Books by Mark C. Taylor

Digital and electronic technologies that act as extensions of our bodies and minds are changing how we live, think, act, and write. Some welcome these developments as bringing humans closer to unified consciousness and eternal life. Others worry that invasive globalized technologies threaten to destroy the self and the world. Whether feared or desired, these innovations provoke emotions that have long fueled the religious imagination, suggesting the presence of a latent spirituality in an era mistakenly deemed secular and posthuman.William Gaddis, Richard Powers, Mark Danielewski, and Don DeLillo are American authors who explore this phenomenon thoroughly in their work. Engaging the works of each in conversation, Mark C. Taylor discusses their sophisticated representations of new media, communications, information, and virtual technologies and their transformative effects on the self and society. He focuses on Gaddis's The Recognitions, Powers's Plowing the Dark, Danielewski's House of Leaves, and DeLillo's Underworld, following the interplay of technology and religion in their narratives and their imagining of the transition from human to posthuman states. Their challenging ideas and inventive styles reveal the fascinating ways religious interests affect emerging technologies and how, in turn, these technologies guide spiritual aspirations. To read these novels from this perspective is to see them and the world anew.

In the fall of 2005, Mark C. Taylor, the controversial public intellectual and widely respected scholar, suddenly fell critically ill. For two days a team of forty doctors, many of whom thought he would not live, fought to save him. Taylor would eventually recover, but only to face a new threat: surgery for cancer. "e;These experiences have changed me in ways I am still struggling to understand,"e; Taylor writes in this absorbing memoir. "e;After the past year, I am persuaded that I have done enough fieldwork to write a book that combines philosophical and theological reflection with autobiographical narrative. Writing is not only possible but actually seems necessary."e;Field Notes from Elsewhere is Taylor's unforgettable, inverted journey from death to life. Each of his memoir's fifty-two chapters and accompanying photographs recounts a morning-to-evening experience with sickness and convalescence, mingling humor and hope with a deep exploration of human frailty and, conversely, resilience. When we confront the end of life, Taylor explains, the axis of the lived world shifts, and everything must be reevaluated. As Taylor sorts through his remembrances, much that once seemed familiar becomes strange, paradoxical, and contradictory. He reads his experience with and against ghosts from his past, recasting the meaning of mortality, sacrifice, solitude, and abandonment, along with a host of other issues, in light of modern ways of dying. "e;You never come back from elsewhere,"e; Taylor concludes, "e;because elsewhere always comes back with you."e;

A collage of original artwork, photographs, and ruminations that engage with modern and postmodern society, art, and technology.

Posits that money and markets do not exist in a vacuum but grow in a cultural medium, reflecting and in turn shaping their world. This book explores the historical and psychological origins of money, the importance of religious beliefs and practices for emergence of markets, and the unexpected role of religion in the understanding of economics.

The age of information, media and virtuality is transforming many aspects of human experience. This is an investigation of the postmodern world which critically examines a wide range of contemporary cultural practices. The author contends that postmodern culture is full of creative possibilities.

We live in a moment of unprecedented complexity, an era in which change occurs faster than our ability to comprehend it. This books offers a map for the unfamiliar terrain opening in our midst, unfolding an alternative philosophy of our time through a synthesis of science and culture.

Attempting to provide a revitalized, self-aware vocabulary with which the religious diversity of the 20th century can be accurately described and responsibly discussed, this book contains contributions from scholars working in a variety of religious traditions.

An exploration of the possibilities of representation after modernism, this study charts the logic and continuity of Mark Tansey's painting by considering the philosophical ideas behind his art. The book examines how Tansey uses structuralist and poststructuralist thought to create paintings.

Argues that religion is more complicated than either its defenders or critics think and, indeed, is much more influential than any of us realize. This book redefines religion for our contemporary age. It presents a radical reconceptualization of religion.

Establishing a creative dialogue between Hegel and Kierkegaard, Taylor charts the historical background of philosophy.