Includes bibliographical references (p. [287]-298) and index.

The techno-prophet as poet and trickster -- McLuhan the correspondent : his writings as probes, percepts, and affects -- From the Trivium to the Tetrad : media as artefact and language -- The professor and the publicist : Tom Wolfe, the firehouse boys, and Marshall -- McLuhanesuqe ambivalence : power and cultural production -- McLuhan and the cults : gnosticism, hermeticism, and modernism -- McLuhan as prepostmodernist and forerunner of french theory -- McLuhan as trickster : the poetry of cliché -- McLuhan, Joyce, and the evolution of cyberculture -- Joyce, light, and the road to digiculture -- McLuhan as modern satirist -- Conclusion : rehabilitating the arts and the artist.

Marshall McLuhan was a satirist and prophetic poet, a pop guru adopted by Tom Wolfe, Woody Allen, and others, a North American precursor of French theory (Baudrillard, Barthes, Derrida, Deleuze), an artist, and a shaman. This work sheds light on McLuhan's many roles and offers a background to his influential writings