Hatley Essay Published in Book on Merleau-Ponty  

SALISBURY, MD -- Dr. James Hatley, associate professor of philosophy in the Charles R. and Martha N. Fulton School of Liberal Arts at Salisbury State University, recently wrote the article "Recursive Incarnation and Chiasmic Flesh: Two Readings of Paul Celan’s ‘Chymisch’," which appeared in a book of essays, Chiasms: Merleau-Ponty’s Notion of Flesh.

The collection, which includes pieces by many recognized European scholars on the thought of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, treats how human beings are essentially embodied beings, a fact that many philosophical approaches have neglected or underplayed.

Hatley’s article consists of a meditation on the contrasting ethical significance of suffering in the thought of Merleau-Ponty

and Emmanual Levinas. In making his point Hatley refers to the poetry of Paul Celan, a Romanian Jew who survived the Holocaust and lived out his life in Paris.

Hatley has been active in Merleau-Ponty studies, including his stint as the director of the annual meeting of the Merleau-Ponty Circle which took place two years ago at SSU under his direction.