Reflections on “Beautiful Resistance” by Laura Weis
My friend Laura Weis wrote the following about a play we saw together in July in Xavier Hall on SLU’s campus. The playwright and lead actor was Magan WIles, one of my former students and…
Author: Mark J. Chmiel
The Meaning of Vietnam
This year there has been a lot of reflection and retrospection, 40 years after the pivotal 1968, which included the Tet Offensive, assassinations (King and Kennedy), student uprisings, and protest and police violence outside the…
Mobilizing the Bible
The following review is forthcoming in the summer edition of the Journal of Palestine Studies. The Bible and Zionism: Invented Traditions, Archaeology and Post-Colonialism in Israel-Palestine, by Nur Masalha. New York and London: Zed Books, 2007….
When Becca Gorley is 25
One late April evening Melissa Banerjee and I met at Kayak’s coffee shop to do some writing practices. For our first go round, I suggested the topic, “When Becca Gorley is 25.” This is what…
The Work Goes on
Recently I learned that Norman Finkelstein was denied entry to Israel and banned from coming there for ten years. Reading about this, I thought of Antonio Gramsci, a leader of the Italian Communist Party…
The Prophetic Voice (Accompaniment)
A Reflection on Rosalie G. Riegle, Dorothy Day: Portraits by Those Who Knew Her Convert to Catholicism, unapologetic pacifist, denizen of the Lower East Side, comforter of the poor, journalist by trade, and nay-sayer to secular…
No Salvation outside the Palestinians
A Reflection on Jon Sobrino, No Salvation outside the Poor: Prophetic-Utopian Essays When I was in graduate school at Maryknoll, I recall a description of theology offered by my teacher Marc Ellis: “Theology ought to nurture…
A Sense of Peace
I just pulled out your wonderful Book of Mev (as I often do) to re-read a chapter or two…it always brings me a sense of peace and a renewed faith…and of course reminds me of…
A Preferential Option for the Iraqi People
Here is the last paragraph of Dahr Jamail’s book, Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq: If the people of the United States had the real story about what their government…
Towards a Post-Civilizational Praxis
For Jim Flynn and Pat Geier A Reflection on John Dominic Crossan God & Empire: Jesus against Rome, Then and Now [2007] In the past few awful, maleficent years of the Bush Administration, a spate of books has appeared…