The Culture Box

In this critical edition of a manuscript previously thought lost, Parker applies McLuhan’s medium theory and reimagines museums as catalysts for cultural engagement and empathy.

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 This critical edition of The Culture Box revives Parker’s unpublished manuscript, one that promised to be a key contribution to the Toronto School of Communication before it was lost for some fifty years.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.