Inspired by longtime Commonweal columnist John Garvey’s writings on prayer and the
spiritual life, the Orthodox tradition, and moral decision-making, we’ve planned a series of
public conversations between our editors and influential thinkers on “Spirituality in a Time
of Disruption.” Featured guests will share their perspectives on how the current era of growing
economic anxiety and increasing religious disaffiliation affects our traditional understandings
of spiritual practice, and what may emerge to support, displace, or replace them.
CHRISTIAN WIMAN - In a 2009 interview with Bookslut editor Jessa Crispin, discussing what he hopes readers might take from his work, Wiman stated, “I have no illusions about adding to sophisticated theological thinking. But I think there are a ton of people out there who are what you might call 'unbelieving believers,' people whose consciousness is completely modern and yet who have this strong spiritual hunger in them. I would like to say something helpful to those people.”
He is the author, editor, or translator of ten books, including Hammer is the Prayer: Selected Poems (FSG, 2016), My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer (FSG, 2013), and Stolen Air: Selected Poems of Osip Mandelstam (HarperCollins/Ecco, 2012).
ANTHONY DOMESTICO is an Assistant Professor of Literature at Purchase College and the books columnist for Commonweal. His research focuses on modernism and its relationship to intellectual and religious history. His book, Poetry and Theology in the Modernist Period, is available from Johns Hopkins University Press, and his essays have appeared in Religion and Literature, Literature and Theology, Christianity & Literature, the Journal of Modern Periodical Studies, and Persuasions.