Irish novelist whose Finnegans Wake is the central text of Bob and Cameron's reading of McLuhan. McLuhan first encountered the Wake in 1939 and, by 1951, was telling students it was "not a book — a radio program," the first work to treat "media as art forms." The dialogues take Joyce as the figure McLuhan most modeled himself on — including, Bob argues, the practice of borrowing from others without acknowledgment.
Across the dialogues
The central text — McLuhan reads Finnegans Wake as "media as art forms," a radio program rather than a book
By 1951–52 McLuhan was teaching that Finnegans Wake was "not a book — a radio program."
"Marshall insisted to his students to understand that Finnegans Wake was not a book — it was a radio program. He was saying that in '51, '52."Marshall McLuhan, read by Bob Dobbs, The Resonant Interval, Dialogue 1 (20 Oct 2020), 17:11
Joyce and McLuhan shared a suspicion of constructed universal languages — the Babel story of communal will scattered into separate ignorances is central to both.
"I believe both Joyce and McLuhan were very suspicious of Esperanto and Volapük and all of these constructed languages. The way the Tower of Babel worked is that all humans got together and decided that they were going to storm heaven."Cameron McEwen, The Resonant Interval, Dialogue 1 (20 Oct 2020), 59:37
Cameron reads the Wake's point as paradoxical — the complete undecidability of everything is itself the foundation.
"I would suggest that one of the points of Finnegans Wake is that the complete undecidability of everything is foundation."Cameron McEwen, The Resonant Interval, Dialogue 1 (20 Oct 2020), 1:26:47
Joyce as McLuhan's model — down to the principle that great artists borrow without attribution
McLuhan held that great artists borrow without attribution — Joyce taking from Chaucer was his example, and his license for doing the same.
"I have an unpublished essay where he says that. Great artists do that. And he said Joyce was really influenced by Chaucer, but never mentioned it."Marshall McLuhan, read by Bob Dobbs, The Resonant Interval, Dialogue 10 (14 Jan 2021), 52:25
Joyce doubly placed — Theall's "Varronian," the joyful satirist against Lewis' Menippean, and the author of "history is a nightmare from which I'm trying to awake," Cameron's guard against treating horror as a casual initiation
Joyce's line gives Cameron the measure of seriousness he sets against flippancy — history as "a confrontation with death on a mass scale," which forbids treating the "horror" as a casual initiation into the nothing, even as Theall files Joyce himself as the Varronian, the joyful satirist opposite Lewis.
"history is a nightmare from which I'm trying to awake."James Joyce, read by Cameron McEwen, The Resonant Interval, Dialogue 24 (29 Apr 2021), 48:09
Split into his two heroes — Ulysses still "about the hero" (Bloom the anti-hero beside him), Finnegans Wake the dissolved hero, the passage through the looking glass Peterson "hasn't gone through yet"
Joyce's two novels set as before-and-after of the self's dissolution — Ulysses "about the hero" (with Bloom "the dialogue between the hero and the anti-hero"), Finnegans Wake "the dissolved hero," which Bob makes the very passage Peterson "hasn't gone through yet."
"Ulysses is about the hero."Bob Dobbs, The Resonant Interval, Dialogue 25 (10 Jun 2021), 1:46:50
Made McLuhan's temperamental double — the Wake composed inside 1930s catastrophe with a paternal equanimity that models the media fast, and "Applied Joyce" recast as organizing ignorance for discovery
Joyce made McLuhan's temperamental double — composing Finnegans Wake inside 1930s catastrophe (a daughter's madness, no money, failing sight) with the same paternal equanimity that lets an artist inhabit the media maelstrom without drowning in it.
"So you have this same combination that you have in McLuhan of a completely crazy environment combined with, well, you know, that's sort of the way it is."Cameron McEwen, The Resonant Interval, Dialogue 50 (9 Jun 2022), 1:04:57
Made the practitioner of the art formula — his move is retracing any word back to the genesis that could have produced other words, which Cameron reads as the technique of fission at the moment of aesthetic awareness
Joyce's procedure stated as a general operation on language — every word is already a cliché, and the writing works by running it back to what it came out of.
"if you... retract from that word to go back to the art formula that generated it, you realize that from the art formula, all kinds of other words could have been generated."Cameron McEwen, The Resonant Interval, Dialogue 65 (16 Feb 2023), 1:51:40
The 1951 essay's "fission, not fusion" is read as Joyce's real discovery — he found how to show experience being made, not how to unify it.
"Joyce realized how to envision the... splitting up of the stem cell at the moment of aesthetic awareness that is to say at the moment that experience is created"Cameron McEwen, The Resonant Interval, Dialogue 65 (16 Feb 2023), 2:02:06
Connections
McLuhan read Finnegans Wake as "media as art forms" and took Joyce as his model — including the principle that great artists borrow without attribution.
Joyce's Wake is the central text — Cameron reads its "complete undecidability" as foundation.
Pope supplies the postures of individual mind; Joyce supplies the postures of collective mind.
Malinowski's appendix to The Meaning of Meaning influenced Joyce, Duchamp, and I.A. Richards.
McLuhan talked Joyce with Kenner — primarily Ulysses, not Finnegans Wake.
Joyce is cast as the Varronian — the joyful, hedonistic satirist — to Lewis' Menippean bite.
Giedion was close to Joyce in his last years; Cameron reads Space, Time and Architecture as Finnegans Wake in architectural form.
The Joyce essays are the part of the collection the series reads most, especially "Joyce, Mallarmé and the Press."
Bob and Cameron weigh whether McLuhan favored Lewis or Joyce — a question that "leads into endless discussion."