Proto Now: Reading Macluhan and Berger

This course has a simple goal: we will read the 1967 book of memes The Medium is the Massage by Marshall McLuhan and watch 1972s four part BBC video essay Ways of Seeing produced by John Berger. Despite the age of these texts, they have only gotten more potent. The ideas and provocations contained in both works foreshadow our current era defined by digital images and social media. They also benefit from being proto versions of the most popular forms of media consumed today: meme's and video essays. This winter session course will introduce students from any artistic background to the thought of McLuhan and Berger while also acting as a primer on media literacy and theory. Students will be encouraged to use ideas from the in-class discussions to create their own text, meme pack, or video essay.