History

A Life-Changing Gift

Growing up, Esther Juce knew Marshall McLuhan to be a household name as a world-renowned public intellectual.  In high school, she learned that McLuhan grew up in Winnipeg.  In 1998, she gave her husband, Howard R. Engel, the birthday gift of a copy of the book, Essential McLuhan, (Eric McLuhan, Frank Zingrone, eds. Toronto: Anansi, 1995) since both Esther and Howard loved all things Winnipeg.  This sparked Howard’s interest.

On a subsequent occasion, Howard purchased a copy of Understanding Me (Stephanie McLuhan, David Staines, eds. 2003), where he learned of Marshall’s devout Catholic faith.  This book related the story that if anyone wished to meet up with HMM, they’d have to work around his daily attendance at the noon Mass at St. Basil’s Church on St. Michael’s College at the University of Toronto.  This is what made Howard sit up and take notice of McLuhan, who was clearly not simply the run-of-the-mill celebrity intellectual.

Entering the Global Village

Six years later, in 2007, Howard learned of a conference being planned by Canadian Association for Distance Education (CADE) and the Association for Media and Technology in Education in Canada (AMTEC, now Canadian Network for Innovation in Education) to be held in Winnipeg that year. The organizers were well aware of McLuhan’s Winnipeg connection and wished to celebrate it. The conference, entitled “Connecting in the Global Village/Connexions dans le village planétaire”, drew its theme from the notable works of Marshall McLuhan. Inspired by the Conference theme, Howard suggested that they sponsor Dr. Eric McLuhan, Marshall’s son, to be a keynote speaker at the conference. With the support of the Engel Family Fund, this is exactly what came to be, and Eric delivered “The Renaissance About Us” address.

In 2001, Howard’s parents, Roland and Doris Engel, inaugurated the Roland R. and Doris M. Engel Family Fund at the Winnipeg Foundation. 

Six years later, in 2007, Howard learned of a conference being planned by Canadian Association for Distance Education (CADE) and the Association for Media and Technology in Education in Canada (AMTEC, now Canadian Network for Innovation in Education) to be held in Winnipeg that year.  The organizers were well aware of McLuhan’s Winnipeg connection and wished to celebrate it.  The conference, entitled “Connecting in the Global Village/Connexions dans le village planétaire”, drew its theme from the notable works of Marshall McLuhan.  Inspired by the Conference theme, Howard suggested that they sponsor Dr. Eric McLuhan, Marshall’s son, to be a keynote speaker at the conference.  With the support of the Engel Family Fund, this is exactly what came to be, and Eric delivered “The Renaissance About Us” address.

Involvement of the Engel Family Fund

It was at this conference that Roland Engel, Howard’s father, met Eric and saw the value of McLuhan’s thought.  Roland thus became supportive of furthering Marshall McLuhan’s work. This was manifested by a special agreement between the Engel Family Fund at the Winnipeg Foundation and St. Paul’s College, and in May 2007, and the McLuhan Focus in Catholic Studies was born. Its mission was “to honour, celebrate, and extend the life’s work of Herbert Marshall McLuhan (1911 – 1980), who grew up in Winnipeg, graduated from Kelvin Technical High School and the University of Manitoba, was a devout Catholic, a beloved professor of English literature, prophetic poet, satirist and the renowned communications theorist/visionary and media guru that we recognize today.” 

In the audience at this same conference was Richard Osicki, a former CBC radio personality and a local McLuhan scholar and professor of communications.  Richard approached Howard, saying that he was interested in working with him.  The McLuhan Focus in Catholic Studies now had not only Howard as administrator, but also an academic scholar in the person of Richard. 

The Marshall McLuhan Initiative Comes into Focus

Inspired by the McLuhan Centenary in 2011, the McLuhan Focus in Catholic Studies at St. Paul’s College was re-branded to The Marshall McLuhan Initiative to create a broader appeal.  (In 2017, the Marshall McLuhan Initiative became independent of St. Paul’s College.)

With Richard’s untimely death in 2012, Howard was again left alone to try to navigate through a sea of dreams.  Howard collaborated with Dr. Read Mercer Schuchart, Associate Professor of Communication at Wheaton College and Senior Director of the International Institute for the Study of Technology and Christianity (IISTC), to hold a major event entitled “McLuhan’s Faith and Works Conference” in 2015 at the U of M.  While the Conference was well received, it soon became clear that in order to continue with such endeavours, Howard could go solo no longer.  

The Circle Widens

The first person to widen the circle (in 2014) was Ruthanne Wrobel of Toronto, an independent scholar, and an expert in applying McLuhan’s Tetrads and in dovetailing McLuhan, Leonard Cohen and Scripture.  In 2021 Dr. Brian Hubner, an archivist at the U of M Archives & Special Collections, graciously accepted to be our “man-on-the ground” given his department’s phenomenal support over the years. The next invitee was Diane Dwarka, winner of Winnipeg’s Woman of Distinction Award, and community-builder extraordinaire. Our requisite media ecologist, our “wise man from the East,” Dr. Jonathan Slater of Montreal, professor emeritus of NYU, Plattsburg, joined the same day as Diane (Jan. 31/22). William F. Jefferson, of the Storybook Barn in Rogersville, Missouri, novelist and a passionate advocate for the human identity in the onslaught of AI, was the next to become a member. in November of that same year.  To flesh out the MMI Board, Esther Juce, Howard’s co-conspirator, became Treasurer.

Accomplishments of The Initiative

The Initiative has a long list of accomplishments, including holding seminars and symposia and a major conference; publishing several articles as well as an entire commemorative issue of the University of Manitoba’s student newspaper, The Manitoban, marking the centenary of McLuhan’s birth in 2011. This special issue comprised the articles he wrote from 1930 to 1934 for The Manitoban during the time that he attended the U of M.  MMI has also sponsored an exhibition on the art of print, as well as several archival acquisitions pertaining to McLuhan. 

An ongoing project of MMI is The Medium and the Light Award. The purpose of this award is “to recognize a person, group or organization that has made a significant contribution to ecumenical communication inspired by observations and notions put forward by Marshall McLuhan.” It has been given to 13 recipients since 2011, including Eric McLuhan in 2013, Fr. Paul Soukup S.J. in 2017, Roseanna Deerchild of CBC’s Unreserved in 2019, Nora Young of CBC’s Spark in 2021, B. W. Powe in 2022 and Bob Logan in 2023.

Winnipeg Citizen Hall of Fame

Perhaps the achievement most accessible to the public is the winning of the nomination of McLuhan as the 2019 inductee for the Winnipeg Citizen’s Hall of Fame. His bronze bust now takes its rightful place in the Winnipeg Citizen’s Hall of Fame, situated in Assiniboine Park.

The Initiative’s most ambitious project still lies ahead: the conversion of the newly-acquired property at 507 Gertrude Avenue into the Marshall McLuhan Centre. The plan includes, but is not limited to, restoring the front of the house to the period that McLuhan lived there, and creating a gathering room/lecture area, a library and media centre and living/working quarters for a scholar-in-residence. The Initiative hopes to make the MMC a locus for all things McLuhan in Winnipeg, and to be a point of contact with other McLuhan-related organizations around the globe.

The Initiative’s unique charism in McLuhan’s Global Village and raison d’être are to showcase the depth of his Christian Faith and prairie roots.  We at The Initiative are convinced that these two aspects of McLuhan’s life deeply influenced his thought, so much so that without them, Marshall McLuhan’s work would not have the character we recognize today.  The following quotes speak for themselves:

“I think of Western skies as one of the most beautiful things about the West and western horizons. The Westerner doesn’t have a point of view.  He has a vast panorama.  He has such tremendous space around him… he has a total field of vision.” — Marshall McLuhan, in a 1970 CBC interview 

with Danny Finkelman published in the collection of interviews Speaking of Winnipeg (Queenston House, Winnipeg, 1974, p.23).

“In Jesus Christ, there is no distance or separation between the medium and the message. It is the one case where we can say that the medium and the message are fully one and the same.”  — Marshall McLuhan in The Medium and the Light: Reflections on Religion (Toronto: Stoddart, 1999, p. 103)