"Crises Then as Now": New book views McLuhan's work in the context of two of his contemporaries

Wed. Apr. 16, 2025

“I can think of no better scholars than McLeod Rogers (left), Ellen Shoshkes and Charissa Terranova to have tackled this complex subject matter. Highly recommended!” Oliver A. I. Botar, Associate Director, Graduate Studies and Research, University of Manitoba in the Advance Praise for "Crises Then as Now"

Congratulations to Jaqueline McLeod Rogers, Ellen Shoshkes, and Charissa N. Terranova on their new book, Crises Then as Now: Marshall McLuhan, with Urbanist Jaqueline Tyrwhitt and Artist György Kepes. Dr. McLeod Rogers, Professor in the Department of Rhetoric, Writing, and Communications, is an authority on the work of the late Dr. Marshall McLuhan, academic and intellectual, whose work on communications and media in the 50s/60s/70s was groundbreaking. Previously, McLeod Rogers published McLuhan’s Techno-Sensorium City: Coming to our Senses in a Programmed Environment (Lexington Books, 2021), and co-edited MCLUHAN AND THE ARTS: Imaginations (University of Winnipeg’s Faculty of Education, 2018) with Adam Lauder, and Finding McLuhan: The Mind/The Man/The Message (University of Regina Press, 2015) with Tracy Whalen and Catherine G. Taylor.

In Crises Then as Now, McLeod Rogers views McLuhan’s work in the context of two of his contemporaries, i.e., Jaqueline Tyrwhitt, who was an urban planner and professor, and György Kepes, an artist and art theorist. McLeod Rogers explains the idea for this approach came out of her work on McLuhan’s Techno-Sensorium City, where “the influence of Kepes and Tyrwhitt on McLuhan and the correspondences between his thinking and theirs stood out” (p. 6). 

In the introduction, McLeod Rogers speaks of the shared nature of the scholarship of McLuhan, Trywhitt, and Kepes where they were building together “across disciplines and time frames” (p. 15). Her decision to contextualize McLuhan alongside his contemporaries is in itself “a nod” to their work. “By examining the three figures from different angles and in different pairings and then suggesting connections between then and now, my approach is congenial with theirs” (p. 14).

McLeod Rogers sees a role for the collaborative solutions McLuhan, Tyrwhitt and Kepes theorized then for our time now.

“Alike, they supported the formation of broad intellectual coalitions and citizen engagement. They shared a view of art as a potential force for good, and thus for generating hope for human and earth futures. Each argued for new governance strategies, if different foci—benevolent global oversight as practiced by a global intellectual coalition (Tyrwhitt); new forms of civic engagement (Kepes); and multilevel transformations to promote relationality and interactivity and to create de-territorialized and de-materialized conditions (McLuhan)” (p. 15-16).

In his advance praise for Crises Then and Now, B. W. Powe, Associate Professor in York University’s Departments of English and Humanities and author of Marshall McLuhan and Northrop Frye, it is on this sense of possibility and hope where Powe lands stating, “Jacqueline McLeod Rogers, co-creating with Ellen Shoshkes and Charissa N. Terranova, provides us with educating ideas and perceptions that bravely encounter where we are, and how McLuhan, Tyrwhitt and Kepes can become guides. This work goes past antithetical critique toward creative and recreative possibility.”

Dr. McLeod Rogers met with me to discuss her book. Here’s some of our conversation.

LMM: Do you see a parallel between the global crises of the 1960’s and 70’s and our contemporary crises?

JMR: I was listening this morning to Trump on his idea of annexing Canada and of taking Canadian jobs. When I was writing this, we were facing a “regular crisis” which was more planetary and ecological, with social justice issues and inequities. In other words McLuhan, Tyrwhitt, and Kepes were not thinking of the crazy crisis right now. There isn’t really precedent for this current crazy situation. But otherwise the parallel you mention is the one the book explores.

I'm bringing these three figures forward who were aware of social and planetary problems and were trying to push back and to come up with strategies to reverse what was going on. There's been a vanguard of people who were always concerned that we weren't doing things right, and that we'd end up in trouble, and who were trying to see if there is another way, a more balanced way to work. We surely get that when you bring the [McLuhan, Tyrwhitt and Kepes] together.

LMM: Who were Jaqueline Tyrwhitt (urbanist) and György Kepes (artist & art theorist) and were they regarded as being ahead of their time in the same way as McLuhan is thought to have been? And what was their relationship with one another?

JMR: Kepes was really interesting because he's one of the first to think about digital technologies and art and created a center for visual studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Though [Kepes’s] reputation suffered for a long time there is interest in him now because of his positive use of or his willingness to explore digital art as a pioneer in doing that.

[Tyrwhitt] was interested in design and urban community, so she was interested in forward-looking ideas about community and settlement, not just about building.

In her full biogroaphy, Shoshkes argued [Tyrwhitt’s] gift was bringing people (architects, theorists, and historians) together to talk about world futures. They were doing things like building the United Nations and forming global organizations. It was a really powerful time.

I think Kepes and McLuhan might both have attended some of those [meetings]. There are interactions between the three of them; they coexisted.

LMM: Your book talks about “transfer power”as in the following sentence, “Closer to ‘home’ and closer in time, I’m suggesting at some of the resistance strategies developed and tried in the 60s and 70s to see if there is transfer power in their models for responding to storm” (p. 4).

JMR: I wanted this book to explore how they didn't just predict what was coming: they actually suggested things we might still do. This is caught in the last lines in the book: “Another promise of their relational thinking was artist-led governance and participatory civics had positive world-making power. Whether this form of oversight and cooperation can gentle technologies and address both local and planetary needs still awaits testing” (p. 157). In other words, they had ideas they were pushing forward. So not just “crises that and now,” they had suggestions. None of them were so optimistic as to say, “Just do this. . . “ It's not that simple. The point is this would take, as McLuhan says, total change. Everybody has to be able to change: how we're governed, how we think about ourselves, and how we conceptualize really everything and then we have a chance to readjust.