Volume 4, numéro 2, automne 2024

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This study was conducted to examine novel ways that soundscape composition may inform a specific community from an acoustic perspective. The purpose of this paper is four-fold: 1) to explore qualitatively ways that soundscape composition can extend knowledge through a music-based approach to research; 2) to expand the definition of an acoustic community; 3) to provide strategies for implementing Marshall McLuhan’s model of the Tetrad (his Laws of Media) in phenomenological inquiry; and 4) to examine alternative strategies for music-based research.

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Murray Edelman argued that political news on television creates spectacles, which render viewers influenced by the emotional production process of publicized events coverage. Yet, the digital age renders spectacle functioning more intimately with audience than during Edelman’s original treatment in 1989. Drawing upon psychoanalytic and epistemological theory, I contextualize Edelman’s theory regarding the real-time opportunity of spectacle coverage, or not. Considering that media spectacle efficacy has to do with experiencing the spectacle as live events, I make the case that real-time coverage plays a role in the media construction of audience perception. The case analysis considers the history of presidential impeachments, with differentiation drawn between fresh news driven impeachments versus post-events attempts at charging national leaders. This is explored more particularly in the impeachment efforts against Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. The media empowerment of spectacle is explored further in relation to digital and social media, the opining polarization of participatory politics, and the growth of impeachments, particularly in the age of Donald Trump social media organizing and news development, and in the shadow of his being the first president to be impeached twice while in office.

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In my wide-ranging 3,300-word essay, I first briefly introduce the life and work of the American Jesuit Renaissance specialist and cultural historian and pioneering media ecology theorist Walter J. Ong (1912-2003; Ph.D. in English, Harvard University, 1955). Then I discuss Thomas B. Edsall’s op-ed column “Trump Would Be Long Gone if Only We Could . . . ” (dated June 12, 2024) in the New York Times.

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In the first part of my article, I highlight the work of the American Jesuit Renaissance specialist and cultural historian and pioneering media ecology theorist Walter J. Ong (1912-2003; Ph.D. in English, Harvard University, 1955) of Saint Louis University. In the second part, I discuss the classicist Emily Wilson’s translations of The Odyssey (2018) and The Iliad (2023).

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In the first part of my article, I discuss the beautiful young Lynda Carter (born in 1951) who played Wonder Woman in the Wonder Woman television series (1976-1979). As I watched the beautiful young Lynda Carter in her wonderfully revealing Wonder Woman costume, I responded to her beauty by projecting the optimal and positive form of the feminine Lover archetype in my psyche onto her, thereby making her beauty appear more attractive to me. In the second part of my article, I discuss the work of the American Jesuit Renaissance specialist and cultural historian and pioneering media ecology theorist Walter J. Ong (1912-2003; Ph.D. in English, Harvard University, 1955) of Saint Louis. Also in the second part of my article, I discuss two books by the Jungian psychoanalyst Erich Neumann (1954, 1955) and five books about the masculine archetypes of maturity by Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette (1990, 1992,1993). In the final part of my article, I return to the beautiful young Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman to offer my final reflections about Wonder Woman as a superheroine.

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Over the past decade and a half, there has been an explosion in the quantity and availability of media focused on tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs). Episodes of highly-produced actual play series like Critical Role and Dimension 20 regularly get millions of views online and have spawned hundreds, if not thousands, of similar programs. Type in “Dungeons & Dragons” or “tabletop role playing” into your search engine of choice, and you will find copious amounts of meta content covering nearly every aspect of the hobby. This wide range of content caters to a broad audience — from the beginner player with zero real-world experience, all the way to the grizzled veteran Dungeon Master. The popularity of these media has brought more players to the game and has made it easier for new players to become socialized into the subculture. Currently, little research exists on the impacts of these media on the quality of players' games. Central to our discussion is Sidhu and Carter’s concept of “pivotal play,” wherein moments transcend the game and deeply impact the players even after they walk away from the table. We propose a framework necessary for moments of pivotal play to emerge, encompassing three layers of socialization crucial for each player: game competency, subcultural competency, and comradery. Through five qualitative, in-depth interviews with experienced TTRPG players, we sought to understand if this explosion of TTRPG-specific media has changed how players play TTRPGs. As a result of our research, we identify five key impact areas and suggest a new term (parasocial idioculture) to describe how actual play media may affect the process of player socialization.

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Of the two spiraling threads that make up the DNA of AI, this paper argues, one is algorithmic, the other is anthropic. This paper argues that, due to seven powerful drivers, 150% Synthetic Humans, that is, fully engineered “artificial persons” with brains, senses, bodies and durability augmented beyond our own, may be irrevocably baked into evolving Artificial Intelligence. If this is the case, what risks would humans face and how would those risks balance with the advantages we’d reap? In the 1982 classic Blade Runner, the Tyrell Corporation boasts that physically and mentally upgraded versions of you and me are “more human than human.” This paper presents seven reasons – both conscious and subliminal -- why the evolution of AI appears to be on track toward the manufacturing of high-definition, “better developed” human doppelgangers. The drivers: 1) Form follows function; 2) We are the anthropomorphizing species; 3) Synthetic companionship; 4) Current computer chat is only 7% of the way there; 5) The Turing Test; 6) The Bioengineering factor; 7) The Subliminal Grand Commandment enforced by media culture: in mechanically enabled replications, we seek exalted versions of ourselves. Four prospective downsides of building all-too-human humanoids are discussed, as are preventive and resistance measures. The issue of robot doppelgangers may prove more problematic for humans than AI superintelligence. Indeed, the day may come when the acronym “AI” comes to signify “Abundantly Identical.”

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This is a catalog of published essays written by Marshall McLuhan.

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In “Secondary Orality and the Vatican’s 2024 Declaration on Human Dignity,” I highlight, on the one hand, the mature work of the American Jesuit Renaissance specialist and cultural historian and pioneering media ecology theorist Walter J. Ong (1912-2003; Ph.D. in English, Harvard University, 1955), and, on the other hand, the Vatican’s new 2024 Declaration on human dignity – with some discussion of certain related works by David Brooks and other authors.My favorite scholar is my former teacher at Saint Louis University, the American Jesuit Renaissance specialist and cultural historian and pioneering media ecology theorist Walter J. Ong (1912-2003; Ph.D. in English, Harvard University, 1955). In my adult life (I recently turned 80), I have devoted an enormous amount of time and effort to writing about Ong’s mature work from the early 1950s onward.

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In my 20,762-word essay, I present an ambitious account of the life and work of the American Jesuit Renaissance specialist and cultural historian and pioneering media ecology theorist Walter J. Ong (1912-2003; Ph.D. in English, Harvard University, 1955). In addition, I succinctly highlight two books by the Canadian Catholic philosopher Charles Taylor (born in 1931; doctorate in philosophy, Oxford University, 1961): (1) The Language Animal: The Full Shape of the Human Linguistic Capacity (2016); and (2) Cosmic Connections: Poetry in the Age of Disenchantment (2024) – both published by Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. In my discussion of Taylor’s new 2024 book Cosmic Connections, I especially highlight his chapters on Gerard Manley Hopkins and T. S. Eliot. In the text of my lengthy essay (pp. 1-44), I frequently list related works of interest. I hope that you feel the force of my associations. In any event, my alphabetized list of “References” at the end of my essay is rather lengthy (pp. 45-56).

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I style my short essay here as a probe because it is exploratory in nature. In it, I use certain points from the work of the American Jesuit Walter J. Ong (1912-2003; Ph.D. in English, Harvard University, 1955) to explore possible alignments withcertain points in the Irish American biblical scholar John Dominic Crossan’s 2022 book Render Unto Caesar: The Struggle Over Christ and Culture in the New Testament.

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In a contrapuntal organizational pattern, I discuss Chinua Achebe’s novels Things Fall Apart (1958) and No Longer at Ease (1960), on the one hand, and, on the other, the mature work of the American Jesuit Renaissance specialist and cultural historian and pioneering media ecology theorist Walter J. Ong (1912-2003; Ph.D. in English, Harvard University, 1955) of Saint Louis University. I style this short essay as a “Probe” because it is fundamentally exploratory in nature.

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First, I highlight Masha Gessen’s op-ed “The Seeds of This Political Disaster Were Sown Decades Ago” (dated July 20, 2024) in the New York Times. Next, I highlight certain points from the work of the American Jesuit Renaissance specialist and cultural historian and pioneering media ecology theorist Walter J. Ong (1912-2003; Ph.D. in English, Harvard University, 1955) of Saint Louis University. I style my short essay a “Probe” because it is fundamentally exploratory and tentative.

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In the first part of this Probe, I explore the American Jesuit Walter J. Ong’s work in relation to the Spanish Renaissance mystic St. Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556), the founder of the Jesuit order, and the history of the Jesuit order. In the second part of this Probe, I discuss Ong’s work in relation to the new 2024 critical edition of The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, written by St. Ignatius Loyola and his secretary and translated and edited by the American Jesuit theologian Barton T. Geger (born in 1968; doctorate in sacred theology, Universidad Pontifica Comillas in Madrid, 2010) – and published by the Institute of Jesuit Sources at Boston College. Geger wrote his doctoral dissertation on the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus. He explicitly acknowledges (p. 5) that his translation builds on the 1970 translation of the Constitutions from the Spanish by George E. Ganss, S.J. (1905-2000). I style the present essay as a Probe because it is fundamentally exploratory and tentative – much more tentative than my articles and book chapters are.

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In my deeply personal and candid probe I explore highlights of the thought of the late Jungian psychotherapist and theorist Robert Moore (1942-2016; Ph.D. in religion and psychology, University of Chicago, 1975) of the Chicago Theological Seminary. In addition, I explore highlights of the historical thought of the late American Jesuit Renaissance specialist and cultural historian and pioneering media ecology theorist Walter J. Ong (1912-2003; Ph.D. in English, Harvard University, 1955) of Saint Louis University – where I took five courses from him over the years.My favorite scholar is the American Jesuit Renaissance specialist and cultural historian and pioneering media ecology theorist Walter J. Ong (1912-2003; Ph.D. in English, Harvard University, 1955) of Saint Louis University – where I took five courses from him over the years.

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Since the mid-twentieth century, we live in the Information Age. An epoch prioritizing the primacy of information, on a par with matter and/or energy. This probe questions the primacy of information, explores the origin of syntactic information and discovers the ubiquity of our syntactic touch.

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On Tuesday, November 5, 2024, Americans will vote for the nest president of the United States. I plan to vote for vice President Kamal Harris to be the next president of the United States. But former president Donald Trump’s ardent male MAGA supporters plan to vote for him to the next president of the United States, because they feel under siege because of certain cultural developments in the United States over the last decade or so. In the present short “Probe,” I use the thought of the American Jesuit scholar Walter J. Ong to explain certain psychodynamics about our contemporary secondary oral culture that are contributing to Trump’s male MAGA supporters feeling under siege over the last decade or so.