Iona University, New Rochelle, New York

from June 17-20, 2027

Join the ITMS Mailing List for Updates

---

The great, debonair city was both young and old, and wise and innocent … I came down on the dock with a great feeling of confidence and possessiveness. “New York, you are mine! I love you!” It is the glad embrace she gives her lovers, the big, wild city …        

The Seven Storey Mountain    

  Thomas Merton stepped off a ship in New York Harbor in December 1934, entered what he called “the big, wild city,” and transitioned to a new and transformative life.  As America’s powerful artistic magnet, New York has always attracted dreamers -- the “creatives” who are driven by something more than material and monetary success. For Merton as a young man, the city represented freedom, exploration, and racial, ethnic, and spiritual diversity. He listened to its musical beats, felt its intellectual energies, studied, absorbed, and eventually influenced its literary culture. The city developed in him a deep and real awareness of the country’s social inequalities and racial prejudices – issues that would become his life-long concerns.  

---

Conference Highlights	Registration Information	Conference Timetable	Student Scholarships
	Traveling to Iona University	Thomas Merton's New York

---

	Plenary Speakers
James Martin, SJ Adam Bucko Stephanie Paulsell Carrie Newcomer
Merton & Poetry
Carolyn Forché Angela Alaimo O'Donnell  Paul Quenon, OCSO

Thomas Merton and NYC	Presidential Address
Douglas Hertler	Paul Pynkoski

 

Program Committee: Judith Valente, Normal, IL (Chair) Vaughn J. Fayle OFM., Bronx, NY (Site Coordinator) Anne Burkemper, Troy, MO Elizabeth Burkemper, Troy, MO Kathleen Deignan, New Rochelle, NY Daniel London, Eureka, CA Mark C. Meade, Louisville, KY Paul M. Pearson, Louisville, KY Paul Pynkoski, Toronto, ON (ex officio) Joseph Q. Raab, Adrian, MI James Robinson, Hoboken, NJ Michael Smoolca, Granby, CT Kathleen Tarr, Anchorage, AK Megan Way, East Falmouth, MA (ex officio)