Susan Hagedorn
Susan Hagedorn earned a BA in English at Ohio Wesleyan University, a BS in nursing at the University of Massachusetts, an MS in maternal-child nursing at Boston College, an MA in Media Studies at The New School, and a PhD in nursing at the University of Colorado where she taught, practiced as a nurse practitioner, and did research. Sue's nursing career has been dedicated to social justice as a nurse educator, nurse practitioner, philanthropist, filmmaker, and activist.
Sue "retired" from nursing academia to a career in documentary filmmaking. She has produced more than fifteen films focused on nursing and social justice, including films advocating for a variety of roles within the practice of nursing and celebrating nursing history. She also made a feature about a hate crime on Long Island (Deputized, 2013), followed by two Berrigan films: Seeking Shelter: A Story of Place, Faith, and Resistance (2018) and The Berrigans: Devout and Dangerous (2021) about the Berrigans' century of peacemaking.
Susan is the recipient of the Thomas Jefferson Award, the Florence Nightingale Award for Excellence in Health and Care Analytics, and the Humanitarian Award, which she received at the Long Island International Film Expo for Deputized. She is also a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and the American Association of Nurse Practitioners. She lives part-time on Block Island and is co-president of the Block Island Historical Society.
Books by Susan Hagedorn
A Voice and a Poet for All Times
It is impossible not to be gripped by the spectacular details of Daniel Berrigan's life. He was Paul Simon's "radical priest" smiling in handcuffs. The Jesuit activist excommunicated by his peers and imprisoned by the state. The unapologetic advocate for society's disempowered. The defiant vandal of objects that fed bodies and materiel to the war machine. And the earnest, yet somehow serene, face emanating from televisions denouncing the inhumanity of that very machine's deeds.
Yet Daniel was first an accomplished poet, inspired in his faith by dreams of peace. It was from this profound contemplation of the world from an early age that his courageous acts of civil disobedience and humanitarianism were born.
In this collection of interconnected poems, Daniel Berrigan writes about his intimate bond with his small cottage built especially for him on Block Island. We see his complete integration into the island itself in his reverence for the everyday life and ever-changing weather winding around him. Yet soon we also discover themes of God and the soul, the land and the sea, friendship and loss, time and impermanence, and the tension between society's potential and its spiritual impoverishment.
Embraced by personal and scholarly writings from friends who remain students of Daniel's ideas and lifeworks, as well as images and letters that enrich our perceptions of Daniel, this ever-timely collection is an essential object for poets, activists, the faithful, and all forms of countercultural rebel alike.