Gray Matthews
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR (COMMUNICATION STUDIES)
About
I work from a philosophical approach to communication that is both contemplative and
critical in theory and method. This approach has involved a long effort to rehabilitate
the term, concept and experience of contemplation from a grave reduction within the
modern system of Western thought. I have drawn philosophical support from other cultural
traditions, particularly indigenous traditions that have historically resisted the
dualities of thought and emotion that alienate the primordial relation between human
life and all other living beings and things. Indigenous cultures continue to maintain
an understanding of life as deeply interrelated, a viewpoint that was disrupted and
traumatized by modernity's severance of rationality from the contemplative dimensions
of life and subsequent eradication of diverse languages, cultures and peoples—ways
of expressing ways of living. Today, we produce thought by action-oriented thinking,
but no longer wonder: what produces thinking? For me, our struggle to live in relation
to other forms and ways of life should deepen our contemplation of the life of life.
Communication is a complex, expressive process of living that I argue is as contemplative
as it is active. We have been conditioned to think of communication, unfortunately,
primarily in terms of action since modernity severed thought from contemplative life
and put a system of rationalizing a "new world" into strategic service for what became
colonialism. Thus my work seeks to repair the breach between contemplation and thought-action
in communicative life. Currently, there is growing support for non-dominating forms
of thought through global efforts to decolonize the mind and our societies. The 2020
pandemic has simply revealed to us how stressed we are in still trying to manage a
dysrelated world while denying other living beings and things a universal right to
breathe. Thus my research aims to ally with all efforts to rouse human reason-and-action
from a self-deadening sleep so that we can recover and resume living more fully as
communicative beings in a way that promotes "the art of life" as Alfred Whitehead
defined the function of reason to be: To live, to live better and to live well in
sharing, not destroying, this living world. Therefore, I am a communication scholar
who sees contemplation as a radical mode of inquiry into the relational depths of
a living life and a critical theorist who opposes perpetuating dysrelationality.
Education
Ph.D. The Pennsylvania State University, 1993
M.A. Memphis State University, 1986
B.A. Covenant College, 1983
Sample Publications
"Thomas Merton's Early Essays: 1947-1952," The Merton Annual. v. 28 (2016), 234-236
{book review}.
"And There Was Endlessness:" The Merton Seasonal 41.2 Summer 2016, 30-31 {book review}
"Reverdure in the Wind," We Are Already One: Thomas Merton's Message of Hope (Louisville:
Fons Vitae, 2015) {book chapter}.
"The Heart of the Fire: Technology, Commotion and Contemplation." The Merton Annual
24, 2011, 128-149 {journal article}.