Click here to listen to (1 hour) or download (27.7MB) the recording of Graham Harman’s talk “The Greatness of McLuhan” at the Media School Research Seminar at Bournemouth University on 4 February 2008. The event was introduced by Barry Richards and Peter Erdélyi.
Depending on which part of China you come from, the number 4 for you is either auspicious or inauspicious. For Graham Harman it certainly must be his lucky number. Readers of Harman’s Tool-Being or Heidegger Explained will know that retrieving Heidegger’s notion of the fourfold is of crucial importance to him. There is however yet another intriguing quadrate Harman has (re)discovered for philosophy: Marshall and Eric McLuhan’s concept of the tetrad. In the coming weeks Harman will give three lectures on these fourfold structures: at the University of Twente on 17 January, at Bournemouth University on 4 February, and at the Open University on 7 February 2008. (more…)