RELS 294 Religious Contemplation and Social Activism

This course examines the lives of Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton, who fashioned new forms of the contemplative life, often characterized as much by engagement with the world as by retreat from it.  Day pursued social justice through the Catholic Worker Movement and the running of Hospitality Houses for the urban poor.  Merton, a Trappist monk, took vows of silence, but voiced concerns for justice, peace, and interreligious dialogue through his popular writings as a religious thinker and social critic.  We will review contemplation in Western historical perspective, while exploring the works of Day and Merton as models of contemplation and activism for a post-modern world.