2012 Annual Report

The Thomas Merton Center has four ongoing goals:

• Preserving the materials that comprise the Merton archives.

• Facilitating on-site and remote access, as appropriate, to materials in the archives for scholars, students and the general public.

• Promoting use of the archives and Center, particularly by faculty and students of Bellarmine University.

• Acquiring additional Merton and Merton-related materials as they become available through gift or public sale.

Once again achievements have been made in all of these areas:

Preservation:

• The Center’s holdings of book reviews of books by Merton and about Merton have been rehoused.

• A major overhaul of the Center’s mechanical systems for controlling temperature and humidity has been performed.

• A number of manuscript collections have been migrated to new archival folders.

• The Center’s audio collections have been rehoused in a new storage unit.

• The Center hired a summer intern whose work included rehousing materials in the recently donated Dorothy Day Catholic Worker Collection and further scanning of miscellaneous photographs in the Center’s collections.

Access:

• The Merton Center and ITMS Website has been totally revamped. This major project also involved the manual updating of hundreds of web pages to current technological standards, and affected tens of thousands of database-driven pages.

• A database and finding aid are being created for the Center’s holdings of book reviews by Merton and book reviews of books about Merton Center.

• Digitized photographs have been added to an in-house electronic finding aid.

• An online finding aid has been created for the Center’s collection of published essays by Merton.

• Online databases for the Center’s media collections have been completed.

• The Merton Center has been working closely with the Merton Legacy Trust and Now You Know Media in making available recordings of Merton’s lectures held in the archives. Over the course of 2012 NYKM has released 9 bundles of CD’s from the audio collections at the Merton Center (also available as downloadable MP3 files) with further bundles to be released in 2013.

Promotion:

• Statistics for the use of the archives show an increase in the numbers of visitors 3,215 (2,069), with telephone calls 734 (748), and both long 1,170 (1,309) and short 3,031 (3,442) reference inquiries remaining steady. The greater part of these inquiries are handled by e-mail. (These figures are for Jan. – Dec. 2012. Figures in brackets are for the same period in 2011. These figures do not include mail related to fundraising donations to the Center or ITMS Membership renewals.)

• A wide variety of groups continue to come to the Center for talks introducing the life and thought of Merton or for other meetings, including two Merton Road Scholar Programs (formerly Elderhostel) a year in the Spring and Fall.

• In February Rosanne Haggerty gave the 6th Annual Thomas Merton Black History Month Lecture – “Thomas Merton: Now and Then.” The 2013 lecture will be given by Shawn Copeland on February 27th 2013.

• The Center’s Fall 2012 Lecture took place on Tuesday 16th October and was given by Christopher Pramuk of Xavier University in Cincinnati. The presentation was entitled: “‘The Street is For Celebration’ Thomas Merton, Racial Reconciliation and the Music of the Inner City.” Fall 2013 will feature a lecture series on Thomas Merton and the Second Vatican Council.

• From November 26th to December 3rd the Merton Center hosted monks from the Drepung Gomang Monastery who created a Sacred Sand Mandala of Compassion at the Merton Center. Three short films about the visit are available for viewing on You Tube:

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLt6StRQH0c – footage of the opening ceremony and an interview with Anne Walter of the Drepung Gomang Institute.
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1WDYMo1MKI&sns=em  - footage of the monks working on the Mandala and an interview with Merton Center director, Paul M. Pearson.
  •  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQZ9o__kTNg - Carol Stewart talks about the Mandala, along with comments about the Mandala from some of the visitors.

• The photography exhibit “A Hidden Wholeness – The Zen Photography of Thomas Merton” was exhibited at:

  • Vancouver School of Theology, Vancouver, BC. July 3 - 21, 2012.
  • St. Meinrad Archabbey, St. Meinrad, IN. September 1 - October 31, 2012.
  • The Festival of Faiths, Louisville, KY. November 2012.

• The Center was also involved in sponsoring a number of other events including:

  • “Spirituality and the City” by Philip Sheldrake, January 15th, 2012.
  • The Kentucky Interfaith Power and Light’s Annual Awards Dinner.
  • An Evening of Tibetan Music and Culture by monks from the Drepung Gomang Monastery.
  • “Hildegard of Bingen: The Return of the Divine Feminine and a Challenge to Patriarchy Everywhere” by Matthew Fox

• The Center continues to publish quarterly a running bibliography listing new works by and about Merton.

• The Center was involved in the publication and distribution of The Merton Seasonal (volume 37, issues 1-4) and volume 24 of The Merton Annual which contained the papers from the Center’s 2011 conference “Contemplation in a Technological Era: Thomas Merton's Insight for the Twenty-First Century.”

• In additional to his work as Resident Secretary for the ITMS Paul is on the Program Committee for the 13th ITMS Conference to be held in Fairfield, CT., is serving as Treasurer of the ITMS for the 2011-2013 administration, chairing the ITMS Shannon Fellowship Committee, and serving on the Centenary and Advancement Committees.

• In addition Paul and Mark are both serving as ex officio members of the ITMS Communications committee.

• Paul undertook speaking engagements at Iona College, New Rochelle, NY., Vancouver School of Theology, Vancouver, BC., St. Meinrad Archabbey, St. Meinrad, IN., and participated in a panel about Thomas Merton at the 43rd meeting of the College English Association in Richmond, VA.

• Paul attended the biennial conference of the Thomas Merton Society of Great Britain and Ireland where he gave both the first Canon A. M. Allchin memorial address and a concurrent session presentation.

• “Thomas Merton y Victoria Ocampo” by Mark Meade was published in the Spanish Cistercian journal Cistercium.

• The Center worked with the Tibet Center in Chicago in providing quotations by Thomas Merton on non-violence for an event with the Dalai Lama on non-violence held at Loyola University’s Gentile Arena on Thursday 26th April.

• Thomas Merton On Christian Contemplation, edited by Paul, was published by New Directions.

• Mark and Paul took part in the ITMS biennial scholars retreat at the Abbey of Gethsemani over the Labor Day Weekend.

• The Center loaned a postcard from William Congdon to Thomas Merton to the Knights of Columbus Museum in New Haven, CT for their exhibit: “The Sabbath of History.” (February 22–September 16, 2012)

• “Young Thomas Merton” by Brad Devlin was loaned to the 2012 Louisville Festival of Faith for exhibit.

• The Merton Center were featured in an article by Zoe Ryan published on the web site of the National Catholic Reporter: https://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/merton-center-louisville

• A photograph by Merton's from the archives was recently used to illustrate chapter 69 of the Moby Dick Big Read: http://www.mobydickbigread.com/chapter-69-the-funeral/

• The Center has also been involved in assisting in numerous publication projects as well as assisting book and journal publishers requiring access to images or permissions.

Acquisition:

Many new publications, including foreign translations, dissertations and other materials were added to the collection including:

• Two broadsides from the Blind Pig Press.

• Over eighteen new theses and dissertations.

• La Rivoluzione Negra by Thomas Merton and Martin Luther King, Jr. (Vicenza: La Locusta, 1965).

• 129 additional pieces of correspondence including some original correspondence with:

  • Josiah G. Chatham.
  • James H. Forest.
  • William Johnston.
  • Jacques Maritain.
  • Charles Moritz.
  • A. J. Muste.
  • Thomas Francis Ritt

• A calligraphy by Thomas Merton donated by Debbie Wheat.

• A calligraphy by Thomas Merton from Brother Paul Quenon, OCSO.

• Copies of thirty manuscript items from the University of Kentucky Special Collections.

• Copies of seven articles and thirty-eight cartoons and drawings from The Columbia Jester.

• Photographs of the Abbey of Gethsemani by Shirley Burden donated by Marie and Hubert Jessup.

• Photographs taken by Merton, and photographs of Merton, donated by Marie and Hubert Jessup.

• Two cubic feet of mimeographed essays from the Abbey of Gethsemani have been incorporated into the collection.

• The Center purchased a watercolor by Owen Merton of Amalfi, Italy, painted in 1913. The painting can be viewed on the Center’s web site at:

  merton.org/Owen/om40.JPG

   

Financial assistance is needed to assist with funding these special events at the Thomas Merton Center. If you would be interested in assisting with funding, or becoming a major sponsor for one of these events please contact:
Dr Paul Pearson on (502) 272 8177 or by e-mail: [email protected].