Saul Steinberg, Untitled, 1964
Vilnius University Faculty of Philosophy invites to the public lectures “Understanding Media: Intersections of Media Theory and the Philosophy of Technology” by John Durham Peters. The lectures will be read in English and will be held in Vilnius University Theater Hall (Universiteto 3), Feb. 27 – Mar. 4, at 6 PM.
Feb. 27: „The Landscape of Media Theory Today“;
Feb. 28: „Sea Media as a Test Case for the Philosophy of Technology“;
Mar. 3: „Sky Media and Their Critical Impact“;
Mar. 4: „God and Google and the Long Heritage of Thinking about Omniscient Data-bases“.
2014 marks 50 years after the appearance of Marshall McLuhan’s famous book “Understanding Media”. This particular book popularized the idea that the media are a certain environment not only for communication but also all other human activity. In this lecture series one of the most prominent contemporary media theoreticians J. D. Peters revises this idea in the context of intellectual, technological and ecological changes taking place since 1964.
John Durham Peters is an American academic and the A. Craig Baird professor of Communication Studies at the University of Iowa. A media historian and social theorist, he is probably best known for his first book “Speaking into the Air: A History of the Idea of Communication” (Lithuanian translation “Kalbėjimas vėjams: komunikacijos idėjos istorija”, 2004) which traces out broad historical, philosophical, religious, cultural, legal, and technological contexts for the study of communication.
