ABSTRACT
I wish I could say that when my colleague Paula McDowell approached me about having a McLuhan symposium at New York University that I had been supportive, or at least warily accepting in the practised mien of an admiring if preoccupied colleague. Instead, I was resistant. Over the many months that Paula and her team worked to pull off the ‘Reading McLuhan Reading’ symposium, which was held on campus in early March 2020, I was a sea anchor pulled along by her energies. I was a drag. And I regret it. When the day of the event finally arrived, Paula had convened a distinguished group of many of my favourite thinkers, a small number of them now represented in these pages. My role was simply to help host a final discussion and offer a few words of thanks to all of those assembled, which I framed partly as my apology (I’m sorry Paula!).
