ITMS 19th General Meeting
Speakers
Fred Bahnson, is the author of the book Soil and Sacrament: A Spiritual Memoir of Food and Faith. His essays and journalism have appeared in Harper’s, Oxford American, Orion, Notre Dame Magazine, Emergence, Image, The Sun, and the Best American Spiritual Writing series. His essay “On the Road with Thomas Merton” won a 2020 Wilbur Award for Best Magazine Article from the Religion Communicators Council and was selected by Robert MacFarlane for Best American Travel Writing.
Kevin Burke SJ, currently serves as Vice-President of Mission at Regis University, Denver, CO. A theologian with an abiding interest in liberation and political theologies, he has published seven books and is currently finishing a book on theology in the poetry of Denise Levertov.
David M. Odorisio, PhD, is Co-Chair and Associate Core Faculty at Pacifica Graduate Institute, Santa Barbara, CA. David received his MA in the History of Christian Spirituality from Saint John's University, School of Theology-Seminary (Collegeville, MN), and his PhD in East-West Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies (San Francisco, CA). David is editor of Thomas Merton in California: The Redwoods Conferences and Letters (Liturgical Press, 2024), and Merton & Hinduism: The Yoga of the Heart (Fons Vitae, 2021) and has published in The Merton Seasonal and The Merton Annual..
Stephanie Paulsell, has been a member of the Harvard Divinity School faculty since 2001. She is the author of Religion Around Virginia Woolf, co-editor (with Davíd Carrasco and Mara Willard) of Goodness and the Literary Imagination, and has served as a regular columnist for The Christian Century since 2007. Her work focuses on religion and literature, Christian spirituality, and the spiritually formative dimensions of the practices of reading and writing.
Julia D. E. Prinz, VDMF, a missionary sister originally from Germany, completed her PhD in Biblical Hermeneutics and Spirituality at the GTU, where she has taught for twenty years, including courses in the spirituality and photography of Thomas Merton. She also serves as a spiritual director and retreat facilitator, and she heads the Ignatian Spiritual Life Center in San Francisco.
Estevan Rael-Gálvez is the director of Native Bound-Unbound, a Mellon Foundation sponsored digital humanities project centered on the millions of indigenous people whose lives were and have been shaped by enslavement. Dr. Rael-Gálvez, anthropologist, historian, and Indigenous slavery scholar, has served as the state historian of New Mexico, the executive director of the National Hispanic Cultural Center, and senior vice president of historic sites at the National Trust for Historic Preservation. He has participated in public history and digital history projects involving communities linked to Mt. Taylor, Girl Scouts USA, Santa Fe, and many other broad, vast and important projects in public memory and public storytelling and narrative-making.
Susan Reynolds is a theologian and ethnographer whose first book, People Get Ready, received the 2024 Best Book Award by the College Theology Society. She is an assistant professor of Catholic Studies at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology in Atlanta, GA, and is a contributing writer for Commonweal magazine. Originally from Denver, CO, she writes often on themes of ritual, community, and place.
Jeremy Siefert, is an award-winning film director, cinematographer, and editor whose documentaries have premiered at Sundance, Berlinale, Tribeca, and other film festivals. His short film, "On the Road with Thomas Merton," a collaboration with writer Fred Bahnson and the monks of Our Lady of the Redwoods Abbey (CA) and the Monastery of Christ in the Desert (NM), will be featured during this panel.
Kathleen Tarr, longtime Alaskan, lives and writes under the Chugach Mountains in Anchorage. She is the founder of the Alaska Chapter of the ITMS and author of We Are All Poets Here: Thomas Merton’s Journey to Alaska – A Shared Story about Spiritual Seeking (2018). Her essays have appeared in We Are Already One: Thomas Merton’s Message of Hope (2015) and Merton & Indigenous Wisdom (2019). She is a member of the ITMS board of directors, PEN America, and the Alaska Historical Society. She draws inspiration from contemplating the spiritual geography of mountains.
Judith Valente, a retired
journalist and poet from New Jersey who currently lives in central
Illinois, is the current president of the International Thomas Merton
Society. She is the author of the spiritual memoir
Atchison Blue as well as two books of poetry; her most recent
book is
How to Be: A Monk and a Journalist Reflect on Living & Dying, Purpose &
Prayer, Forgiveness & Friendship, coauthored with Br. Paul
Quenon. She covered stories for Religion & Ethics Newsweekly,
The PBS News Hour and the Chicago NPR affiliate; her work in
print journalism includes reporting for The Washington Post,
The Wall Street Journal and America Magazine.