menubar

Tuesday, October 11, 1988

William Irwin Thompson to Marshall McLuhan | 11 October 1968


William Irwin Thompson (b.1938), a professor at MIT who became upset with the social tensions in the American academic milieu, left for a position at Toronto's York University in 1968 with the help of Frank Zingrone (b.1933), a neighbor of McLuhan's on Wells Hill Avenue.

Thompson met McLuhan (b.1911) eventually (see p.114 in WHO WAS MARSHALL McLUHAN? by Barrington Nevitt [b.1908] with Maurice McLuhan [b.1913], 1994) but here we see his first attempt to "court" McLuhan.

Later Thompson was considered by many as "the McLuhan of the 70s" and in the early 80s Conrad Black (b.1944), a wealthy Canadian, lobbied to have Thompson replace David Olson (b.1935) as the Director of the Center for Culture and Technology. Olson soon resigned and Derrick de Kerckhove (b.1944) became the Director in 1986.

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