Overview

In The Culture Box, Harley Parker applies Marshall McLuhan’s medium theory to the museum, analyzes the museum as the site of many media, and specifies the ways in which designer-communicators can engage in inter-sense design to connect audiences and artifacts. Parker argues that museums should retrain the sensory perception of visitors and foster cultural engagement, participation, and empathy. In order to accomplish this, he recommends the construction of what he calls a “new centre,” emphasizing both “new” and “news,” a small “newseum” which would engender discussion and debate. Parker envisions these centres being constructed adjacent to any existing large prestige museum and containing three exhibits: a current public exhibit, an exhibit in process, and an area for gathering materials for a forthcoming exhibit. This critical edition of The Culture Box revives Parker’s unpublished manuscript, one that promised to be a key contribution to the Toronto School of Communication before it was lost for some fifty years and then recently discovered by Parker’s daughter, Margaret Parker. Gary Genosko presents an overview of the book’s leading ideas and provides annotations outlining Parker’s source materials and the salient texts by Marshall McLuhan and others. Scholars in communication, media, and curatorial studies will benefit from Parker’s book, as will those interested in sensory design and McLuhan studies.

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9781772127942

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Reviews

“The Culture Box, about the role of museums in fostering cultural engagement and empathy, was originally intended for publication in 1973 by its author, Harley Parker. Through a process combining digging and serendipity, Gary Genosko discovered the manuscript. His editorial contributions provide cultural context, allow the reader to understand Parker’s intellectual milieu and habits, and add intellectual resonance to the author’s voice.” Jaqueline McLeod Rogers, University of Winnipeg ""The Culture Box: Museums as Media offers a highly original exploration of the museum as a vital, experimental, and contested site. As timely as it is timeless, this book speaks directly to our current moment."" David Howes, author of The Sensory Studies Manifesto

Author Information

Harley Parker (1915-1992) was a Canadian typographer, painter, and museum exhibition designer. He was media thinker Marshall McLuhan’s friend, collaborator, and right-hand man, and was popularly known in the local Toronto press as the “McLuhan of the museum.” Parker was Head of General Display at Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum from 1957 to 1968. Gary Genosko is Professor of Communication and Digital Media Studies at Ontario Tech University. He has published extensively on Continental thought, communication modelling, administrative surveillance, critical semiotics, and the lives of scholarly journals. His books include McLuhan and Baudrillard: The Masters of Implosion, When Technocultures Collide, and Harley Parker: The McLuhan of the Museum (with University of Alberta Press).

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