The Corrymeela Podcast

In this third of four special compilation episodes, we return to previous guests who spoke with us about language, storytelling, and the past. Included in this episode are Sarah Perry, Sef Townsend, John Paul Lederach, Richard Holloway, and Nóirín Ní Riain.As always, you can download a full transcript and discussion questions here.

We revisit interviews with guests who spoke with us about place, movement, migration, identity, and belonging. Included in this compilation are clips from Johnston McMaster, Anthony Reddie, Lia Shimada, and Yousif M. Qasmiyeh, who offered insights from the fields of history, theology, and the arts, as well as sharing personal stories of identity and belonging.As always, you can download a full transcript and discussion questions here.

We return to interviews from earlier seasons to hear guests' insights on the pasts, presents, and futures of Britain and Ireland. Featured in this episode are Mary McAleese, Claire Mitchell, Gail McConnell, and Ebun Joseph. As always, you can download a full transcript and discussion questions here.

Sef Townsend is a storyteller and musician. He’s collected stories and songs from his travels all around the globe, and has worked with refugees, people in exile and those in asylum detention. Sef’s work has included peace and reconciliation projects, and sharing his stories with audiences in schools, museums, churches, mosques and synagogues around the world. He has co-written two collections of short stories: London Folk Tales for Children (The History Press, 2019) and London’s River Tales for Children (The History Press, 2022).As always, you can download a full transcript and discussion questions here.

Yousif M. Qasmiyeh is a poet and scholar whose work has appeared in publications including Modern Poetry in Translation, Critical Quarterly, Cambridge Literary Review, New England Review, and Poetry London. His collection Writing the Camp (Broken Sleep Books, 2021), was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and was shortlisted for the 2022 Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize. Yousif is Writer in Residence for Refugee Hosts - a research project at University College London. His latest collection, Eating the Archive, was published by Broken Sleep Books in 2023.As always, you can download a full transcript and discussion questions here.

Rachel Mann is a poet, theologian, broadcaster, and Anglican priest, who, since 2023, has served as Archdeacon of Salford and Bolton. She has published two collections of poetry: her first, A Kingdom of Love (Carcanet, 2019) was highly commended in the Forward Prizes for Poetry. The areas covered by her work include theology, cultural history, and heavy metal music; she’s also written a book of reflections for Lent based on the works of Jane Austen. Rachel has appeared as a panellist on the BBC Radio 4 programmes The Moral Maze and Beyond Belief, and is a regular contributor to Thought For The Day. Her second poetry collection Eleanor Among the Saints was published by Carcanet at the start of 2024.As always, you can download a full transcript and discussion questions here.

Dong Jin Kim is a writer and academic whose research interests are in the areas of peacebuilding, humanitarian and development cooperation, theology, and comparative studies of peace processes. He has collaborated with various humanitarian, development, and peace and reconciliation organisations, including Okedongmu Children in Korea, Korean Sharing Movement, and Corrymeela. Jin was a Senior Research Fellow in Peace and Reconciliation Studies at the Irish School of Ecumenics at Trinity College Dublin. He was a Goodwill Ambassador for Peace on the Korean Peninsula at the South Korean Ministry of Unification from 2020 to 2022. Jin is the author of The Korean Peace Process and Civil Society: Towards Strategic Peacebuilding (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), and co-editor of Reconciling Divided States: Peace Processes in Ireland and Korea (Routledge, 2022, with David Mitchell). As always, you can download a full transcript and discussion questions here.

Jan Carson is a writer and community arts facilitator based in Belfast. She has written three novels, two collections of short stories, and two flash fiction anthologies; her work has also appeared in a number of journals and on BBC Radio 3 and 4. Her second novel, The Fire Starters (Transworld, 2019), won the EU Prize for Literature and was shortlisted for the Dalkey Novel of the Year Award. Her latest short story collection, Quickly, While They Still Have Horses was published by Penguin in April 2024. Jan is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.As always, you can download a full transcript and discussion questions here.

Prof. John Paul Lederach is a conflict transformation practitioner, writer, and academic. He has worked with communities all over the world, in countries including Somalia, Nicaragua, and Nepal. John Paul is the author of more than twenty books including The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace (Oxford University Press, 2005), When Blood and Bones Cry Out: Journeys Through the Soundscape of Healing and Reconciliation (University of Queensland Press, 2010), and Reconcile: Confict Transformation for Ordinary Christians (Herald Press, 2014). His writing explores social healing, spirituality, and the role of the arts in conflict transformation. John Paul is Professor Emeritus of International Peacebuilding at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, and a senior fellow at Humanity United.As always, you can download a full transcript and discussion questions.

Dr. Peter Coleman is a professor of psychology and education at Columbia University, and a renowned expert on constructive conflict resolution, intractable conflict, and sustaining peace. He directs the Morton Deutsch International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution and is co-executive director of Columbia University’s Advanced Consortium on Cooperation, Conflict, and Complexity (AC4). Peter is also the co-creator of the Conflict Intelligence Assessment and the Polarization Detox Challenge. His most recent book, The Way Out: How to Overcome Toxic Polarization was released by Columbia University Press in 2021.As always, you can download a full transcript and discussion questions. You can sign up for the Polarization Detox Challenge via this link.