Dear MEA Colleagues
The collection of essays Media and Formal Cause edited by Eric McLuhan and published by NeoPoiesis Press is a book of great importance to the field of Media Ecology and McLuhan Studies. If you have not yet read it I urge you to do so. Corey Anton and I have both written papers discussing McLuhan’s notion of formal cause which we plan to publish in a collection of essays reacting to and commenting on Media and Formal Cause. The abstracts of these papers are reproduced below. Any one wanting to read the complete papers should email Corey or me off line and we will email the papers to you. Corey and I will be joined by Lance Strate as editors of this collection. The purpose of this communication is to invite you to contribute to this collection by writing an essay sharing your thoughts of McLuhan’s use of formal cause.
The deadline for submitting a proposal in the form of an abstract will be March 18 with a final draft of the paper due by July 21, 2012. We look forward to your responses and if you are interested in joining the project we would appreciate a letter of intent as soon as possible. Thank you for your attention.
Sincerely yours
Bob Logan
Here is the abstract of Corey’s paper:
McLuhan, Formal Cause, and The Future of Technological Mediation
Corey Anton
Abstract: By re-examining the thought of Marshall McLuhan, showing how his work relies upon the notion of formal cause, this paper offers a heuristic framework for understanding the nature and future of technological mediation. It not only helps to disclose a great deal of coherence and order (a systematic method) to McLuhan’s thought, it also provides a useful multidisciplinary orientation for future research into the various impacts of technology upon thought, action, and life more broadly.
Here is the abstract of my paper
McLuhan and Causality: Technological Determinism, Formal Cause and Emergence
Robert K. Logan
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