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Explorations 6

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Writing to the Explorations Group in 1954, Carpenter worried about the funds from the Ford grant that were available for publishing this issue. EXPLORATIONS 6 was funded through the sales of issue 5 and possibly Carpenter’s own funds. The cover image for this issue was a section of The Great Wave, by Katsushika Hokusai. According to Carpenter’s letter, this issue summarizes the group’s “ideas and findings,” which though “not fully articulated” were “new and exciting.” He saw the issue as “a full seminar statement.” Indeed, the issue brings together the interdisciplinary reflections and comparative media studies that characterized the group’s methodology: a brilliant essay by radical anthropologist Dorothy Lee on “Wintu thought” (Lee would ultimately publish six essays in Explorations and had a significant influence on the seminar) and two essays on television that were solicited to reflect upon different geographical differences that shaped the experiences of the new medium—one in the US (Chayefsky) and the other the Soviet Union (Sharoyeva, the “top man” in the USSR television system). Also included were Giedion’s classic essay on cave painting; a reflection on the phonograph alongside a consideration of “print’s monopoly” by C. S. Lewis; as well as essays by McLuhan on media and events; language and magic (Maritain); writing and orality (Riesman); color (Parker); the evolution of the human mind (Montagu); and the anonymous entries “Print’s Monopoly” and “Feet of Clay,” likely drafted by McLuhan and Carpenter, which take up conflicts between old and new media environments. This issue contains the full spectrum of the weekly seminar’s research undertakings over a two-year period.

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