Michael True

Teacher and Writer
American literature, Peace, Conflict, and Nonviolence Studies.

Presentations and workshops on peacemaking; the history of nonviolence; poetry and movements for social change; and inter-religious engagement.

DVD

THE AMERICAN TRADITION OF NONVIOLENCE
Lecture and/or DVD, an 80 minute slide presentation in three parts, A history of nonviolent movements, 17th century to the present—William Penn to the Plowshares. Available for viewing, copying, and downloading at http://www.archive.org/details/TheAmericanTraditionOfNonviolence2010

BOOKS

PEOPLE POWER: Fifty Peacemakers and Their Communities
Jaipur: Rawat Publications, 2007. Brief biographies of men, women, and communities associated with nonviolent movements: Thomas Paine, Leo Tolstoy, Mohandas Gandhi, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela-- abolitionists, feminists, labor organizers, war resisters, Catholic Workers, etc.
Available from info@isbs.com or 800-944-6190 or amazon.com

AN ENERGY FIELD MORE INTENSE THAN WAR: The Nonviolent Tradition and American Literature. Syracuse University Press, 1995. On poems, essays, fiction, pamphlets inspired by movements for social change, 17the century-present. Available from alibris.com, amazon.com, or the publisher.

PEOPLE POWER: Fifty Peacemakers and Their Communities
Michael True

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, author and editor of nine books, and essays, reviews, poems in scholarly and general periodicals, including Commonweal, New Republic, The Progressive, Friends Journal, Harvard Divinity Bulletin. Emeritus professor, Assumption College, and former president, International Peace Research Association Foundation and Center for Nonviolent Solutions, Worcester, he is a noative of Oklahoma. AnNEH Fellow, 1976-77, and twice a Fulbright Scholar, he has taught at twenty colleges and universities, including Duke University (where he completed a doctorate in American literature), Columbia University, Clark University, Colorado College, WPI, University of Hawaii, Nanjing University (China), Utkal University and University of Rajasthan (India).

Michael True
4 Westland Street
Worcester, Massachusetts 01602-2129
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