Patrick Hart OCSO – författare

Written during the last decade of Merton's life, these articles reflect his mature thought on monastic life in community and in solitude. Appealing to the monastic dimension in all of us, his reflections have meaning for those living outside as well as inside monastery walls, fellow travelers on the same journey he took, aware of the fragility and imperfections, as well as the great potential for growth and love, within each human person.

When he entered Gethsemani Abbey in 1941, Merton embraced a hidden life . By the time he died nearly thirty years later, he was well known as `a witness to life', a friend of people around the world, and a keen observer of both church and society. Those who knew him and who have studied his published works reflect here on his influence on Church and society.

Henrietta Liston’s Constantinople journal is a significant and hitherto virtually unknown work of women's travel writing. As the wife of the British Ambassador to the Porte, Liston had privileged access to parts of the Sultan’s entourage and the Ottoman elite. Her journal details her journey by sea from England to Istanbul and the diplomatic mission’s Mediterranean stops at the time of the Napoleonic wars and reflects on the political situation of Europe, focusing in particular on the British and the Ottoman Empires. Yet it also offers a human-centred version of the picturesque, and includes depictions of a plague-ridden Constantinople, a visit to the harem of the Kaimakam, excursions to Belgrade Village, the presentation of ambassadors in the Seraglio, and the departure of pilgrims on the hajj.This edition features Liston’s journal alongside a selection of her other, shorter writings from Turkey, including accounts of key diplomatic incidents and personal experiences.

When it comes to the study of religion, Willi Braun is a paragon of what a methodologically rigorous and epistemologically modest academic ought to look like. Braun's career began in the 1990s, when he studied among a cadre of other notable graduate students at the Centre for the Study of Religion at University of Toronto--what is often referred to as the "Toronto School." There, Braun and his comrades maintained a fidelity to a particular methodological ethos: that religion should be studied as a fundamentally human phenomenon and that scholars should examine how the "data" of religions (texts, artifacts, rituals, etc) reveal the interests, concerns, and values of the humans who imbue that same data with something divine or transcendent. The Toronto School's commitment to this ethos led to the inauguration of the North American Society for the Study of Religion and fostered the development of the now-renowned journal Method & Theory in the Study of Religion. Braun was a catalyst in these discipline-changing initiatives and brought them to bear in his own work on antiquity and early Christianities. Yet beyond that, Braun's career also involved an unwavering commitment to pedagogy, as he selflessly endeavored to pass on his exceptional professional and personal qualities to his students. In an effort to honor Braun's work and mentorship, this volume is focused on exploring, probing, and theorizing ancient religious data as reflections of human interests and activities.

When it comes to the study of religion, Willi Braun is a paragon of what a methodologically rigorous and epistemologically modest academic ought to look like. Braun's career began in the 1990s, when he studied among a cadre of other notable graduate students at the Centre for the Study of Religion at University of Toronto--what is often referred to as the "Toronto School." There, Braun and his comrades maintained a fidelity to a particular methodological ethos: that religion should be studied as a fundamentally human phenomenon and that scholars should examine how the "data" of religions (texts, artifacts, rituals, etc) reveal the interests, concerns, and values of the humans who imbue that same data with something divine or transcendent. The Toronto School's commitment to this ethos led to the inauguration of the North American Society for the Study of Religion and fostered the development of the now-renowned journal Method & Theory in the Study of Religion. Braun was a catalyst in these discipline-changing initiatives and brought them to bear in his own work on antiquity and early Christianities. Yet beyond that, Braun's career also involved an unwavering commitment to pedagogy, as he selflessly endeavored to pass on his exceptional professional and personal qualities to his students. In an effort to honor Braun's work and mentorship, this volume is focused on exploring, probing, and theorizing ancient religious data as reflections of human interests and activities.