Merton on Thursdays | Session 2 of 5

All are welcome to join us for this free event on Zoom

Meeting ID: 882 1695 8645 Passcode: 684149

Speakers:

James Cronin – Disarming discourse: Thomas Merton’s Breakthrough to Peace, October 1961-September 1962

Bernadette McNary-Zak and Swasti Bhattacharyya - Merton’s Resonance with Vinoba: Hope Found in a Transformative Interfaith Encounter

Chair: Stephen Dunhill, Thomas Merton Society GB & Ireland

James G. R. Cronin is a humanities scholar and academic at University College Cork in Ireland. He was recently conferred with a doctorate on Thomas Merton's Cold War Letters project within the field of U.S. foreign policy. His talk to the society will examine a lesser-known Merton publication project, Breakthrough to Peace, from an historical perspective. James is currently an international advisor to the International Thomas Merton Society.

Bernadette McNary-Zak (PhD) is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Rhodes College (Memphis, Tennessee, USA). She is currently working on a book about the Memphis Monastery of St. Clare.

Swasti Bhattacharyya (PhD, RN) is Visiting Professor Emerita of Women’s Studies and Ethics and a 2021-2022 WSRP Research Associate at Harvard Divinity School (Cambridge, MA USA). Her long-term ethnographic project explores how current generations are living out Vinoba Bhave’s (M.K. Gandhi’s disciple, friend, and spiritual successor) commitments to Sarvodaya (the holistic uplifting of all life).