Janet Kalven

{{Infobox person

| name = Janet Kalven

| birth_date = {{birth date|1913|5|21}}

| death_date = {{death date and age|2014|4|24|1913|5|21}}

| alma_mater = University of Chicago; Boston University

| occupation = Catholic educator, writer

| known_for = Associated with the Grail movement

}}

Janet Kalven (May 21, 1913 — April 24, 2014) was a Catholic educator and writer associated with the Grail, a women's religious movement founded in 1921.{{Cite web |date=2014-04-30 |title=Janet Kalven Remembered Fondly |url=https://www.fsrinc.org/janet-kalven-remembered-fondly/ |access-date=2024-04-22 |website=Feminist Studies in Religion |language=en-US}}{{Cite web |title=Janet Kalven {{!}} State University of New York Press |url=https://sunypress.edu/Contributors/K/Kalven-Janet |access-date=2024-04-22 |website=sunypress.edu}}

Early life and education

Kalven was born in Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of Rose Nathan and Harry Kalven. After finishing high school as valedictorian of her class,Connie Springer, [https://s3.amazonaws.com/cuttings/cuttingpdfs/9483/527090c0b61626d6d76fceec60478c2b.pdf Positively Ninety: Interviews with Lively Nonagenarians] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151007155318/https://s3.amazonaws.com/cuttings/cuttingpdfs/9483/527090c0b61626d6d76fceec60478c2b.pdf |date=2015-10-07 }} (Larkspur Production 2011). {{ISBN|9780971274426}} she attended the University of Chicago, where writer Jane Kesner was her friend and assigned "big sister".Janet Kalven, [https://books.google.com/books?id=htuA37tLZDkC&lpg=PA5 Women Breaking Boundaries: A Grail Journey, 1940-1995] (SUNY Press 1999): 5. {{ISBN|9780791443323}} Janet graduated from the University of Chicago in 1934.John B. Kachuba, [https://books.google.com/books?id=fusCAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA60 "In Search of the 21st Century Grail"] Cincinnati Magazine (August 2000): 60. Later in life she earned a master's degree in adult education from Boston University. Her family background was Jewish, but Kalven became a Roman Catholic convert as a young woman.Michael Woods, [https://books.google.com/books?id=ZhRYEdRP0AMC&lpg=PA49 Cultivating Soil and Soul: Twentieth-Century Catholic Agrarians Embrace the Liturgical Movement] (Liturgical Press 2010): 49. {{ISBN|9780814662366}}

Career

Kalven joined the Grail Movement, a Catholic women's group, in 1940, and in 1944 was one of the founders of its main educational center, a farm called Grailville, in Loveland, Ohio.Sarah McFarland Taylor, [https://books.google.com/books?id=AHre82KCutYC&lpg=PA37 Green Sisters: A Spiritual Ecology] (Harvard University Press 2009). {{ISBN|9780674034952}}[https://www.newspapers.com/clip/3355589/janet_kalven_on_grailville_2000/ "Spiritual Center's Vision Still Attracts a Following after Twenty Years"] Daily Herald (January 29, 2000): 4. via Newspapers.com {{open access}} She would eventually write a memoir and history of the movement in the United States, Women Breaking Boundaries: A Grail Journey, 1940-1995 (SUNY Press 1999).Janet Kalven, [https://books.google.com/books?id=qdisQjr5xfkC Women Breaking Boundaries: A Grail Journey, 1940-1995] (SUNY Press 1999). Kalven was on staff at the University of Dayton and was director of the Seminary Quarter at Grailville, in the 1970s. She co-organized the historic ecumenical conference "Women Exploring Theology" at Grailville in 1972.Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, [https://books.google.com/books?id=UEQN1SXj2N0C&lpg=PA1 Sharing Her Word: Feminist Biblical Interpretation in Context] (A&C Black 2001): 1-2. {{ISBN|9780567086488}} Ten years later, she co-hosted the "Women's Spirit Bonding" conference, also at Grailville. In 1988, she co-edited With Both Eyes Open: Seeing Beyond Gender, a collection of essays on women, Christian theology, and liturgy.Patricia Altenbernd Johnson and Janet Kalven, eds. With Both Eyes Open: Seeing Beyond Gender (Pilgrim Press 1988). {{ISBN|9780829807776}}

In 1990 Kalven was inducted into the Ohio Women's Hall of Fame.[http://www.odjfs.state.oh.us/women/halloffame/bio.asp?ID=153 Janet Kalven] Ohio Women's Hall of Fame Bio. Kalven was the 2003 co-recipient of the Enduring Spirit Award, presented by MUSE: The Cincinnati Women's Choir.Muse: The Cincinnati Women's Choir, [http://www.musechoir.org/support/enduringspirit Enduring Spirit Award] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151008060405/http://www.musechoir.org/support/enduringspirit |date=2015-10-08 }}, Past Recipients. She was a trustee of Housetop Center for Women's Ministries.Catherine of Siena Virtual College, [http://www.catherineofsiena.net/about/trustusa.asp Housetop Center for Women's Ministries] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151023070026/http://www.catherineofsiena.net/about/trustusa.asp |date=2015-10-23 }}. Among the women influenced by Kalven's work at Grailville were Mary E. Hunt and Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza.

Of her work, Kalven declared,

I ground my hope for the world and for the Grail chiefly in the strength of women, women who develop all of their gifts and talents, women who act together generously and in hope to bring into reality their vision of a world where difference does not connote domination, a world where each person and culture will grow and enrich the others, a world where a hope-filled future awaits every child. We hold fast to our conviction that terror, poverty, and oppression will not have the last word.Janet Kalven, [https://books.google.com/books?id=qdisQjr5xfkC Women Breaking Boundaries: A Grail Journey, 1940-1995] (SUNY Press 1999): 303.

Personal life

Late in life, Kalven moved from Grailville to buy a converted school building in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she lived. She joined others who were committed to creating affordable housing for women.Jennifer Mrozowski, [http://enquirer.com/editions/2002/03/19/loc_schools_giving_old.html "Schools: Giving Old Buildings New Life"] Cincinnati Enquirer (March 19, 2002). Kalven died April 24, 2014, at age 100, in Milford, Ohio.Mary E. Hunt, [http://www.fsrinc.org/blog/janet-kalven-remembered-fondly "Janet E. Kalven Remembered Fondly"] Feminist Studies in Religion (April 30, 2014).

References

External links

Janet Kalven, [https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=616 "Woman and Post-War Reconstruction"] (1944)
Janet Kalven, [https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=3001 "The Task of Woman in the Modern World"] (1946).

Category:1913 births

Category:2014 deaths

Category:20th-century American academics

Category:20th-century American educators

Category:20th-century American non-fiction writers

Category:20th-century American Roman Catholic theologians

Category:20th-century American women writers

Category:21st-century American academics

Category:21st-century American educators

Category:21st-century American non-fiction writers

Category:21st-century American Roman Catholic theologians

Category:21st-century American women writers