Cultural commentator Mark Taylor is fascinated by graves, cemeteries, and the mysteries of ghosts.
His new book, "Grave Matters" (Reaktion Books, London), interweaving personal narrative, historical analysis, and philosophical reflection in a text titled "Ghost Stories" illuminates the subject of death and probes unsettling questions in an age obsessed with youth and immortality.
The book, "is, among other things, a memento mori that provides the occasion for pondering death during an age that apparently denies it," writes Taylor, Cluett Professor of Humanities at Williams College. At a time when genetic engineering and artificial life forms are poised to become everyday realities, the ways lives end matter more than ever
In his "story of ghosts that continue to haunt us," Taylor asks: "What place do the modern greats have in the postmodern age? Who decided where and how they would be buried? Who wrote the epitaphs? What do their deaths, and their graves, tell us about their lives and suggest about our own?"
"Grave Matters" includes haunting black and white photographs by Dietrich Christian Lammerts of the graves of 150 artists, architects, writers, philosophers, and musicians who shaped 20th-century American and European culture. Research and photographs of the gravesites took author and photographer more than four years and across several continents. The photographs are arranged chronologically from Francis Bacon, 1561-1626, to Ralph Ellison, 1914-1994.
MASS MoCA in North Adams, Mass. will observe publication of Taylor's book with an exhibition opening on Halloween (Thursday, Oct. 31) titled "Mark Taylor's Grave Matters." The exhibition presents relics and photographs of the graves of notable cultural personalities who have helped shape modern culture in the West.
In addition, the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Mass. will host a symposium to consider "Grave Matters: Memory, Memorial, Mourning" on Friday and Saturday, Nov. 8 and 9. This interdisciplinary symposium will explore the ways in which modern artists, writers, philosophers, and architects have struggled to figure death.
While specializing in religion at Williams College, Taylor regularly teaches courses in philosophy, electronic technology, literary criticism, art, architecture, and economics. In his teaching, he encourages students to look at things in a different context.
Taylor, who has written on Kierkegaard, Hegel, theology, architectural theory, postmodernism, art, and the structure of selfhood, is the author of 19 books, including "The Moment of Complexity: Emerging Network Culture," "Hiding," and "About Religion: Economies of Faith in Virtual Culture."
The recipient of numerous awards and honors, Taylor was named the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching College Professor of the Year in 1995. He serves on the editorial boards of several publications, including Architecture New York, Religion and Postmodernism, and the Harvard Theological Review.
He received his B.A. from Wesleyan University in 1968, his Ph.D. in religion from Harvard University in 1973, and his Doktograd in philosophy from the University of Copenhagen in 1981. His Danish doctorate was the first ever awarded to a foreigner in philosophy.
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