Re-Understanding Media

The contributors to Re-Understanding Media advance a feminist version of Marshall McLuhan’s key text, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, repurposing his insight that “the medium is the message” for feminist ends. They argue that while McLuhan’s theory provides a falsely universalizing conception of the technological as a structuring form of power, feminist critics can take it up to show how technologies alter and determine the social experiences of race, gender, class, and sexuality. This volume showcases essays, experimental writings, and interviews from media studies scholars, artists, activists, and those who work with and create technology. Among other topics, the contributors extend McLuhan’s discussion of transportation technology to the attics and cargo boxes that moved Black women through the Underground Railroad, apply McLuhan’s concept of media as extensions of humans to analyze Tupperware as media of containment, and take up 3D printing as a feminist and decolonial practice. The volume demonstrates how power dynamics are built into technological media and how media can be harnessed for radical purposes. Contributors. Nasma Ahmed, Morehshin Allahyari, Sarah Banet-Weiser, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Brooke Erin Duffy, Ganaele Langlois, Sara Martel, Shannon Mattern, Cait McKinney, Jeremy Packer, Craig Robertson, Sarah Sharma, Ladan Siad, Rianka Singh, Nicholas Taylor, Armond R. Towns, and Jennifer Wemigwans

“This brilliant collection thrillingly updates and interrogates Marshall McLuhan’s work, with abundant insights from feminist and critical race studies. Starting from the insight that ‘the medium is the message,’ Re-Understanding Media refuses the idea of technology as a mere tool, instead showing how it is a structuring form of power—from incubators to platform heels to facial recognition scanners. A challenging and important book.”, “Correcting the lack of feminist and critical race considerations in the body of work of media ecologist Marshall McLuhan, [Re-Understanding Media] explores the gender and racial power dynamics inherent in media technology. . . . The various modes of analyses presented—such as semiotic analysis, autoethnography, and interviews—also demonstrate the breadth of methodologies used in feminist and critical race media studies. Highly recommended.”

Sarah Sharma is Associate Professor and Director of the Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology at the University of Toronto, Mississauga. She was the director of the McLuhan Centre for Culture and Technology from 2017 to 2022. Sharma is author of In the Meantime: Temporality and Cultural Politics, also published by Duke University Press. Rianka Singh is Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and Media Studies at York University, Toronto.