Richard Whittaker

About the Author

Richard Whittaker is the West Coast Editor of Parabola and is the founding editor of works & conversations. A collection of his interviews, The Conversations, Interviews with Sixteen Contemprary Artists, is available from the University of Nebraska Press.

Author Archive Page

On Hopelessness and Hope: A Conversation with Deep Psychologist Michael Penn

October 27, 2018By Richard Whittaker

A conversation with deep psychologist Michael Penn

To Try To Have Some Healing, A Conversation with Silas Hagerty

November 22, 2016By Richard Whittaker

Silas Hagerty was a young filmmaker in his twenties when I met him at a Servicespace retreat. […]

Every reader of Parabola is on a quest: the “search for meaning” on our cover could equally read “quest for meaning.” For many, involvement with quest has been lifelong. As a teenager I daydreamed about searching for the Holy Grail. It wasn’t the sacred relic that fired my imagination, but the quest—the chance to devote body, heart, and mind to the pursuit of something of infinite value.

This Spring 2020 issue of Parabola teems with stories of women and men on similar paramount quests—for the Grail, and for more. There are Dag Hammarskjold, Vaclav Havel, and G.I. Gurdjieff, three wise men who guide us and author Roger Lipsey toward resolution of our global climate crisis. There is religion scholar Elaine Pagels, talking about her quest to understand the gnostic teachings of Jesus. Read more>

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