Trinity Hall, Cambridge

Herbert Marshall McLuhan, CC was a Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar—a professor of English literature, a literary critic, a... rhetorician, and a communication theorist. McLuhan's work is viewed as one of the cornerstones of the study of media theory, as well as having practical applications in the advertising and television industries. McLuhan is known for coining the expressions "the medium is the message" and "the global village" and predicted the World Wide Web almost thirty years before it was invented. Although he was a fixture in media discourse in the late 1960s, his influence started to wane in the early seventies. In the years after his death, he would continue to be a controversial figure in academic circles. With the arrival of the internet, however, there was renewed interest in his work and perspective. McLuhan was born in Edmonton, Alberta, to Elsie Naomi and Herbert Ernest McLuhan. His brother, Maurice, was born two years later. "Marshall" was a family name: his maternal grandmother's surname. Both of his parents were born in Canada. His mother was a Baptist schoolteacher who later became an actress.
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Stephen William Hawking, CH, CBE, FRS, FRSA is a British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author. His key scientific works to date have... included providing, with Roger Penrose, theorems regarding gravitational singularities in the framework of general relativity, and the theoretical prediction that black holes should emit radiation, which is today known as Hawking radiation . He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a lifetime member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and in 2009 was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States. Hawking was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge between 1979 and 2009. Subsequently, he became research director at the university's Centre for Theoretical Cosmology. Hawking has a motor neurone disease related to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a condition that has progressed over the years. He is now almost completely paralysed and communicates through a speech generating device. He has been married twice and has three children.
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Christopher John "Chris" Weitz is an American producer, writer, director and actor. He is best known for his work with his brother, Paul Weitz, on... the comedy films American Pie and About a Boy, as well as directing the film adaptation of the novel The Golden Compass and the film adaptation of New Moon from the series of Twilight books. His most recent film is A Better Life. Weitz was born in New York City, New York, the son of actress Susan Kohner and Berlin-born novelist/fashion designer John Weitz . His brother is filmmaker Paul Weitz. He is the grandson of Bohemia-born producer Paul Kohner and Mexican actress Lupita Tovar on his maternal side. His grandmother, Lupita, starred in Santa, Mexico's first talkie, in 1932. Weitz's father and maternal grandfather were Jewish, and his maternal grandmother was Catholic; he was raised in a "nonreligious" household. He has also described himself as a "lapsed Catholic crypto-Buddhist". Weitz was educated at St Paul's School in London and went on to graduate with an English degree from Trinity College in Cambridge.
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Sir Nicholas Robert Hytner is an English film and theatre producer and director. He has been the artistic director of London's National Theatre... since 2003. Hytner was born in Manchester to a Jewish family, the son of barrister, Benet Hytner, QC, and his wife, Joyce. He attended Manchester Grammar School and read English at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. In the early 1980s he worked at Exeter University's Northcott Theatre, and in the theatre department. He later became an Associate Director at Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre, where he worked between 1985 and 1989. Hytner first found himself working regularly at the National Theatre in London between 1989 and 1997.
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