Edmund Snow Carpenter (1922–2011), shaped by an early encounter with Marshall McLuhan, was a renegade anthropologist who would plumb the connection between anthropology and media studies over a thoroughly unconventional career.

As co-conspirators in the founding of the legendary journal Explorations (1953–59), Carpenter and McLuhan established the groundwork for media studies. After ten years teaching anthropology at the University of Toronto, hosting radio and television shows on the CBC, and doing major research in the Arctic, Carpenter left Toronto and became an itinerant anthropologist. He took up a position in Papua New Guinea, where he countered anthropological practice by handing his camera to the Papuans. Carpenter’s marriage to the artist and heiress Adelaide de Menil made him a truly independent scholar. With the support of the Rock Foundation, founded by de Menil, he collected ethnographical art, curated exhibitions, and edited the materials for a twelve-volume study of social symbolism based on the massive archives created by Carl Schuster. Richard Cavell shows Carpenter – austere, generous, and unpredictable – to also be unwavering in working throughout his career within the framework established by Explorations.

The anthropological impetus for media studies has largely been forgotten. This study restores that memory, tracing Carpenter’s work in media and in anthropology over a lifetime of cultural achievements and intellectual convolutions.

RICHARD CAVELL. Professor, Department of English, University of British Columbia. Expertise in Canadian cultural studies and cultural memory, Marshall McLuhan, and media theory, and a published playwright.

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“Through a constant and convincing dialogue with different sources, Cavell constructs a narrative that illuminates various aspects of Carpenter’s work and life, going beyond interpretative clichés.” Elena Lamberti, author of Marshall McLuhan’s Mosaic: Probing the Literary Origins of Media Studies

“Cavell charts the intellectual life of an epoch, constellated around a particular individual, and provides many fascinating insights into Carpenter’s life and times. The book is also a landmark contribution to the new sensory museology, material culture studies, and the interdisciplinary field of sensory studies.” David Howes, author of The Sensory Studies Manifesto: Tracking the Sensorial Revolution in the Arts and Human Sciences