Lighthouses as Media : A History of Meaning Beyond the Beam

Grounded in over a decade of research including fieldwork, interviews, performance creation, and archival work, Shauna M. MacDonald MacDonald narrates the history and culture of lighthouses as media from the first human use of fire up to the present day.

Each chapter in the book presents an argument for the meanings that accumulated around lighthouses in specific historical eras, told through key figures – human and more-than human – from lighthouse history. Lighthouses, MacDonald contends, have been humanity’s constant communicative companions, and they have been communicating for thousands of years – about safety, power, faith, science, control, empire, technology, obsolescence, heritage, and even the future.

Interweaving research, performances, and personal narratives, MacDonald calls on us to listen to lighthouse messages past and present – the good and the bad – and to help tell their stories, along with the stories of lighthouse people, in new ways.