Book Salon and Talk by Armond R. Towns

September 6, 2022 / / No Comments

REGISTER HERE: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/mhrc-book-salon-tickets-420915929877

The Media History Research Center is running a Book Salon on September 22nd, showcasing and celebrating recent local publications. There has been a considerable amount of local scholarly output over the last couple of years but pandemic conditions have prevented some of our more traditional ways of honouring those contributions. We invite you to gather in person for a ceremonial toast and to peruse our teeming book table!

Dr. Armond R. Towns will open our event with his talk “The Medium is the Message, Revisited: Media and Black Epistemologies,” which examines the political-economic context that informed the theoretical position of mid-twentieth century Canadian media theory, particularly the work of Marshall McLuhan. It will open up new ways to think about this context in relation to not just media, but also race, humanity, and radical politics.

Dr. Towns is Associate Professor in Media and Communication Studies at Carleton University and is the author of On Black Media Philosophy (U of California Press, 2022).

This evening also marks the first edition of the new Montreal Media History Seminar: a series of public talks on recent media historical scholarship that will run throughout 2022-23. For the full schedule click here

Come join us on Sept 22.

For more information, contact MHRC co-ordinator, Laura Pannekoek, laura.pannekoek@gmail.com

American Blockbuster honored in Choice Magazine

May 26, 2022 / / No Comments

MHRC Co-Director Charles Acland’s American Blockbuster: Movies, Technology, and Wonder was recently selected as Choice magazine’s 2021 Outstanding Title.

In American Blockbuster Charles R. Acland charts the origins, impact, and dynamics of the blockbuster movie, the most visible, entertaining, and disparaged cultural form. Acland narrates how blockbusters emerged from Hollywood’s turn to a hit-driven focus during the industry’s business crisis in the 1950s. Movies became bigger, louder, and more spectacular. They also became prototypes for ideas and commodities associated with the future of technology and culture, accelerating the prominence of technological innovation in modern American life. Acland shows that blockbusters continue to be more than just movies; they are industrial strategies and complex cultural machines designed to normalize the ideologies of our technological age.

Find more information on the book here

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