2019-20: Hot MessAge
HotMessAge: Media Studies Takes the Call, addressed how media and technology are central to today's pressing social, economic, and environmental situations. But media and technology are also part of forging new worlds while addressing these challenges.This year at the McLuhan Centre for Culture and Technology we amplified some of the voices inMedia Studies who offer hot takes with the cool possibilities of radical social change.
- Regular programming of Monday Night Seminars
- 8 working groups
- 4 events
- 1 PhD fellow
- 2 publications
Monday Night Seminars
The Monday Night Seminars carry on the tradition of the Centre for Culture and Technology's public seminars at the University of Toronto, first established by Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan. They are designed to challenge prevailing cultural notions about technology and provoke new insight on the possibilities for a more equitable technological future.
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.
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).
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.
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).
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!
Working Groups
A primary mode of research is the support of interdisciplinary working groups whose novel approaches to culture and technology are appropriate to the challenges of the moment while drawing from the spirit of McLuhan’s attention to the medium. Working groups consist of faculty and graduate students across the University of Toronto and are funded for up to one year to engage symposia, performances, installations, lecture series, workshops, writing retreats, and other public events. The working groups also work in consultation with the Director, Professor Sarah Sharma, to run a Monday Night Seminar.
This year the Centre received 12 working group applications and funded 8.
Reprising the Real world of Technology
- Leslie Regan Shade (Professor, Faculty of Information)
- Sara Grimes (Associate Professor, Faculty of Information and Director, KMDI and Semaphore Labs)
- Leslie Chan (Associate Professor, Centre for Critical Development Studies)
- Peter Pennefather (PhD student, Faculty of Information)
- Lee Wilkins (PhD student, Faculty of Information)
- Yolanda Zhang (PhD student, Faculty of Information)
Sonic Spaces
- Brady Peters (Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design)
- Charles Stankievech (Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design)
- Lilian Radovac (ICCIT)
- Liora Belford (Art History)
- Joseph Clarke (Art History)
- Lewis Kaye (Arts, Culture and Media)
The Consent and its Discontents
- Kristen Bos (Technoscience Research Unit/Anthropology)
- Michelle Murphy (Technoscience Research Unit/Women and Gender Studies Institute)
- T.L. Cowan (Arts, Culture and Media)
- Patrick Keilty (Faculty of Information)
- Jasmine Rault (ICCIT/Arts, Culture and Media)
- Fernanda Yanchapaxi (OISE)
- Subhanya Sivajothy (Faculty of Information)
- Aljumaine Gayle (IntersectTO)
- Sajdeep Somal (South Asian Visual Arts Centre)
- Nasma Ahmed (Digital Justice Lab)
Race, Media and Global Migration: Critical Studies in Contemporary Digital Media
- Negin Dahya (Assistant Professor, ICCIT and Faculty of Information)
- Neda Maghbouleh (Assistant Professor, Sociology)
- Nehal El-Hadi (Visiting Scholar, The City Institute, York University)
- Rula Kahil (Postdoctoral Fellow, Sociology)
- Laila Omar (PhD student, Sociology)
You're Deactivated
- Julie Chen (Assistant Professor, ICCIT)
- Alessandro Delfanti (Professor, ICCIT)
- Nicole Cohen (Associate Professor, ICCIT)
- Greig de Peuter (Associate Professor, Wilfrid Laurier)
- Julian Posada (PhD student, Faculty of Information)
- Brendan Smith (PhD student, Faculty of Information)
Digital Islamophobia
- Zeinab Farokhi (University of Toronto)
- Tanner Mirlees (University of Ontario Technology)
- Yasmin Jiwani (Concordia University)
- Megan Boler (University of Toronto)
- Victoria Tahmasebi (University of Toronto)
The Global South Feminist Media & Archives School
- Carina Guzmán (PhD student, Faculty of Information)
- Chido Muchemwa (PhD student, Faculty of Information)
- Mariam Karim (PhD student, Faculty of Information and Women and Gender Studies Institute)
- Jamila Ghaddar (PhD student, Faculty of Information)
- Henria Aton (PhD student, Faculty of Information and Centre for South Asian Studies)
6 Place Toronto
- Petros Babasikas (Assistant Professor, Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design)
- Jamie Allen (Canada Research Chair in Infrastructure, Media and Commons, NSCAD)
- Heba Mostafa (Assistant Professor, Art History)
- Charles Stankievech (Director, Visual Studies, Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design)
- Mark Sterling (Director, Urban Design, Faculty of Landscape, Architecture and Design)
Centre Events
phd Fellow
The PhD Fellowships are part of theProgram and are awarded to incoming doctoral students who's research overlaps with McLuhan Studies research and scholarship taking place at the McLuhan Centre for Culture and Technology. They are an opportunity for students to take part in, conduct, and collaborate with the Director, and affiliated faculty on McLuhan Studies.
Réka Gál (PhD student, Faculty of Information)
Publications
A collection of publications resulting from research, events, and initiatives held at the Centre for Culture and Technology.
Journal articles and special issues
Many McLuhans or None at All
Edited by Sarah Sharma
Special issue of Canadian Journal of Communication (Fall 2019)
This special issue of CJC is based on the Many McLuhans Symposium at the Centre for Culture and Technology that celebrated and marked the designation of the Marshall McLuhan Library held at the University of Toronto and the McLuhan Archives held at the Library and Archives Canada into the UNESCO Memory of the World Register. The event was organized and sponsored by the Library Archives of Canada, The Centre for Culture and Technology at the Faculty of Information, and the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library.
Transnational Feminism in a Time of Digital Islamophobia
Conference report by Zeinab Farokhi
Feminist Media Studies Journal (Fall 2019)
A conference report covering the Digital Islamophobia Working Group's event held at the Centre on March 8, 2019. The working group is in the process of turning the research from this symposium into a special issue edited by Yasmin Jiwani, Zeinab Farokhi and other members of the working group.
