In the lead up to starting this blog I have kept a list of possible future posts. Call it a repository of best intentions.

One of those best intentions was to think through – probably in more than one post – the connections and disconnections between recent relational materialist writing like actor-network theory and writing on media technology, in particular that of McLuhan. My curiosity in this was first piqued after Graham Harman visited the Open University (where I used to work) and gave an interesting paper (two, really) on Eric and Marshall McLuhan’s ‘laws of media’. I later noticed a number of posts by Harman on his blog, Object-Oriented Philosophy, which like his papers defended McLuhan against the predictable accusation that he is a technological determinist (you might catch some of this by listening to this recording of Harman’s talk at the Bournemouth media school). I generally agree with Harman, though have always been curious – and still am – about what Harman might think about a writer such a Friedrich Kittler. Kittler’s firmly materialist writing is often regarded to be in at least minor if not major discord with McLuhan’s more ‘humanist’ take on understanding media. And, some of Kittler’s work engages directly with Heidegger, which only makes me more curious. The Latour connection in all this, of course, is via Harman’s recent book Prince of Networks.

Well, unsurprisingly I’m not the only person thinking about these issues. I just came across a December post by Mike Johnduff over on We Have Never Been Blogging which opens up some very interesting issues around Latour’s tenuous relationship to media studies as compared with his firmer footing in studies of science and technology. Johnduff seems to argue that while Latour apparently sets himself up against someone like McLuhan (especially the media as ‘extensions of man’ version), he is actually much closer to him than Kittler. There’s probably not enough in Johnduff’s post at the moment for me to form a good perspective on that claim. But that’s not a critique – it just means I have some more reading to do before I approach this issue myself … watch this space.