This course explores the intersection of continental philosophy, media theory, technology, myth, and the occult imagination through the writings of Marshall McLuhan, Erik Davis and Achille Mbembe. We will examine how media environments shape consciousness, how technology extends human faculties, and how mythic and spiritual frameworks return in surprising ways within digital culture.
Week 1 — Media as Environment: Introducing McLuhan
- Introduce McLuhan’s core ideas
- Understand media as environments rather than
- Examine the shift from print to electronic
- Media as Extensions
- Global Village
Key Readings
Marshall McLuhan
- Understanding Media, 1 (“The Medium is the Message”)
- The Gutenberg Galaxy (selected passages)
- Interview: “The World is a Global Village”
Week 2 — Myth, Archetype, and the Electric Age
- Explore McLuhan’s relationship to myth, religion, and
- Understand how the electric age reactivates pre-modern modes of
- Acoustic versus Visual space
- Pierre Teilhard De Chardin and the Omega
- The return of aminism, myth and tribes
Key Readings
McLuhan
- Understanding Media, on “radio,” “television,” and “electric light”
- The Medium and the Light (selections on religion & media)
Secondary Reading
- Philip Marchand, Marshall McLuhan: The Medium and the Messenger (chapters on McLuhan’s mysticism)
Week 3 — Erik Davis & Achille Mbembe: Techgnosis & the Occult Imagination
- Introduce Erik Davis as a cultural critic and historian of techno-
- Understand Techgnosis as a bridge between religion, psychedelia, and
- Explore Davis's framing of technology as a spiritual
- Achille Mbembe’s Idea of the return to animism and the becoming-black of the
Key Readings
Erik Davis & Achille Mbembe
- Techgnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information (Introduction; 1–3)
- “The Psychedelic Future of the Internet” (essay)
- Achille Mbembe, Brutalism
Week 4 — McLuhan & Davis: The Electric Mysticism of Media
- Compare McLuhan’s Christian humanism to Davis’s psychedelic spiritual
- Explore notions of extension, disembodiment, myth, and feedback loops.
- Connect media theory to spiritual experience and altered
- Revelation of the hidden ground underneath new artefacts
Key Readings
McLuhan + Davis synthesis
- McLuhan, Understanding Media, “Automation”
- Davis, Techgnosis, on cybernetics, virtual reality, and digital mysticism
- Davis interview: “Machine Dreams & Strange Loops”
Week 5 — The Future: Schizomaxxing, Eschaton and the Posthuman Psyche
- AI, Streaming, VR, simulation, digital identity, and techno-spiritual futures
- Apply McLuhan and Davis to current phenomena (AI, VR, algorithms, platform culture).
- Anti-gravitational World and Schizomaxxing
- Investigate posthuman identity, digital spirituality, and cybernetic
- The edification of Post-Literate Post-historical and Post Political society
- Explore new metaphysical
- The Artist as
Key Readings
- High Weirdness (selections)
- Recent essays on AI, psychedelics, and digital culture
- Global Village (selections)