McLuhan, Maritain, and Gilson: The Metaphysical Roots of Media Studies

Marshall McLuhan, Jacques Maritain, and Étienne Gilson stand as the intellectual pillars of St. Michael’s College, defining its global reputation in the 20th century. TV author, playwright, and theatre scholar Felice Cappa will be presenting his forthcoming book, McLuhan in Dialogue with Maritain and Gilson: The Metaphysical Roots of Media Studies (Springer 2026), a unique monography of McLuhan's relationship with Maritain and Gilson on philosophical and theological education.

McLuhan’s relationship with the Neo-Thomist philosophers Maritain and Gilson, which lasted four decades, from the time of his doctorate in Cambridge, in the 1930s, until the end of their lives, in the 1970s, is chosen as a field of investigation to explore the paths that allowed McLuhan to start from the classical culture of the Trivium and arrive at the discovery of new disciplinary territories, from cultural studies to media studies, of which he is considered the founder.

Felice Cappa is a distinguished public intellectual and media practitioner whose career bridges the gap between academic theory and high-level cultural production.

Distinct from the traditional academic profile, Cappa is a celebrated TV author, playwright, and theatre scholar with a dynamic portfolio of international work. His intellectual pedigree includes a defining twenty-year collaboration with Nobel Laureate Dario Fo, serving as a key figure in the research and production of Fo’s later works.

He currently teaches Aesthetics of New Media at the Accademia Teatro alla Scala in Milan, bringing a unique, “inside-the-media” perspective to the study of McLuhan.

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Host or Publisher Book and Media Studies Program, St. Michael's College, University of Toronto