Items

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  Opening conference benediction by Sr. Margaret Carney, O.S.F., S.T.D. at the 15th General Meeting of the ITMS, held at St. Bonaventure University, Olean, NY, June 16, 2017.

  Sr. Margaret Carney, O.S.F., S.T.D., former president of St. Bonaventure University, offers an opening blessing to the 2017 International Thomas Merton Society conference.
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  Fr. Bryan Massingale interview at the 2015 General Meeting of the International Thomas Merton Society at Bellarmine University.

  Fr. Bryan Massingale speaks about his plenary presentation on Thomas Merton and racial justice at the 2015 General Meeting of the International Thomas Merton Society at Bellarmine University. Interviewed and filmed by Robert Grip.
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  Reading Merton in the Rain, a plenary lecture by Scott Russell Sanders at the 15th General Meeting of the ITMS, held at St. Bonaventure University, Olean, NY, June 16, 2017.

  Scott Russell Sanders is the author of twenty books of fiction and nonfiction, including Hunting for Hope and A Conservationist Manifesto. His most recent books are Earth Works: Selected Essays (2012) and Divine Animal: A Novel(2014). A collection of his eco-science fiction stories entitled Dancing in Dreamtime and a new edition of his documentary narrative, Stone Country, co-authored with photographer Jeffrey Wolin, were published in 2017. Among his honors are the Lannan Literary Award, the John Burroughs Essay Award, the Mark Twain Award, the Cecil Woods Award for Nonfiction, the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Award, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2012 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English at Indiana University. He and his wife, Ruth, a biochemist, have reared two children in their hometown of Bloomington, in the hardwood hill country of Indiana’s White River Valley.
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  Harpo and the Clown of God: The Seven-Storied Friendship of Thomas Merton and Robert Lax, a plenary lecture by Michael N. McGregor at the 15th General Meeting of the ITMS, held at St. Bonaventure University, Olean, NY, June 16, 2017.

  NB: The live presentation included a slideshow that is not included because of copyright limitations. Michael N. McGregor is the author of Pure Act: The Uncommon Life of Robert Lax (Fordham University Press, 2015). His writings on Lax and Merton have appeared in a variety of publications, including Poetry, Poets & Writers Magazine, Notre Dame Magazine, The Merton Annual, and The Merton Journal. In 2017, he retired as a Professor of Creative Writing and English at Portland State University.
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  Light in a Darkening Landscape: Presidential Address—ITMS Fifteenth General Meeting at St. Bonaventure University, Olean, NY, June 15, 2017, by Michael W. Higgins.

  Michael W. Higgins, Distinguished Professor of Catholic Thought at Sacred Heart University, Fairfield, CT, served as fifteenth president of the International Thomas Merton Society (2015-2017). He is the author of numerous books, including Heretic Blood: The Spiritual Geography of Thomas Merton (1998), Thomas Merton: Faithful Visionary (2014), Unquiet Monk: Thomas Merton’s Questing Faith (2015), and Jean Vanier: Logician of the Heart (2016).
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  The Rt. Revd. Rowan Williams discusses the continued importance of Thomas Merton's writings at the 14 General Meeting of the International Thomas Merton Society (ITMS), June 2015 in Louisville, Kentucky.