BIOGRAPHY - Born in 1943, Kuhns grew up in Ohio. He attended both the University of Dayton and the University of Chicago.
When teaching high schools in 1966 and 1967, Kuhns and his students co-invented media studies for high schools.
In 1968, working with designer Robert Stanley, Kuhns published the first-ever high school textbook in the new visual media, Exploring the Film. He followed that with other texts that proved germinal in shaping the early world of media literacy education. For more on Kuhns’s work in gestating early media literacy ed, click here.
In 1973 Kuhns moved to Canada to a farm near Wakefield, Quebec. In 1975 he launched another pioneering move that would grow immeasurably: the Ottawa Animation Festival. For more, click here.
Kuhns’s terrific daughter and son, now grown, live on and near the farm. Currently, Kuhns lives with his partner, sculptor and ceramic artist Bev Lev, in Montreal.
Recently many of Kuhns’s mainline nonfiction efforts have been focused on reviving and promoting the best thought of Canadian techno-prophet and media theorist, Marshall McLuhan. Kuhns believes McLuhan to be the surest guide for navigating the choppy waters of our young media-flooded century.
In 2003, collaborating with McLuhan’s son Eric, Kuhns published a collection of McLuhan’s most far-sighted quotes and zingers, The Book of Probes. Recently Kuhns has written a graphic biography about McLuhan’s life and thought, currently in development: The Bio-GRAPHIC Marshall McLuhan. Kuhns is also co-scripting a National Film Board of Canada production, tentatively titled “Marshall McLuhan’s Survival Guide to the 21ˢᵗ Century.”
In 1983, Kuhns was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.
When teaching high schools in 1966 and 1967, Kuhns and his students co-invented media studies for high schools.
In 1968, working with designer Robert Stanley, Kuhns published the first-ever high school textbook in the new visual media, Exploring the Film. He followed that with other texts that proved germinal in shaping the early world of media literacy education. For more on Kuhns’s work in gestating early media literacy ed, click here.
In 1973 Kuhns moved to Canada to a farm near Wakefield, Quebec. In 1975 he launched another pioneering move that would grow immeasurably: the Ottawa Animation Festival. For more, click here.
Kuhns’s terrific daughter and son, now grown, live on and near the farm. Currently, Kuhns lives with his partner, sculptor and ceramic artist Bev Lev, in Montreal.
Recently many of Kuhns’s mainline nonfiction efforts have been focused on reviving and promoting the best thought of Canadian techno-prophet and media theorist, Marshall McLuhan. Kuhns believes McLuhan to be the surest guide for navigating the choppy waters of our young media-flooded century.
In 2003, collaborating with McLuhan’s son Eric, Kuhns published a collection of McLuhan’s most far-sighted quotes and zingers, The Book of Probes. Recently Kuhns has written a graphic biography about McLuhan’s life and thought, currently in development: The Bio-GRAPHIC Marshall McLuhan. Kuhns is also co-scripting a National Film Board of Canada production, tentatively titled “Marshall McLuhan’s Survival Guide to the 21ˢᵗ Century.”
In 1983, Kuhns was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.
