Sam Keen
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Samuel McMurray Keen (November 23, 1931 – March 19, 2025) was an American author, academic and philosopher who is best known for his exploration of questions regarding love, life, wonder, religion, and being a male in contemporary society.
Background
Samuel McMurray Keen was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania on November 23, 1931,[1] and grew up in Maryville, Tennessee, and Wilmington, Delaware.[2] He earned a bachelor's degree from Ursinus College, a doctorate in theology from Harvard Divinity School, and a PhD in religious philosophy from Princeton University.[2] He taught briefly at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary before moving to California in 1968.[2][3]
Career
Keen worked as a freelance journalist for some time, and authored several books about spirituality and religion.[2] He co-produced Faces of the Enemy, an award-winning PBS documentary; was the subject of a Bill Moyers' television special in the early 1990s; and for 20 years served as a contributing editor at Psychology Today magazine.[4] He was also featured in the 2003 documentary Flight from Death.
Keen gained notice for his various self-help books and workshops.[2] In 1991, his book Fire in the Belly: On Being a Man was published, and was part of a movement which encouraged men to "follow their warrior spirit", as The New York Times described it.[2] Keen believed that contemporary society and harmed and constrained men and women, and said that a productive movement could provide the same liberation for men as feminist movements could for women.[2] Later, Keen became interested in the flying trapeze, and said it could provide psychological benefits in his 1999 book Learning to Fly: Trapeze – Reflections on the Fear, Trust, and the Joy of Letting Go.[2]
Personal life and death
Keen's marriages to Heather Barnes and Janine Lovett ended in divorce; he had two children from his first marriage and one from his second.[2] In 2004, he married Patricia de Jong, who was a former senior minister of First Congregational Church of Berkeley, United Church of Christ, in Berkeley, California.[5] They lived on a ranch in Sonoma, California.[2]
Keen died on March 19, 2025, at the age of 93, while vacationing in Oahu, Hawaii.[2][6]
Books
In print
- Prodigal Father, Wayward Son (2015)
- In the Absence of God: Dwelling in the Presence of the Sacred (2010)
- Sightings: Extraordinary Encounters with Ordinary Birds (Chronicle Books, 2007)
- Learning to Fly: Reflections on Fear, Trust, and the Joy of Letting Go (1999)
- To Love and Be Loved (Bantam, 1997)
- Hymns to an Unknown God (Bantam, 1994)
- Inward Bound: Exploring the Geography of Your Emotions (Bantam, 1992)
- Fire in the Belly: On Being a Man (Bantam, 1991)
- Your Mythic Journey (Tarcher, 1990)
- Faces of the Enemy. Reflections of the Hostile Imagination. (Harper and Row, San Francisco 1986)
Out of print
- The Passionate Life (Harper and Row)
- Beginnings Without End (Harper and Row, 1975)
- To a Dancing God (Harper and Row, 1970)
- Apology for Wonder (Harper and Row, 1969)
- Gabriel Marcel (John Knox Press, 1967)
See also
References
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External links
- Official site
- Famous Quotes By Sam Keen
- Sam Keen MP3 audio - from Shift in Action, sponsored by Institute of Noetic Sciences
- Ancients were ahead of their time, The Sydney Morning Herald, Paul Sheehan, October 16, 2006.
- Flight From Death on Hulu
- Pages with script errors
- 1931 births
- 2025 deaths
- 20th-century American journalists
- 20th-century American philosophers
- 21st-century American philosophers
- American spiritual writers
- Harvard Divinity School alumni
- Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary faculty
- People from Maryville, Tennessee
- People from Sonoma, California
- Princeton University alumni
- Men's movement in the United States
- Ursinus College alumni
- Writers from the San Francisco Bay Area
- Writers from Wilmington, Delaware