Canadian academic and McLuhan scholar, author of McLuhan in Space and Remediating McLuhan. In dialogue 01 he is the foil for what Bob and Cameron take to be insufficient McLuhan scholarship — too little time in the archives, too abstract a grasp of acoustic and tactile space.
Across the dialogues
The contemporary McLuhan scholar — and why Bob and Cameron find his reading thin
Cameron is "not a great fan" of Cavell — judging his grasp of the depths of McLuhan off.
"I'm not a great fan of Cavell."Cameron McEwen, The Resonant Interval, Dialogue 1 (20 Oct 2020), 1:30:22
For McLuhan in Space, Cavell spent only two weeks in the archives — which, for Bob, "is not long enough."
"He said he spent two weeks in the archives."Bob Dobbs, The Resonant Interval, Dialogue 1 (20 Oct 2020), 1:31:17
Turns from a name Bob cites into the chapter's working specimen — quoted at length precisely because he is symptomatic rather than authoritative, a figure of the condition the chapter is written to expose
One line sets the citation policy for the whole chapter — Cavell appears as evidence of a condition, not as a witness who understands it.
"I'm quoting it as figure of the AP effect."Bob Dobbs, The Resonant Interval, Dialogue 80 (14 Dec 2023), 4:22
Geography is offered as intellectual history — Vancouver to Victoria, which makes Remediating McLuhan a delayed reply to Kroker rather than an independent arrival.
"he's just across the water from Kroker."Cameron McEwen, The Resonant Interval, Dialogue 80 (14 Dec 2023), 4:43
The one thing Cameron grants Bob over both academics is comedy — the trompe-l'oeil is a joke before it is a theory, and reading it straight is where the professionals go wrong.
"The flipping back and forth is only part of it. There was a large part of humor to it in French art. And you bring that in more than Kroker and Cavell."Cameron McEwen, The Resonant Interval, Dialogue 80 (14 Dec 2023), 1:28:52
Connections
Author of McLuhan in Space and Remediating McLuhan; Cameron and Bob both find his reading of acoustic/tactile space insufficient.