The Return of Marshall McLuhan

On the medium:

I was a philosophy major at the Jesuit U of Detroit (1949) where I got an early look at "The Mechanical Bride" (1951) by reading his pieces in the lay Catholic weekly "Commonweal". So when asked for an American Civilization doctoral thesis in 1951 at Western Reserve University, I proposed McLuhan's ideas.

"Huh?" "Who he?" was the official response! In 1955-56 I had a Ford grant in New York to study how high school English teachers should deal with the new medium of TV. Marshall was the visiting professor at TC, Columbia that year and we had several satisfying meetings. He remained helpfully friendly until I panned "The Gutenberg Galaxy". He was not a generous disputant!

Patrick D. Hazard, Weimar, Germany.