The New Diaspora and the Global Prophetic: Engaging the Scholarship of Marc H. Ellis (Dispatches from the New Diaspora)

For four decades, Marc H. Ellis has sought to rethink the Jewish tradition in light of the prophetic imperative, especially with regard to the need for geopolitical justice in the context of Israel/Palestine. Here, twenty-two contributors offer intellectual, theological, political, and journalistic insight intoEllis’s work, connecting his theological scholarship to the particularities of their own contexts. Some contributors reflect specifically on Israel/Palestine while others transfer Ellis’s theopolitical discussions to other geopolitical, cultural, or religious concerns. Yet all of them rely on Ellis’s work to understand the connections of prophetic discourses, religious demands, social movements, and projects of social justice. Paying particular attention to global racism, sexism, ethnocentrism, white supremacy, and current neocolonial practices, the contributors also address minoritized liberation theologies, the role of memory, exile and forgiveness, biblical hermeneutics, and political thought. In diverse and powerful ways, the contributors ground their scholarship with the activist drive to deepen, enrich, and strengthen intellectual work in meaningful ways.