Convened by Ahmad Greene-Hayes, Assistant Professor of African American Religious Studies at HDS, this colloquium bridged connections between the critical study of Black religion and studies of race, gender, and sexuality in critical theory and philosophy, among many other fields. The aim of this gathering was to support research and sustained dialogue about the ways in which religion and race are co-constitutive and function as governing categories of analysis at the helm of both religious stud...
Oct 13, 2023•2 hr 26 min
Convened by Ahmad Greene-Hayes, Assistant Professor of African American Religious Studies at HDS, this colloquium bridged connections between the critical study of Black religion and studies of race, gender, and sexuality in critical theory and philosophy, among many other fields. The aim of this gathering was to support research and sustained dialogue about the ways in which religion and race are co-constitutive and function as governing categories of analysis at the helm of both religious stud...
Oct 13, 2023•1 hr 46 min
Full title: CSWR List Lecture with Adam Afterman: Kabbalistic Neoplatonism: Divine Emanation and Mystical Integration Dr. Afterman addressed the profound impact of Neoplatonism on Kabbalah, the medieval trend of Jewish mysticism. While its impact on the development of a new form of mystical religiosity of communion and unio mystica is relatively known, he will focus on another critical development: Afterman argued that through an interpretation of Neoplatonic emanation in terms of substantive in...
Oct 13, 2023•1 hr 15 min
This panel was presented by the Women’s Studies in Religion Program (WSRP), which brings six scholars in gender from around the country each year to enrich the experience of our students. They shared their thoughts on the ethical responsibility of scholars to be engaged in the study of gender. The scholars who presented were Jessica J. Fowler, Elena Herminia Guzman, Samira K. Mehta, S. Zahara Moballegh, Z. Fareen Parvez, and Ashley M. Purpura. This event took place on August 30, 2023. Find more ...
Oct 13, 2023•55 min
Amid ongoing ecological collapse, calls for more intense activists are on the rise. What is the role of civil disruption in addressing ecological catastrophe? How can spiritual practice inform direct action? How does taking such actions deeply impact those who dare to act? In this talk, Tim Ream explores these questions as he reflects on decades of direct action and Zen practice. Tim is an organizer, campaigner, writer, film maker, and environmental attorney. He has alternated between outlaw, la...
Oct 02, 2023•1 hr 5 min
This webinar is the first in a series offered by the Buddhist Ministry Initiative at Harvard Divinity School. It featured a panel discussion of contributors to part I of Refuge in the Storm: Buddhist Voices in Crisis Care, edited by Nathan Jishin Michon. The panel included Dr. Victor Gabriel, Chun Fai (Jeffrey) Ng, and Dr. g (Claudelle R. Glasgow, Psy.D., SEP, and will be co-moderated by Rev. Dr. Nathan Jishin Michon and Rev. Dr. Monica Sanford. This event took place on September 20, 2023. Find ...
Sep 29, 2023•1 hr 30 min
Full Title: The Ziyārat of Imām al-Ḥusayn as Liturgical Text in Early Shī‘ī Ḥadīth and its Role in the Promulgation of Shī‘ī Piety The intention of this lecture and study is to investigate the intricacies and substance of a genre of devotional literature and liturgical practice in Twelver Shī‘īsm, namely the Ziyārat (visitational eulogy) of Imam al-Ḥusayn. In doing so, this talk presented a historical and close philological-thematic study of this ziyāra, a text that is consistently found through...
Sep 22, 2023•1 hr 13 min
As part of the Transcendence and Transformation initiative, the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School is proud to announce its first ever podcast. Pop Apocalypse explores the mystical and the mythic, the paranormal and the psychedelic in popular culture. The show features interviews with musicians, artists, and writers about how their spiritual experiences and practices inform their work. We also explore the mythological universes in film and fiction with show-runner...
Sep 18, 2023•1 hr 32 min
The entire HDS and Harvard community, friends, alumni, and guests were invited to the opening of HDS's 208th year. The 2023 Convocation featured remarks by Harvard President Claudine Gay, Interim Dean David F. Holland, and David N. Hempton. This event took place on September 7, 2023. Read transcript here: https://hds.harvard.edu/news/9/7/2023/convocation-2023 Find more information for this event here: https://hds.harvard.edu/news-events/convocation-2023
Sep 14, 2023•35 min
The Constellation Project is pleased to announce the publication of our second “Prayer Book,” by HDS student Morgan Curtis. “The Decolonial Dames of America,” is a landmark essay about the importance of ancestral repair work needed to be taken by the white descendants of oppressors to cultivate the soil of healing. This event featured a reading by Morgan Curtis in conversation with Melissa Bartholomew, associate dean for diversity, inclusion, and belonging. This event took place April 19, 2023. ...
Sep 06, 2023•1 hr 25 min
As part of the Transcendence and Transformation initiative, the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School is proud to announce its first ever podcast. Pop Apocalypse explores the mystical and the mythic, the paranormal and the psychedelic in popular culture. The show features interviews with musicians, artists, and writers about how their spiritual experiences and practices inform their work. We also explore the mythological universes in film and fiction with show-runner...
Aug 07, 2023•1 hr 23 min
As part of the Transcendence and Transformation initiative, the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School is proud to announce its first ever podcast. Pop Apocalypse explores the mystical and the mythic, the paranormal and the psychedelic in popular culture. The show features interviews with musicians, artists, and writers about how their spiritual experiences and practices inform their work. We also explore the mythological universes in film and fiction with show-runner...
Aug 07, 2023•1 hr 14 min
Audre Lorde is one of the most significant and influential Black feminist writer/activists of the twentieth century. In this talk at Harvard Divinity School, Dr. Beverly Guy-Sheftall, founding director of the Women’s Research and Resource Center at Spelman College, examined Lorde’s prolific writings in the context of contemporary Black feminist ethics, discourse, and activism. As the nation faces increasing political resistance to social justice reform in the aftermath of the Black Lives Matter ...
Jul 26, 2023•1 hr 23 min
The Center for the Study of World Religions hosted a talk by Raashid Goyal, who researches the history, languages, and literature of the early Islamic and pre-Islamic Near East, with a particular interest in the development of legal and political ideas in the early centuries of Islam. This event took place July 20, 2023. A full transcript is forthcoming. Learn more: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/
Jul 26, 2023•1 hr 23 min
The principle factor determining what we experience is our mind. During an event hosted by the Buddhist Ministry Initiative at Harvard Divinity School, Khentrul Rinpoche spoke about how to harness the potential of mind to transform unwanted conditions into positive circumstances. When we stop our hate of suffering, we learn how to befriend adversity and find strength in the midst of all that we experience. Not only does this transform our own lives, but it gives us the capacity to better serve o...
Jun 15, 2023•1 hr 29 min
A new religious philosophy aims to help humans understand again that they are part of and utterly dependent on the living Earth. This is a special audio version of "Following the Gaian Way," a feature written by Erik Assadourian and appearing in the Spring/Summer 2023 issue of Harvard Divinity Bulletin. Read by Michael Dowd. Read or follow along on the Harvard Divinity Bulletin website: bulletin.hds.harvard.edu/following-the-gaian-way/
Jun 15, 2023•22 min
"I see my craft as a poet as being first and foremost grief work. To re-imagine and commit ourselves to a more peaceful and just world, we must first grieve the harms that have necessitated this pursuit." Religion and Public Life at Harvard Divinity School hosted a poetry reading with Suzannah Omonuk, MDiv '23. This event took place April 19, 2023. A full transcript can be found online: https://rpl.hds.harvard.edu/news/2023/07/20/video-garden-we-sat-weeping-poetry-reading-suzannah-omonuk Learn m...
Jun 13, 2023•48 min
The Religion and Public Life program at Harvard Divinity School hosted a talk with Larry L. Rasmussen, Christian Environmental Ethicist, and Reinhold Niebuhr Professor Emeritus of Social Ethics, Union Theological Seminary. He was in conversation with: Diane L. Moore, Faculty Director of Religion and Public Life; Lecturer on Religion, Conflict, and Peace; and Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of World Religions; Terry Tempest Williams, author, environmental activist, HDS Writer-in-Residen...
Jun 13, 2023•1 hr 24 min
Each spring, the Office of Ministry Studies organizes the Billings Preaching Prize Finals, an annual preaching competition open to second- and third-year MDiv students. Congratulations to MDiv Sharon Christner, the 2023 Billings Preaching Prize Competition winner, and to finalists James Lewis and Stephanie Hollenberg for their incredible talents. The finals were held during Noon Service on April 19 in Williams Chapel. The event also featured a reading from Nicole Marie, the Massachusetts Bible S...
Jun 13, 2023•42 min
Anti-Asian hate spiked 145 percent in 2020 during the height of the pandemic. At the same time, nearly one-third of the COVID deaths among nurses were Filipina nurses. As we look back at the first three years of the COVID-19 pandemic, increasingly complex stories continue to emerge. How can religious literacy and a lens of racial justice inform the stories that we and our students hear, tell, and seek out? The Religion and Public Life program at Harvard Divinity School hosted a conversation with...
Jun 13, 2023•1 hr 1 min
Throughout millennia, Jews have explored individual and communal consciousness through a variety of techniques and traditions. More recently, Jews have played an outsized role in the “psychedelic renaissance” as researchers, practitioners, and advocates, including prominent leaders. A surge of interest in these substances creates an opportunity to reflect on non-ordinary experiences in Jewish life and theology more broadly. This panel, hosted by the Center for the Study of World Religions at Har...
Jun 08, 2023•1 hr 32 min
The Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School hosted his conversation with Professor Fadeke Castor. CSWR Research Associate Dr. Giovanna Parmigiani and Castor discussed multiple subjectivities, ethnographic practices, and being scholar practitioners in the academic context. This event was part of the Gnoseologies: Transcendence and Transformation Today series. Castor is Assistant Professor of Religion and Africana Studies at Northeastern University and award-winning auth...
Jun 08, 2023•58 min
Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Tracy K. Smith took part in a poetry reading and craft talk as part of the Peripheries Poetry Series at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School. Tracy K. Smith is a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, memoirist, editor, translator, and librettist. She served as the 22nd Poet Laureate of the United States. Smith is the author of five poetry collections including, Life on Mars, which won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize; and To Free the Captives: A Plea f...
Jun 08, 2023•58 min
Graduating students, members of the HDS community, family, and friends took part in the Harvard Divinity School 2023 Multireligious Commencement Service. The faculty speaker was David N. Hempton, Dean of the Faculty of Divinity, Alonzo L. McDonald Family Professor of Evangelical Theological Studies, John Lord O'Brian Professor of Divinity. The digital program for the Multireligious Commencement Service can also be viewed online (https://hds.harvard.edu/sites/hwpi.harvard.edu/files/hds2/files/fin...
Jun 05, 2023•1 hr 32 min
Professor Francis X. Clooney, S.J., Parkman Professor of Divinity and Professor of Comparative Theology at the Harvard Divinity School led a online conversation with the 2022-23 Yang Visiting Scholars, Dr. Heather Mellquist Lehto, and Dr. Ashok Kumar Mocherla. This conversation showed us how perspectives on the global scene might confirm, yet also challenge, how we think about Christianity and the study of Christianity here in the United States. The Yang Visiting Scholars in World Christianity p...
Jun 02, 2023•1 hr 30 min
Harvard Divinity School awarded 149 degrees during the 2023 Commencement Diploma Awarding Ceremony on May 25, 2023. The student speaker was MTS candidate Breana Norris. Full transcript here: https://hds.harvard.edu/news/2023/05/25/video-harvard-divinity-school-2023-commencement-diploma-awarding-ceremony Learn more: https://hds.harvard.edu/
Jun 01, 2023•1 hr 31 min
What kind of religious and spiritual questions are raised by climate collapse? How might understanding the religious dimensions of climate collapse and responses to it inform scientific, business, policy, activist, and other professional communities seeking to develop sustainable and just climate solutions? Religion and spirituality play a crucial role in shaping drivers of climate change and responses to it worldwide. In this online conversation, Harvard Divinity School faculty members Matthew ...
May 12, 2023•1 hr 2 min
The Center for the Study of World Religions hosted an author discussion (Psychedelics & the Future of Religion Series) with Professor Bill Barnard. Charles Stang, Director of the CSWR, and Barnard discussed his recent book, Liquid Light: Ayahuasca Spirituality and the Santo Daime Tradition. Liquid Light offers an in-depth immersion into the complex and fascinating world of the Santo Daime – a relatively new religion that emerged out of the Amazon rainforest region of Brazil in the middle of ...
May 11, 2023•1 hr 28 min
Sherah Bloor, editor of the Peripheries Journal at the Center for the Study of World Religions hosted three exciting new voices in poetry. Bloor invited Tawanda Mulalu, Isabel Duarte-Gray, and Jess Yuan to discuss their latest works. The works discussed include Please make me pretty I don't want to die (Mulalu), Even Shorn (Duarte-Gray), and Threshold Amnesia (Yuan). This event took place on April 10, 2023 Learn more: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/
May 04, 2023•1 hr 27 min
The Harvard Psychedelics Project at Harvard Divinity School, a student organization, presented this conference to gather faculty, researchers, and students from across Harvard University to explore their diverse, interdisciplinary, and promising research on psychedelics. Speakers came from across the University’s Schools, units, and departments, including the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Business School, Harvard College, Harvard Divinity School, Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Scien...
May 04, 2023•34 min
