Michael True
Teacher and Writer. American literature, peace, conflict, and nonviolence studies. People Power: Fifty Peacemakers and Their Communities, 2007; An Energy Field More Intense Than War: The Nonviolent Tradition and American Literature, 1995; Ordinary People: Family Life and Global Values, 1992; editor, Daniel Berrigan: Poetry, Drama Prose, 1988, other books, articles, poems.*
Available for presentations, workshops, and reflections on peacemaking and the history of nonviolence; the interrelationship between poetry and movements for social change; and inter-religious engagement.
PEOPLE POWER: Fifty Peacemakers and Their Communities
Michael True
ISBN 81-316-0087-4 Rs. 525 (US$20) 244 pp. 2007
order from <southasiabooks@yahoo.com> Toll Free (866) 513-4700
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This collection of portraits focuses on the lives and communities of men and women central to non-violent movements for social change from the 18th century to the present, including Thomas Paine, Leo Tolstoy, Mohandas Gandhi, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela, as well as abolitionists, feminists, labor organizers, war resisters, and Catholic workers, known for their courage, intelligence, imagination, resourcefulness, and deep commitment to the common good. Their country is the world; their compatriots are all humankind.
TOPICS FOR PRESENTATION
I. The American Tradition of Nonviolence
A slide/lecture, with commentary and handouts, about resisting injustice,
resolving conflict, and bringing about social change without killing,
from the 17th century to the present. A narrative on the abolitionist,
workers’, women's, civil rights, and Catholic Worker movements:
William Penn, Abigail Kelley Foster, Henry David Thoreau, Eugene Victor
Debs, Jane Addams, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King, etc.*
II. The Story of Global Nonviolence (People-Power) Since 1980
A slide/lecture, with commentary and handouts, on the achievements of nonviolent direct action : Greenham Common Women, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Solidarity, the overthrow of Marcos in the Philippines, democratic uprising in China, firmeza permanente (persistent resistance) in Latin America, the Plowshares and School of Americas Watch.*
III. Poetry and Resistance: A Celebration
A reading and discussion of contemporary American poems reflecting struggles for social justice and community building: Poems by Denise Levertov, William Stafford, Muriel Rukeyser, Stanley Kunitz, Karl Shapiro, Lucille Clifton, Mary Oliver, Bruce Weigl, etc.*
IV. The Testimony and Spirituality of Peacemaking
Peace "within and without," i.e., integrating who we are and what we do through personal transformation and nonviolent social change. How the "just war" teaching undermined the peace testimony within Christianity, and why inter-religious dialogue is crucial to reconstituting it.*
V. From Inter-religious Dialogue to Inter-religious Engagement
A personal testimony on integrating insights from various religious traditions—Catholicism, Quakerism, Vedanta, and the experience of co-authoring a Statement on Shared Values by the Worcester Inter-religious Forum involving Christians, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, etc.
BIO
Michael True is the author and editor of eleven books, essays, reviews, and poems in scholarly and general periodicals, including Commonweal, America, New Republic, The Progressive, Boston Globe, Friends Journal, Harvard Divinity Bulletin. A native of Oklahoma, he is emeritus professor, Assumption College, and former president, International Peace Research Association Foundation.
A National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow, and twice a Fulbright Scholar in India, Michael True has taught at twenty colleges and universities in this country and abroad, including Duke University (where he completed a doctorate in American literature), Columbia University, University of Hawaii, Nanjing University (China), Utkal University, Bubaheshwar, and University of Rajasthan, Jaipur (India).
Michael True
4 Westland Street
Worcester, Massachusetts 01602-2129