Guide to Concurrent Sessions, ITMS 2023
Opening Sessions - | Thursday, June 22 - 1.00 PM - 2.15 PM |
Session 1 - | Friday, June 23 - 10:30 AM - 11:45 AM |
Session 2 - | Friday, June 23 - 2:15 PM - 3:45 PM |
Session 3 - | Saturday, June 24 - 10:30 AM - 11:45 AM |
Session 4 - | Saturday, June 24 - 1:30 PM - 2:45 PM |
THURSDAY, JUNE 22
1.00 PM - 2.15 PM
1. First Timers' Orientation Session
2. Creating a Community of Merton Scholars
3. Emerging Scholars Panel
Laurin Ernst - "'Sing about me, I'm dying of thirst.': Kendrick Lamar through the Lenses of Thomas Merton and Johann Baptist Metz."
Oliver Mesmer - "Interspirituality, Contemplation, and Social Action: The Practices of Thomas Merton and Thich Nhat Hanh as Guide Stars for Present-Day Communities of Faith."
Ethan Strouse - "Sacramental Listening: Exploring the Church as Feminist, Sacramental, and Synodal."
FRIDAY, JUNE 23
10:30 AM – 11:45 AM
1. Humanity and the Human Condition
a. Mary Frances Coady – "Waking from a Dream of Separateness’: Thomas Merton and Caryll Houselander."
b. Jason Taylor – "Merton’s Use of Arendt’s Human Condition in Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander."
2. Merton at the Redwoods
a. Ellyn Crutcher – "Merton’s 1968 Retreat at Redwoods Lets ‘Some Fresh Air In."
b. Dominiek Lootens – "Gracie M. Jones and Thomas Merton at the Redwoods: Spirituality and Ecowomanism."
3. Merton’s Prophetic Monasticism
a. R. Zachary Karanovich – "Thomas Merton, Rosemary Radford Ruether, and Misunderstanding Monasticism."
b. Paul M. Pearson – "From One Wise Master to Another: St. Benedict’s Influence on Thomas Merton’s Prophetic Spirituality."
4. Workshop 1
Brother Paul Quenon & Judith Valente – "'Like Hugging An Angel:' Merton, Emily Dickinson & Mary Oliver."
5. Workshop 2
Merton and Levertov: Art, Poetry, and Contemplation
6. Meditation
Bernice Marie-Daly - "She Who Is."
FRIDAY, JUNE 23
2:15 PM – 3:45 PM
1. Literary Explorations
a. John Gillespie – "A Hidden Wholeness: Merton, Rilke, and the Reconceptualization of the Divine."
b. Thomas Malewitz – "My Argument with the Gestapo: Exploring Merton’s Traumatic and Imaginative Narrative Through the Lens of Magical Realism."
c. Patrick F. O’Connell - "'A Character and Beauty of Its Own': Merton and the Wisdom of Chartres."
2. Merton and Flannery O’Connor
a. Mark Meade – "An Unpublished Merton Poem on Flannery O’Connor’s 'Good Country People' and Christian Existentialism in Her Fiction."
b. Janie Harden Fritz – "Flannery O’Connor and Thomas Merton: Dialogic Spirituality."
3. "Hagia Sophia" and the Spiritual Journey
a. Viktar Niachayeau – "Seeking Sophia: Thomas Merton and the Prayer of the Heart."
b. Huili (Kathy) Stout – "Merton's Sophia and the Chinese Tao: A Dance of Two Names."
4. Reality, Relationality, and the Self
Phil Garrity – "'The Tyranny of the Should': Examining Parallels between Thomas Merton's 'True Self' and Karen Horney's 'Real Self.'"
- "Dialogue with Reality: Reimagining the Contemplative."
5. Workshop
Jeff Kiernan – "A Mighty Hunger in My Soul: A Prayer Service of Silence, Music and Words Inspired by the Correspondence of Catherine de Hueck Doherty, Dorothy Day, and Thomas Merton."
SATURDAY, JUNE 24
10:30 AM – 11:45 AM
1. Merton's Influence on His Readers
a. Alan Kolp – "The Mertonian Influence on Ilia Delio: From Monk to a Dancing Star."
b. Patti Sayre – "Alone Together: The Solitary Ties that Bind Thomas Merton and Elena Malits."
2. Merton, Drugs, and Counterculture
a. Jim Robinson – "Both 'Hippie Monk' and Distanced Critic: Thomas Merton and the 1960's Counterculture."
b. David Odorisio – "'Not Drugs but Night': Thomas Merton on LSD and the Psychology of Religious Experience."
3. Merton, Poetry, and Photography
a. Kevin Burke – "The Beginning of Wisdom: Theological Assonance between Merton and Levertov."
b. Julia Prinz – "Sophia Reaching: What Do You See?: A Study in the Photography of Thomas Merton."
4. Workshop 1
Brian Harnetty – "Words and Silences: From the Thomas Merton Hermitage Tapes."
5. Workshop 2
Robert Ellsberg – "'It's the Direction that Matters': How Sister Wendy Beckett Changed Her Mind about Merton."
6. Meditation
Jennifer Trently – "Creative Response to Merton's Hagia Sophia."
SATURDAY, JUNE 24
1:30 PM – 2:45 PM
1. Self-Discovery, Sanctity, and Mystical Mutuality
a. Vaughn Fayle – "Merton, Weil and Duncan: Sophia's Mystical Mutuality that Displaces Us."
Callie Tabor – "'Fully Functioning' in Holiness: Women and Sainthood in Conversation with Thomas Merton and Sr. Thea Bowman."
2. Healing Divisions
a. Susan Mancino and Natalia Tapsak – "Dialogic Welcome in Communities of Difference: Lessons from Day and Merton."
b. Anne R. Pearson – "Solutions to Systemic Racism: Thomas Merton in Conversation with Women of Colour."
3. The Contemplative Lens
a. Aaron Godlaski – "Neither This, Nor That: Merton's Non-Dual Communion with Nature."
b. Megan Way – "Supply, Demand and the Sacred: Applying Thomas Merton's Wisdom to the Principles of Economics."
4. Workshop
William Hart McNichols, John Dadosky, & Christopher Pramuk – "Icons as Living Portals to the Divine Feminine."
5. Creative Presentation