Terrance Keenan: "If Our Lives Be Spared: Three Generations of an American Family in Central New York"

Syracuse University Library Associates presented a lecture by author Terrance Keenan entitled "If Our Lives Be Spared: Three Generations of an American Family in Central New York." This lecture took place on Thursday, February 26, 2009 in the Peter Graham Scholarly Commons, Bird Library on the Syracuse University campus.He spoke about his sixth and most recent book, “If Our Lives Be Spared: Three Generations of an American Family in Central New York”. Keenan is a former rare books and manuscripts librarian at Syracuse University, a poet, artist and Zen Buddhist monk. He was a special collections librarian at SU Library for 14 years, and uses his extraordinary expertise with primary historical documents to create an intimate account of eighty years in the life of a frontier family in Central New York, including its struggles with shifting mores and its relationships with the landscape amid transformative changes in technology, transportation, culture, and education. A graduate of Hamilton College, Keenan earned a Master of Library Science degree at SU and held an appointment at the University as a special collections librarian for some 14 years, offering memorable seminars and lectures on the history of ideas through the history of books. A lifelong painter, his most recent solo exhibition was at the Monkton Community Art Gallery in Maryland in 2007. He was ordained a Rinzai Zen Buddhist priest in 1994 and served as five-year term as president of the Board of Trustees of the Zen Center of Syracuse Hoen-ji. He is Buddhist Chaplain for Pastoral Care at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.

© ©2009 Syracuse University. All Rights Reserved.

Lecture or speech