before joining
what was then the Department of Romance Languages at Dalhousie University in
1972.  Over the next thirty years, he taught a variety of courses, including
translation, linguistics, the role of radio propaganda in World War II, and
Marshall McLuhan's media analysis.  In 1998-99 he launched courses in
Italian that would lead to the formation of Dalhousie's program in Italian
Studies.  At the time of his retirement from full-time teaching at
Dalhousie, he held the Alexander McLeod Chair in Modern Languages and has
since continued teaching and curriculum development in semantics, semiotics,
linguistic theory, and history of linguistics at St. Mary's University.  Dr.
Gordon was the first North American scholar to have his work published in
the Cahiers Ferdinand de Saussure (Geneva), and the first scholar to be
awarded a grant from the Basic English Foundation (U.K.) for research on the
life and work of Charles Kay Ogden.  His work has appeared in publications
as diverse as Meta, Babel, Indogermanische Forschungen, The Semiotic Web,
Historiographia Linguistica, Histoire-Epistemologie-Langage, CMLR, The
French Review, Language Quarterly, et cetera, Dalhousie Review, and many
others. The first of his four books on the life and work of Marshall McLuhan
brought him the invitation to write McLuhan's biography and he has
subsequently produced critical editions of four of McLuhan's major works.
He is rumoured to be the same person whose name appears as Terry Gordon on
real estate signs around Halifax and a popular teacher at the Nova Scotia
Association of REALTORsR