Mark C. Taylor (philosopher)
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Mark C. Taylor (born 13 December 1945) is a postmodern religious and cultural critic. He has published more than twenty books on theology, metaphysics, art and architecture, media, technology, economics, and postmodernity. After graduating from
Wesleyan University Wesleyan University ( ) is a Private university, private liberal arts college, liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut. Founded in 1831 as a Men's colleges in the United States, men's college under the auspices of the Methodist Epis ...
in 1968, he received his doctorate in the study of religion from
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
and began teaching at
Williams College Williams College is a Private college, private liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams, a col ...
in 1973. In 2007, Taylor moved from Williams College to
Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
, where he chaired the Department of Religion until 2015.


Work

Taylor's first book, ''Kierkegaard’s Pseudonymous Authorship: A Study of Time and the Self'' was published by
Princeton University Press Princeton University Press is an independent publisher with close connections to Princeton University. Its mission is to disseminate scholarship within academia and society at large. The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, with the financial su ...
in 1975. This was followed in 1980 by the work for which Taylor received his Doctorate, ''Journeys to Selfhood: Hegel and Kierkegaard'' (
University of California Press The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by faculty ...
; reissued by
Fordham University Press The Fordham University Press is a publishing house, a division of Fordham University, that publishes primarily in the humanities and the social sciences. Fordham University Press was established in 1907 and is headquartered at the university's Lin ...
in 2000). Taylor's early study of Kierkegaard and Hegel forms the foundation for all his subsequent work. In the early 1980s, Taylor began exploring the texts of
Jacques Derrida Jacques Derrida (; ; born Jackie Élie Derrida; See also . 15 July 1930 – 9 October 2004) was an Algerian-born French philosopher. He developed the philosophy of deconstruction, which he utilized in numerous texts, and which was developed t ...
and his most important followers. ''Erring: A Postmodern A/Theology'' (
University of Chicago Press The University of Chicago Press is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including ''The Chicago Manual of Style'', ...
, 1984) was one of the earliest attempts to study religion from the standpoint of
poststructuralist Post-structuralism is a term for philosophical and literary forms of theory that both build upon and reject ideas established by structuralism, the intellectual project that preceded it. Though post-structuralists all present different critique ...
philosophy and was followed by two closely related works, the sourcebook ''Deconstruction in Context: Literature and Philosophy'' (Chicago, 1986) and ''Altarity'' (Chicago, 1987). In 1989, Taylor founded th
Religion and Postmodernism
series at the University of Chicago Press as a forum for translations and new scholarship. During the late 1980s, Taylor was drawn into debates about architecture and the visual arts, and in 1992 published a theological study of religious twentieth-century visual arts, ''Disfiguring: Art, Architecture and Religion''. In later essays and books, Taylor considers a broad range of artists:
Mark Tansey Mark Tansey (born 1949) is an American painter. Life Tansey had an early introduction to art. These early childhood experiences had a profound effect on Tansey's painting style from the inception of his career as an artist. Many of Tansey's pa ...
,
Michael Heizer Michael Heizer (born 1944) is an American land artist specializing in large-scale and site-specific sculptures. Working largely outside the confines of the traditional art spaces of galleries and museums, Heizer has redefined sculpture in terms ...
,
Richard Serra Richard Serra (born November 2, 1938) is an American artist known for his large-scale sculptures made for site-specific landscape, urban, and architectural settings. Serra's sculptures are notable for their material quality and exploration o ...
,
Fred Sandback Fred Sandback (August 29, 1943 – June 23, 2003) was an American minimalist conceptual-based sculptor known for his yarn sculptures, drawings, and prints. His estate is represented by David Zwirner, New York. Life and work Frederick Lane Sandb ...
, Ann Hamilton,
Joseph Beuys Joseph Heinrich Beuys ( , ; 12 May 1921 – 23 January 1986) was a German artist, teacher, performance artist, and art theorist whose work reflected concepts of humanism, sociology, and anthroposophy. He was a founder of a provocative art mov ...
and others. His extensive work on architecture includes essays on
Peter Eisenman Peter Eisenman (born August 11, 1932) is an American architect. Considered one of the New York Five, Eisenman is known for his writing and speaking about architecture as well as his designs, which have been called high modernist or deconstructiv ...
,
Bernard Tschumi Bernard Tschumi (born 25 January 1944 in Lausanne, Switzerland) is an architect, writer, and educator, commonly associated with deconstructivism. Son of the well-known Swiss architect Jean Tschumi and a French mother, Tschumi is a dual French-S ...
,
Daniel Liebeskind Daniel Libeskind (born May 12, 1946) is a Polish–American architect, artist, professor and set designer. Libeskind founded Studio Daniel Libeskind in 1989 with his wife, Nina, and is its principal design architect. He is known for the design ...
,
Robert Venturi Robert Charles Venturi Jr. (June 25, 1925 – September 18, 2018) was an American architect, founding principal of the firm Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, and one of the major architectural figures of the twentieth century. Together with h ...
,
Frank Gehry Frank Owen Gehry, , FAIA (; ; born ) is a Canadian-born American architect and designer. A number of his buildings, including his private residence in Santa Monica, California, have become world-renowned attractions. His works are considered ...
, and
Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key role in the architectural movements o ...
. While writing on the visual arts, Taylor became interested in media and new information technologies. In 1992 he and
Esa Saarinen Esa Jouni Olavi Saarinen (born 27 July 1953 in Hyvinkää, Finland) is a Finnish philosopher who was a professor of applied philosophy at Aalto University and co-director of the Systems Intelligence Research Group.''Kuka kukin on 2003'', pp. 867 ...
, a Finnish philosopher, taught the first global seminar using teleconferencing technology. Their book, ''Imagologies: Media Philosophy'' (
Routledge Routledge () is a British multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanities, behavioural science, education, law, and ...
, 1994) grew out of this seminar. The book's unusual design in turn inspired the Finnish design company,
Marimekko Marimekko Oyj is a Finnish textiles, clothing, and home furnishings company founded by Viljo and Armi Ratia in Helsinki in 1951. Marimekko made important contributions to fashion in the 1960s. It is particularly noted for its brightly colored pri ...
, to develop a product line derived from pages of the book. Taylor's subsequent book, ''Hiding'' (Chicago, 1997), extended the use of graphic design to create hypertextual effects within the limits of a conventional bound book. As a companion to ''Hiding'', Taylor and José Marquez issued a CD-ROM video game entitled ''The Réal – Las Vegas, Nevada''. While Taylor was exploring art and new media, he extended his experiments with technology in the classroom. In 1993, he was awarded the Rector's Medal by the
University of Helsinki The University of Helsinki ( fi, Helsingin yliopisto, sv, Helsingfors universitet, abbreviated UH) is a public research university located in Helsinki, Finland since 1829, but founded in the city of Turku (in Swedish ''Åbo'') in 1640 as the ...
and in 1995 the Carnegie Foundation named him the national Professor of the Year for his innovative teaching. In 1998, Taylor and New York investment banker Herbert Allen, Jr., founded Global Education Network, whose mission was to provide high-quality, low-cost online education in the liberal arts, humanities, and sciences. Taylor's work with technology led to a growing interest in the expanding fields of network theory and scientific studies of complex adaptive systems. In a series of books--''The Picture in Question: Mark Tansey and the Ends of Representation'' (Chicago, 1999), ''The Moment of Complexity'' (Chicago, 2001), and ''Confidence Games: Money and Markets in a World Without Redemption'' (Chicago, 2004)--Taylor deploys complexity theory to explore a range of social, cultural and economic developments. Taylor's interest in the visual arts and graphic design has led to his own artistic experiments. In ''Grave Matters'' (Reaktion, 2002), Taylor and Dietrich Christian Lammerts collaborated on a book featuring Lammerts's photographs of the graves of one hundred and fifty modern writers, theologians, philosophers, artists and architects. In 2003, Taylor expanded this project beyond the format of the book to create an exhibition at the
Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) is a museum in a converted Arnold Print Works factory building complex located in North Adams, Massachusetts. It is one of the largest centers for contemporary visual art and performing ar ...
, which included not only the photographs but also sculpture and video art. In 2006, Taylor published ''Mystic Bones'', featuring forty of Taylor's own photographs of deer, cattle and elk bones, accompanied by aphorisms and an essay, "Rubbings of Reality," on the place of deserts in the imagination. More recently, Taylor has been creating a complex work of art entitled "NeXus," which includes land art, and stone, bone, and steel sculptures. In the summer of 2016 he co-curated an exhibition at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, MA entitled "Sensing Place: Reflections on Stone Hill." NeXus was part of this exhibition. His book Recovering Place: Reflections on Stone Hill (Columbia University Press, 2014) was the catalog for this show. Taylor's work attempts to give sustained attention to the theological, cultural, and artistic issues that were framed in Europe in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Taylor's ''After God'', published in the fall of 2007 (
University of Chicago Press The University of Chicago Press is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including ''The Chicago Manual of Style'', ...
), weaves together the many strands of his oeuvre. Taylor's additional books include: Refiguring the Real: In Conversation with William Gaddis, Richard Powers, Mark Danielewski, and Don Dillo (
Columbia University Press Columbia University Press is a university press based in New York City, and affiliated with Columbia University. It is currently directed by Jennifer Crewe (2014–present) and publishes titles in the humanities and sciences, including the fiel ...
, 2013), Refiguring the Spiritual: Beuys, Barney, Turrell, Goldsworthy (Columbia University Press, 2012), Speed Limits: Where Time Went And Why We Have So Little Left (Yale, 2014), Last Works: Lessons in Leaving (Yale, 2018), and Abiding Grace: Time, Modernity, Death (University of Chicago Press, 2018) On August 31, 2010, Taylor published ''Crisis on Campus: A Bold Plan for Reforming Our Colleges and Universities'' (Knopf, ), in which he identified and analyzed major problems facing higher education. In addition to his own writing, Taylor has been involved in a number of editorial projects. In the late 1970s, he chaired the Research and Publications Committee of the
American Academy of Religion The American Academy of Religion (AAR) is the world's largest association of scholarly method, scholars in the List of academic disciplines, field of religious studies and related topics. It is a nonprofit member association, serving as a profes ...
, which initiated a series of major publishing programs. The Religion and Postmodernism book series he founded continues at the
University of Chicago Press The University of Chicago Press is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including ''The Chicago Manual of Style'', ...
under the editorship of
Thomas A. Carlson Thomas may refer to: People * List of people with given name Thomas * Thomas (name) * Thomas (surname) * Saint Thomas (disambiguation) * Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church * Thomas the A ...
. Taylor has also edited a textbook, ''Critical Terms for the Study of Religion'' (Chicago, 1998), designed for college courses on method in religious studies.


Criticisms

Taylor achieved notoriety outside academe in 2009 with an NYT op-ed piece entitled "End the University As We Know It" (Apr. 27), in which he advocated the end of tenure and academic departments. He followed it up quickly with a book in which he expanded on his reform, ''Crisis on Campus: A Bold Plan for Reforming Our Colleges and Universities'' (Knopf, 2010). Critics accused Taylor of hypocrisy, writing as a tenured Columbia professor drawing annual salary and benefits estimated at over $200,000, and charged him, after a career spent in elite private colleges, of being out of touch with the work loads and pay packets of faculty at non-elite institutions. Reviewer David Bell wrote of Taylor's book, "Its logic is fragile and its evidence is thin," and called it "unbelievably misguided," mocking Taylor's "enraptured" invocation of interdisciplinarity and conflation of "forms of communication and forms of knowledge."


Positions

Taylor began teaching at Williams College in 1973, attained Preston S. Parish Third Century Professor of Humanities in the mid-1980s, and at the time of his departure in 2007 was Cluett Professor of Humanities. He has also held visiting appointments at Harvard University,
Smith College Smith College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts Women's colleges in the United States, women's college in Northampton, Massachusetts. It was chartered in 1871 by Sophia Smith (Smith College ...
,
University of North Carolina The University of North Carolina is the multi-campus public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the NC School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referred to as the UNC Sy ...
, and
University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one of the country's si ...
. After being a visiting professor of religion and architecture at Columbia University, he joined the faculty there full-time in 2007 as chair of the religion department.


Trivia

Mark Taylor was a close friend of
Jacques Derrida Jacques Derrida (; ; born Jackie Élie Derrida; See also . 15 July 1930 – 9 October 2004) was an Algerian-born French philosopher. He developed the philosophy of deconstruction, which he utilized in numerous texts, and which was developed t ...
. When Derrida died on October 8, 2004, the ''
New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' published a highly critical obituary of the philosopher. Taylor felt that the obituary was not an accurate reflection of Derrida, and proceeded to write another obituary, which the ''Times'' published a few days later.


Bibliography

*(1975) ''Kierkegaard's Pseudonymous Authorship: A Study of Time and the Self'' *(1976) ''Religion and the Human Image'' *(1981) ''Unfinished...: Essays in Honor of Ray L. Hart'' *(1982) ''Deconstructing Theology'' *(1986) ''Deconstruction in Context'' () *(1987) ''Erring: A Postmodern A/theology'' () *(1987) ''Altarity'',
University of Chicago Press The University of Chicago Press is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including ''The Chicago Manual of Style'', ...
, Chicago and London 1987 *(1990) ''Tears'' () *(1992) ''Disfiguring: Art, Architecture, and Religion'' () *(1993) ''Nots'' () *(1994) ''Imagologies: Media Philosophy'' () *(1997) ''Hiding'' () *(1997) ''Daniel Libeskind: Radix Matrix'' *(1998) ''Critical Terms for Religious Studies'' () *(1998) ''The Real, Las Vegas, NV'' () *(1999) ''About Religion: Economies of Faith in Virtual Culture'' () *(1999) ''The Picture in Question: Mark Tansey and the Ends of Representation'' () *(2000) ''Journeys to Selfhood: Hegel and Kierkegaard'' *(2002) ''Vito Acconci'' *(2003) ''The Moment of Complexity: Emerging Network Culture'' () *(2004) ''Grave Matters'' () *(2006) ''Confidence Games'' () *(2006) ''Mystic Bones'' () *(2007) ''After God'' () *(2009) ''Field Notes from Elsewhere: Reflections on Dying and Living'' () *(2010) ''Crisis on Campus: A Bold Plan for Reforming Our Colleges and Universities'' (Knopf, ) *(2012) ''Refiguring the Spiritual: Beuys, Barney, Turrell, Goldsworthy'' *(2013) ''Rewiring the Real: In Conversation with William Gaddis, Richard Powers, Mark Danielewski, and Don DeLillo'' *(2014) ''Recovering Place: Reflections on Stone Hill'' *(2014) ''Speed Limits: Where Time Went and Why We Have So Little Left'' *(2018) ''Last Works: Lessons in Leaving'' *(2018) ''Abiding Grace: Time, Modernity, Death'' *(2020) ''Seeing Silence'' *(2020) ''Intervolution: Smart Bodies Smart Things (No Limits)'' Additional biographical source: Mark C. Taylor. "Retracings." pp. 258–276 in ''The Craft of Religious Studies'', edited by Jon R. Stone. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998.


See also

*
Deconstruction The term deconstruction refers to approaches to understanding the relationship between text and meaning. It was introduced by the philosopher Jacques Derrida, who defined it as a turn away from Platonism's ideas of "true" forms and essences w ...
*
List of thinkers influenced by deconstruction This is a list of thinkers who have been dealt with deconstruction, a term developed by French philosopher Jacques Derrida (1930-2004). __NOTOC__ The thinkers included in this list ''have Wikipedia pages'' and satisfy at least one of the three ...
*
List of Christian theologians This is a list of notable Christian theologians listed chronologically by century of birth. 1st century 2nd century 3rd century 4th century 5th century 6th century 7th century 8th century 9th century 11th century 12th century ...


Notes


External links


Mark C. Taylor's faculty page at Columbia University2008 Interview with Mark C. Taylor at ''Religion Dispatches''
* ttp://www.press.uchicago.edu/books/taylor/ Network culture timeline, by Mark C. Taylorbr>Except from ''The Moment of Complexity''2005 Interview with
Roy Christopher

* ttp://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/791599.html Mark C. Taylor interviewed by Buck Tampa (José Marquez) about ''Hiding''br>Marck C. Taylor interviewed by Berta Ares (UPF University) "De Derrida aprendí que los únicos escritores que valen la pena son aquéllos que no pueden dejar de escribir”, ''Revista de Letras'', 2011
{{DEFAULTSORT:Taylor, Mark C Philosophers from Massachusetts Continental philosophers Deconstruction Living people Harvard University alumni Williams College faculty 1945 births Wesleyan University alumni Poststructuralists 20th-century American philosophers 21st-century American philosophers Philosophers from New York (state) Columbia University faculty