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Explorations 7
12018-09-17T19:21:58-07:00Emma Allainaf81bfdcf8d535972cadaf567952dcafd4b4d57c244601plain2018-09-17T19:21:58-07:00Emma Allainaf81bfdcf8d535972cadaf567952dcafd4b4d57cEXPLORATIONS 7 (1957), the only issue without a table of contents, was edited by Carpenter and McLuhan solely and, with issue 8, sponsored by the Toronto Telegram. Easterbrook and Tyrwhitt were away, and Williams wanted his name taken off the masthead, allegedly because of the publication of American writer Gershon Legman’s infamous “Bawdy Song . . . in Fact and in Print,” a history of erotic writing. McLuhan had contributed to Legman’s short-lived but hugely influential magazine Neurotica (1948–52), so the two had a previous connection. But the tension between Williams xi and the editors might have also been due to their different interpretations of the CBC/Ryerson media experiments which explored media sensory biases with a group of students discussed in issue 3 by Williams in scientific terms, and here again by Carpenter in his essay “The New Languages” in cultural terms. Carpenter argues that each medium (radio, TV, print) “codifies reality differently.” To accompany this opening essay, they each included anonymous entries: the essay “Classroom Without Walls,” later attributed to McLuhan, explores the ubiquitous mediasphere outside educational institutions, which teachers must begin to consider as an inherent and unavoidable pedagogical experience, followed by “Songs of the Pogo,” a reference to the popular comic and LP of the period, which pervaded the McLuhan home. McLuhan saw relationships between “Jazz and Modern Letters,” juxtaposed with Carpenter’s reflections on the acoustic character of ancient and preliterate symbols, masks, and traditions in “Eternal Life of the Dream.” Dorothy Lee contributed two essays to the issue on lineal and non-lineal codifications examined in the Trobriand language with responses by Robert Graves. The focus on educational matters also included a review of Riesman’s Variety and Constraint in American Education as well as examinations of the cultural specificity of the Soviet press, Soviet novels, and Soviet responses to Elvis Presley. The particularity of an oral and noncapitalistic culture had been an important point of comparison for the Explorations Group, especially Carpenter and McLuhan. Harley Parker designed the issue’s cover.
