She “Has Become an Ancestor” – Yuri Kochiyama’s Legacy: I Remember

by Mark Lewis Taylor “Yuri Kochiyama has become an ancestor.” That is how Mumia Abu-Jamal commemorates Yuri Kochiyama in his audio recording this week, “Yuri Kochiyma: A Life in Struggle,” thus giving voice and remembrance to Kochiyama, the Asian-American participant in Afro-Asian and many other U.S. and global movements. Small of stature though she was, […]

Mumia and Martin – What I Actually Told FOX News

by Mark Lewis Taylor As I was preparing for classes yesterday, I quickly squeezed out a reply to FOX News reporter, Joshua Rhett Miller, and his inquiry to me about the possible comparisons of Mumia Abu-Jamal and Martin Luther King, Jr.  The reporter was preparing what proved to be a FOX News attack essay on […]

Crucified

Historical studies of the practice of crucifixion show it to be a torture practice intrinsic to the politics of state violence (for one such study, Martin Hengel’s Crucifixion remains essential). In light of this, frequent talk by Christians of Jesus’ action on the cross as a necessary “saving action” is highly problematic, at best. At […]

DERRIDA’S DEATH PENALTY REFERENCES – From Mumia Abu-Jamal to ‘Mary’s Tears’

 © Mark Lewis Taylor (The following short paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Comparative Literature, at a session on “Deconstructing Capital Punishment: Analyzing Derrida’s Death Penalty Seminars, vol. 1, University of Chicago Press, 2013). Photo above right: Derrida on the death penalty at Robert Cardozo Law School.         David Long, two […]

AAR Response to Judith Butler’s book, _Parting Ways_.

ON DISPOSSESSION AND DEPARTURE A Response to Judith Butler’s Parting Ways: Jewishness and the Critique of  Zionism by Mark Lewis Taylor A condensed version of the review printed below was presented on a panel treating Judith Butler’s book, Parting Ways, at the American Academy of Religion, Annual Meeting, November 25, 2013, in Baltimore, MD. The […]

New Review Essay: “The Cry of Victims and Dussel’s Philosophy – Liberation Beyond Habermas and Levinas”

The Radical Philosophy Review (RPR),  the journal of the Radical Philosophy Association, has just published my article-length review essay of Dussel’s recently translated book, Ethics of Liberation in the Age of Globalization and Exclusion. The published essay can be purchased at Radical Philosophy Review, Volume 17, Number 1 (2014): 307-312. RPR has kindly consented to my maintaining […]

“Liberating the New Materialism,” review of Crockett & Robbins new book

Liberating the New Materialism by Mark Lewis Taylor A Review Essay of Clayton Crockett and Jeffrey Robbins, Religion, Earth & Politics: The New Materialism Forthcoming, in The Journal of Political Theology. Used by permission of the journal. This essay will be slightly edited for publication, scheduled as a journal release in 2014. Presented originally at […]