In The Culture Box, Harley Parker applies Marshall McLuhan’s medium theory to the museum, analyzing the museum as the site of many media and specifying the ways in which designer-communicators can engage in inter-sense design to connect audiences and artifacts. Parker argues that museums should be in the business of retraining the sensory perception of visitors, and that they can foster cultural engagement, participation, and empathy. In order to accomplish this, he recommends the construction of what he calls a “new centre,” emphasizing both “new” and “news,” a small “newseum,” as he put it. Parker’s vision of such a building would be built adjacent to any existing large prestige museum, and would always consist of three exhibits: a current public exhibition, an exhibition in process, and an area for gathering materials for a forthcoming exhibition. The newseum would be a flexible space inside and out, where many minds could meet to discuss, debate, and analyze contemporary events. Parker sought participation from across generations, cultures, and worlds. This critical edition of The Culture Box revives Parker’s unpublished manuscript, one that promised to be a key contribution to the Toronto School of Communication before it was lost for some fifty years. Parker’s daughter, Margaret Parker, discovered the full manuscript (a typescript of 350 pages) inside a briefcase among Parker’s personal belongings. Working closely with Parker’s estate, Gary Genosko has edited, annotated, and introduced this rediscovered manuscript. Genosko presents an overview of the book’s leading ideas, provides references to Parker’s source materials, and offers explanatory footnotes to the salient texts by McLuhan and others. Scholars in communication, media, and curatorial studies will benefit from Parker’s book, as will those interested in sensory design and McLuhan studies.

Harley Parker (1915-1992) was a Canadian typographer, painter, and museum exhibition designer. He was media thinker Marshall McLuhan’s friend, collaborator, and right-hand man, and was popularly known in the local Toronto press as the “McLuhan of the museum.” Parker was Head of General Display at Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum from 1957 to 1968.

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Gary Genosko is an independent writer, editor and cultural critic. He is the author of McLuhan and Baudrillard: The Masters of Implosion (Routledge 1999), Undisciplined Theory (Sage 1998), and Baudrillard and Signs: Signification Ablaze (Routledge 1994); and the editor of The Guattari Reader (Blackwell 1996), among other works. He teaches social and political theory at Lakehead University, and has written extensively on the life and work of activist-intellectual Félix Guattari.

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"The Culture Box: Museums as Media offers a highly original exploration of the museum as a vital, experimental, and contested site. As timely as it is timeless, this book speaks directly to our current moment." David Howes, author of The Sensory Studies Manifesto

“The Culture Box, about the role of museums in fostering cultural engagement and empathy, was originally intended for publication in 1973 by its author, Harley Parker. Through a process combining digging and serendipity, Gary Genosko discovered the manuscript. His editorial contributions provide cultural context, allow the reader to understand Parker’s intellectual milieu and habits, and add intellectual resonance to the author’s voice.” Jaqueline McLeod Rogers, University of Winnipeg