Skip to content
1981
Volume 23, Issue 1
  • ISSN: 1539-7785
  • E-ISSN: 2048-0717

Abstract

Many in recent years have been seeking solace and illumination due to trying circumstances by various means including reading. McLuhan’s broad pursuits in literature and into other written materials played an important part in the origins of media studies. This article reviews various sources to confirm as well as advocate further celebration and extension of these literary roots. Moreover, it highlights a recent translation of Machado de Assis’s classic Brazilian novel as a gateway to increased use of world literature and other diverse sources. To advance McLuhan’s and other foundational works, those involved with media ecology should consider incorporating different recently available fiction and non-fiction more extensively. Such a widening of references could help broaden perspectives, foster additional insights, and help in spiralling the field forward and upward in our times.

© 2024 Intellect Ltd
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1386/eme_00190_1
2024-04-29
2026-04-20

Metrics

Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi (2013), Americanah, Stockholm: Albert Bonniers Förlag.
     [Google Scholar]
  2. Allison, Mary Ann (2005), ‘Imagine the loneliness of an old woman’, Explorations in Media Ecology, 4:2, pp. 135–40.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Angus, Ian (2021), ‘Extended body … extended mind: The risk of thought’, Explorations in Media Ecology, 20:2, pp. 241–51.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Anton, Corey (2019), ‘Cynic Satire, Eric McLuhan (2015)’, Explorations in Media Ecology, 18:4, pp. 477–81.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Anton, Corey (2023), ‘Reading good books, further defended’, Explorations in Media Ecology, 22:1, pp. 119–25.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Bolaño, Roberto (2009), 2666: A Novel, London: Picador Reprint edition.
     [Google Scholar]
  7. Broida, Mike (2017), ‘The Brazilian novelist who inspired Borges, Márquez, and Amado’, Electric Literature, 6 June, https://electricliterature.com/the-brazilian-novelist-who-inspired-borges-marquez-and-amado/. Accessed 13 March 2022.
  8. Cali, Dennis D. (2016), ‘Personalist survey of media studies territories’, Explorations in Media Ecology, 15:2, pp. 141–58.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Cheyunski, Fred (2021), ‘An explorations in media ecology appreciative inquiry: Onward and upward’, Explorations in Media Ecology, 20:4, pp. 371–88.
     [Google Scholar]
  10. Cheyunski, Fred (2023), ‘Media ecology and change communication: Similarities, differences and opportunities for real-world synergies’, Explorations in Media Ecology, 22:1, pp. 15–31.
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Chrystall, Andrew (2015), ‘We need more imposters!’, Explorations in Media Ecology, 14:3, pp. 221–36.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. Chrystall, Andrew B. (2021), ‘McLuhan | Havelock | metaphysics’, Explorations in Media Ecology, 20:4, pp. 389–405.
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Chumakova, Varvara (2015), ‘Surviving information overload: A plea for balance’, Explorations in Media Ecology, 14:3, pp. 257–74.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Colvin, Andrew Z. (2011), ‘File:4 Milky Way (ELitU)-blank.png’, Wikimedia Commons, 27 September, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:4_Milky_Way_(ELitU)-blank.png. Accessed 15 December 2023.
  15. Dalio, Ray (2021), Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail, New York: Avid Reader Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  16. Damitr (2014), ‘File:Robert-hooke-spring.svg – derived from Robert Hooke’s work on springs appearing in Lectiones Cutlerianae published in 1679’, Wikimedia Commons, 31 January, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Robert-hooke-spring.svg. Accessed 15 December 2023.
  17. Daniels, Jessie and Thistlethwaite, Polly (2016), Being a Scholar in the Digital Era: Transforming Scholarly Practice for the Public Good, Bristol: Policy Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Eden, Michael (2016), ‘Blasting out of the vortex: Wyndham Lewis and Vorticism’, Trebuchet Magazine, 17 December, https://www.trebuchet-magazine.com/vorticism/. Accessed 19 July 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  19. Eggers, Dave (2021), The Every: A Novel, New York: Vintage.
     [Google Scholar]
  20. Eve, Martin Paul (2016), ‘Keep writing: The critique of the university in Roberto Bolaño’s 2666’, Textual Practice, 30:5, pp. 949–64.
     [Google Scholar]
  21. Fitt, Matt (2007), ‘File: Spiral-staircase-roma.jpg’, Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Spiral-Staircase-Roma.jpg. Accessed 15 December 2023.
  22. Fitz, Earl E. (2016), ‘Eca, Machado, and world literature’, Revista de Estudos Literários, 6, pp. 359–68.
     [Google Scholar]
  23. Forsberg, Geraldine E. (2014), ‘Introducing Jacques Ellul to English education’, Explorations in Media Ecology, 13:1, pp. 79–88.
     [Google Scholar]
  24. Fredrickson, Barbara L. and Joiner, Thomas (2002), ‘Positive emotions trigger upward spirals toward emotional well-being’, Psychological Science, 13:2, pp. 172–75.
     [Google Scholar]
  25. Gallo, Callie J. (2019), ‘Seeing the “excessively obvious”: The penny press, gender and work in Edgar Allan Poe’s Dupin stories’, Explorations in Media Ecology, 18:4, pp. 413–34.
     [Google Scholar]
  26. Gencarelli, Thomas (1998), ‘Special issue on media education: Introduction’, New Jersey Journal of Communication, 6:2, pp. 105–08, https://doi.org/10.1080/15456879809367341.
     [Google Scholar]
  27. Goldfajn, Tal (2020), ‘“The Greatest Defect of This Book Is You, Reader”: On two translations of Machado de Assis’s “The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas”’, Los Angeles Review of Books, 22 September, https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-greatest-defect-of-this-book-is-you-reader-on-two-translations-of-machado-de-assiss-the-posthumous-memoirs-of-bras-cubas/. Accessed 7 March 2022.
     [Google Scholar]
  28. Gordon G., Josué Baruj (2016), ‘Counterblast: Marshall McLuhan and the sphere of art’, Explorations in Media Ecology, 15:1, pp. 73–80.
     [Google Scholar]
  29. Guarracino, Serena (2014), ‘Writing “so raw and true”: Blogging in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah’, Between, 4:8, https://ojs.unica.it/index.php/between/article/view/1320. Accessed 7 March 2022.
     [Google Scholar]
  30. Hakanen, Ernest (2022), ‘Awards and dystopias’, Explorations in Media Ecology, 21:1, pp. 3–4.
     [Google Scholar]
  31. Hardenbergh, Margot (2017), ‘In memoriam Elizabeth Eisenstein, exemplary scholar’, Explorations in Media Ecology, 16:4, pp. 285–86.
     [Google Scholar]
  32. Hesse-Biber, Sharlene Nagy and Leavy, Patricia (2008), ‘Pushing on the methodological boundaries: The growing need for emergent methods within and across the disciplines’, Handbook of Emergent Methods, New York: Guilford Press, pp. 1–15.
     [Google Scholar]
  33. Hildebrand, Julia M. and Richmond, Julia C. (2021), ‘Gender and media ecology: An invited special issue’, Explorations in Media Ecology, 20:2, pp. 119–29.
     [Google Scholar]
  34. Houellebecq, Michel (2012), The Map and the Territory, New York: Knopf.
     [Google Scholar]
  35. Jenkins, Eric and Zhang, Peter (2016), ‘Deleuze the media ecologist? Extensions of and advances on McLuhan’, Explorations in Media Ecology, 15:1, pp. 55–72.
     [Google Scholar]
  36. Kangkan, iitd (2015), ‘File:Curvilinear tool path.jpg’, Wikipedia Image, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Curvilinear_tool_path.jpg. Accessed 15 December 2023.
  37. Kirsch, Adam (2016), The Global Novel: Writing the World in the 21st Century, New York: Columbia Global Reports.
     [Google Scholar]
  38. Lamberti, Elena (2012), Marshall McLuhan’s Mosaic: Probing the Literary Origins of Media Studies, Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  39. Lamberti, Elena (2014), ‘Vortexes, spirals, tetrads: McLuhan’s hyper-language as a (digital) tool for (old and new) storytelling’, Between, 4:8, https://ojs.unica.it/index.php/between/article/view/1362. Accessed 7 March 2022.
     [Google Scholar]
  40. Lee, Judith Yaross (2004), ‘Legacies: Walter J. Ong, Sj’, Explorations in Media Ecology, 3:1, pp. 1–6.
     [Google Scholar]
  41. Levin, Janna (2020), Black Hole Survival Guide, New York: Knopf.
     [Google Scholar]
  42. Lockwood, Patricia (2021), No One Is Talking About This: A Novel, New York: Riverhead Books.
     [Google Scholar]
  43. Machado de Assis, Joaquim Maria, Thomson-Deveaux, Flora and Eggers, Dave (2020), The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas, New York: Penguin.
     [Google Scholar]
  44. Martinez, Jermaine (2022), ‘It might as well be called BOOM! A probe on Zoom exhaustion’, Explorations in Media Ecology, 21:1, pp. 107–14.
     [Google Scholar]
  45. Materer, Timothy (1979), Vortex: Pound, Eliot, and Lewis, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  46. McDowell, Paula (ed.) (2023), Reading McLuhan Reading, Abingdon: Taylor & Francis.
     [Google Scholar]
  47. McLeod Rogers, Jaqueline (2021), ‘Susanne Langer, Marshall McLuhan and media ecology: Feminist principles in humanist projects’, Explorations in Media Ecology, 20:2, pp. 131–49.
     [Google Scholar]
  48. McLuhan, Eric (1997), The Role of Thunder in Finnegans Wake, Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  49. McLuhan, Eric (2015), Cynic Satire, Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
     [Google Scholar]
  50. McLuhan, Marshall and Harley, Parker (1969), Counterblast, New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Cover Image utilized by permission respectively from the Marshall McLuhan and Harley Parker Estates.
     [Google Scholar]
  51. Media Ecology Association (2023), ‘Past awards’, 28 January, https://www.media-ecology.org/Past-Awards. Accessed 19 July 2023.
  52. Moore, Geoffrey A. (2014), Crossing the Chasm, 3rd Edition: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers, New York: Collins Business Essentials.
     [Google Scholar]
  53. Moore, Geoffrey A. (2021), The Infinite Staircase: What the Universe Tells Us About Life, Ethics, and Mortality, Dallas: BenBella Books.
     [Google Scholar]
  54. Morreale, Sherwyn P., Applegate, James L., Wulff, Donald H. and Sprague, Jo (2002), ‘The scholarship of teaching and learning in communication studies, and communication scholarship in the process of teaching and learning’, in M. T. Huber and S. P. Morreale (eds), Disciplinary styles in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: Exploring Common Ground, Sterling: Stylus Publishing, LLC, pp. 107–23.
     [Google Scholar]
  55. Murakami, Haruki (1998), The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, New York: Vintage.
     [Google Scholar]
  56. Onuzulike, Uchenna (2014), ‘Nollywood video film’s impact on Nigerian and other African environments and cultures’, Explorations in Media Ecology, 13:3, pp. 285–98.
     [Google Scholar]
  57. Oswald, Kathleen F. (2009), ‘Poster, Mark: Information please: Culture and politics in the age of digital machines (2006)’, Explorations in Media Ecology, 8:4, pp. 311–14.
     [Google Scholar]
  58. Page, Ruth and Thomas, Bronwen (eds) (2011), New Narratives: Stories and Storytelling in the Digital Age, Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  59. Paglia, Camille (2002), ‘The North American intellectual tradition’, Explorations in Media Ecology, 1:1, pp. 21–30.
     [Google Scholar]
  60. Paglia, Camille (2005), Break, Blow, Burn: Camille Paglia Reads Forty-three of the World’s Best Poems, New York: Pantheon Books.
     [Google Scholar]
  61. Pamuk, Orhan (1991), The White Castle, New York: George Braziller.
     [Google Scholar]
  62. Peri Rossi, Cristina (1989), The Ship of Fools (trans. P. Hughes), Columbia, LA: Readers International.
     [Google Scholar]
  63. Polski, Maria, and Gorman, Lawrence (2014), ‘Teaching media ecology Russian style’, Explorations in Media Ecology, 13:3, pp. 331–42.
     [Google Scholar]
  64. Preciado-Hoyos, Ángela (2019), ‘Remembering Eric McLuhan’, Explorations in Media Ecology, 18:4, pp. 397–98.
     [Google Scholar]
  65. Public Domain (n.d.), ‘Wind swirls illustration’, Raw Pixel, https://www.rawpixel.com/image/7664131/image-people-pattern-logo. Accessed 15 December 2023.
  66. Robbert, Adam (2018), ‘Media ecology and Bios Theoretikos: Philosophy as extended cognition’, Explorations in Media Ecology, 17:2, pp. 137–47.
     [Google Scholar]
  67. Rouanet, Sergio Paulo (2005), ‘The Shandean form: Laurence Sterne and Machado de Assis’, Portuguese Literary and Cultural Studies, pp. 81–103.
     [Google Scholar]
  68. Sawatzky, Helma (2013), ‘Reconfigurations: Unfolding the spaces of mobile listening’, Explorations in Media Ecology, 12:1, pp. 45–57.
     [Google Scholar]
  69. Scott, Robert B. (2011), ‘The body electric: Notions of self and identity in the age of virtual reality’, Explorations in Media Ecology, 10:3, pp. 247–62.
     [Google Scholar]
  70. Scholes, Robert (2008), The Rise and Fall of English: Reconstructing English as a Discipline, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  71. Springer, Claudia (2011), ‘Watch the Birdie: Image-making and wildlife conservation’, Explorations in Media Ecology, 10:1, pp. 7–23.
     [Google Scholar]
  72. Stavans, Ilan (2018), ‘Wrestling with Machado’, The Yale Review, 106:3, pp. 81–89.
     [Google Scholar]
  73. Tanna, Natasha (2019), ‘Unravelling compulsory happiness in exile: Cristina Peri Rossi’s the Ship of Fools’, Feminist Theory, 20:1, pp. 55–72.
     [Google Scholar]
  74. Towns, Armond (2019), ‘The (black) elephant in the room: McLuhan and the racial’, Canadian Journal of Communication, 44:4, pp. 545–54.
     [Google Scholar]
  75. Villarba-Torres, Anna Christie K. (2013), ‘Baguio city and the politics of space: Creativity and innovation in a globalizing world’, Explorations in Media Ecology, 12:1, pp. 71–81.
     [Google Scholar]
  76. Watroba, Karolina (2018), ‘World literature and literary value: Is “Global” the new “Lowbrow?”’, Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry, 5:1, pp. 53–68.
     [Google Scholar]
  77. Zhou, Min (2019), ‘Marshall McLuhan’s mosaic: Probing the literary origins of media studies, Elena Lamberti (2012)’, review, Explorations in Media Ecology, 18:3, pp. 317–19.
     [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1386/eme_00190_1
Loading
Celebrating and extending the literary roots of media ecology: Spiralling forward and upward in our times
Explorations in Media Ecology 23, 25 (2024); https://doi.org/10.1386/eme_00190_1
/content/journals/10.1386/eme_00190_1
/content/journals/10.1386/eme_00190_1
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): Bras Cubas; McLuhan; media studies; non-fiction; reading; world literature

Most Cited Most Cited RSS feed

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a success
Invalid data
An error occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error
Please enter a valid_number test