Harvard Divinity School

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 for the American Soul which will be published in November 2023. She is a Professor of English and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University, and the Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor at Harvard Radcliffe Institute. A full transcript can be found online: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/news/video-poetry-craft-talk-and-reading-pulitzer-prize-winning-poet-tracy-k-smith This event took place May 8, 2023. Learn more: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/home

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/final_final_mrc_bulletin_20230516.pdf?m=1684942144). A full transcript can be found online: https://hds.harvard.edu/news/2023/07/28/video-harvard-divinity-school-2023-multireligious-commencement-service Learn more: https://hds.harvard.edu/

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 program brings distinguished senior and junior scholars of world Christianity to Harvard Divinity School each year, opening up fresh perspectives, particularly from the global south. This is our second year of having Yang Visiting Scholars at HDS, and the cohort for the third year in 2023-24 has been selected and those scholars will also be in attendance. This event took place April 18, 2023. A full transcript can be found online: https://hds.harvard.edu/news/2023/07/28/video-world-christianity-christianity-west-continuities-and-differences Learn more: https://hds.harvard.edu/

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/

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 Ichihasi Potts, Janet Gyatso, and Diane L. Moore examine the religious and spiritual implications of climate change. George Sarrinikolaou, executive director of the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability at Harvard University, offered remarks as a respondent. This event was part of Harvard Climate Action Week, a celebration and acceleration of climate research, education, and engagement across Harvard University. Led by the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability and hosted by schools and centers across Harvard University, the week convened thousands of experts, decision-makers, students, alumni, and scholars. This event took place May 11, 2023. A full transcript can be found online: https://rpl.hds.harvard.edu/news/2023/07/20/video-examining-religious-and-spiritual-implications-climate-change Learn more: https://hds.harvard.edu/

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 the twentieth century, and which now has churches throughout the world. This event took place March 27, 2023. Learn more: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/home

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/

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 Sciences, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard Law School, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, and POPLAR at the Petrie-Flom Center. This third series of talks featured Suzannah Clark, Max Ingersoll, Logan Fahrenkopf, Jeffrey Breau, and Paul Gillis-Smith. This event took place on April 1, 2023 Learn more: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/

This lecture on conjuring, gender, and decolonization was given by Visiting Associate Professor of Women and Gender Studies and African American Religions and Women's Studies in Religion Program 2022-23 Research Associate Xhercis Méndez. This event took place on April 11, 2023 Learn more: https://wsrp.hds.harvard.edu/ Full transcript: https://wsrp.hds.harvard.edu/news/2023/5/11/video-conjuring-nonbinary-futurities-and-decolonizing-methodologies

In collaboration with Harvard Divinity School and the Moses Mesoamerican Archive and Research Project at Harvard University, this symposium was designed to give momentum to our efforts to explore, catalogue, and promulgate Dr. Charles H. Long’s enduring intellectual contributions to the academic study of religion, history, and culture. The event featured an opening keynote on the symposium’s theme, critical responses to key passages from Long’s writings, and a closing keynote followed by a ceremonial libation. Speakers included Corey D. B. Walker, Jacob K. Olupona, Dianne M. Stewart, Tracey E. Hucks, Jennifer Reid, Davíd L. Carrasco, and Lee H. Butler, Jr. This event took place on April 14, 2023 Learn more: https://hds.harvard.edu/

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 Sciences, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard Law School, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, and POPLAR at the Petrie-Flom Center. This panel concerning the regulation of psychedelics included Glenn Cohen, Rick Doblin, Mason Marks, Leonard Pickard, Jeffrey Breau, and Paul Gillis-Smith. This event took place on April 1, 2023 Learn more: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/

“Thank you, George Floyd, for giving your life for justice.” These words, uttered by former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, were offered in memory of George Floyd. Pelosi would eventually apologize for her words, but the question remains: why did she make this claim? What was it—what is it—about antiblack state-sanctioned violence that lends itself so easily to justifying this violence? Which is to say, what is it about state-sanctioned antiblack violence that lends itself so easily to theodicean claims steeped in atonement logics? In this talk, Biko Mandela Gray suggests that one of the reasons this is possible is because blackness—and therefore black life—operates as a structure of dis/appearance. To an antiblack world, blackness appears largely in the moments that it is dead—which is to say, in the moments that it has disappeared. This (ghostly) structure of dis/appearance is, Gray argues, how religious ideas—such as theodicy, atonement, and yes, even justice—are steeped in (a need for) black death. This event took place on April 6, 2023 Transcript available here: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/news/2023/05/04/greeley-lecture-disappearing-black-life-theodicy-study-religion-biko-mandela-gray Learn more: https://hds.harvard.edu/

This panel presented an opportunity to learn from the critical work being done by students to advance justice through analysis, reflection, and action at the intersection of race and climate. Mayra Rivera, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Religion and Latinx Studies, will offer an opening address. This event was part of HDS's Climate Justice Week. It took place April 11, 2023. Panelists Phil Scholer, MTS '24 Tracey Robertson Carter, HDS Special Student Nathan Samayo, MDiv '23 Eve Woldemikael, MDiv '24 Moderator Aliyah Collins, MDiv '23 Learn more: https://hds.harvard.edu/ Full transcript: https://rpl.hds.harvard.edu/news/2023/5/11/video-climate-justice-racial-justice-student-panel

How does religion shape the political, social, and economic systems that have contributed to climate collapse, in both explicit and embedded ways? How can a critical understanding of religion help us reimagine and develop effective responses to climate collapse? RPL Fellows with expertise in policy, environmental science, Native and Indigenous rights, and education discussed the ways religious and spiritual literacy can enhance policy and scientific efforts to understand the drivers of climate collapse and advance climate justice. This event was part of HDS's Climate Justice Week. It took place April 14, 2023. Panelists Cynthia Wilson: RPL Native and Indigenous Rights Fellow Teresa Cavazos Cohn: RPL Climate Justice Fellow Rev. Naomi Washington-Leapheart: RPL Government Fellow Moderator Sarabinh Levy-Brightman: RPL Education Fellow A full transcript can be found online: https://rpl.hds.harvard.edu/news/2023/05/11/video-religious-literacy-and-climate-justice Learn more: https://hds.harvard.edu/

Join Research Associate Dr. Giovanna Parmigiani in a conversation with Dr. Natalie Dyer. Dr. Dyer is a Research Scientist with Connor Whole Health at University Hospitals, the President of the Center for Reiki Research, and a practicing Reiki master. In this discussion they talk about the role of Reiki and energy healing in improving health and well-being, the possibility of a non-materialist scientific paradigm, and Dr. Dyer’s latest research on universal love. This event took place on April 5, 2023 Learn more: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/ Full transcript: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/news/2023/05/03/video-reiki-energy-medicine-and-post-materialism

In this conversation Catherine Brekus, Chair of the Committee on the Study of Religion, discusses the process and possibilities when applying to doctoral programs in religion. This event took place on April 14, 2023 Transcript available here: https://hds.harvard.edu/news/4/14/2023/applying-doctoral-programs-religion Learn more: https://hds.harvard.edu/

What role does religion play in the movement for climate justice? How can religious communities serve as sites of organizing and activism? Panelists will discuss these questions through the lenses of religious literacy, climate grief, climate ministry, and practices to guide communities through the perils of climate catastrophe. This panel will feature: Terry Tempest Williams, HDS Writer-in-Residence Matthew Ichihashi Potts, Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church and the Plummer Professor of Christian Morals, MDiv '08, PhD '13 Rev. Vernon K. Walker, Program Director of Communities Responding to Extreme Weather (CREW) Anna Del Castillo, MDiv '21, Climate Justice Researcher for Religion and Public Life This event took place on April 14, 2023. A full transcript can be found online: https://rpl.hds.harvard.edu/news/2023/07/24/video-examining-religious-and-spiritual-implications-climate-change Learn more: https://hds.harvard.edu/

The question of Palestine and the Palestinians is shifting more and more from an external matter to an internal question of Israel, Zionism, and the Jewish people writ large. Religion and Public Life Visiting Scholar in Conflict and Peace Raef Zreik interrogates the ways questions of war and peace, borders, security, or the ‘two state’ solution become more and more internal to Israel. Related intimately to the state's identity, character and constitutional structure and democratic nature, these questions highlight the merging conversation of existence and essence. This event took place on March 23, 2023 Learn more: https://rpl.hds.harvard.edu/ Full transcript: https://hds.harvard.edu/news/2023/5/9/video-palestinian-question-jewish-question

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 Sciences, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard Law School, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, and POPLAR at the Petrie-Flom Center. This first series of talks featured Franklin King, Yvan Beaussant, Grant Jones, Fernando Espi Forcen, Stephen J. Haggarty, Jeffrey Breau, and Paul Gillis-Smith. This event took place on April 1, 2023 Learn more: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/ A full transcript is here: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/transcript-explorations-interdisciplinary-psychedelic-research-group-two

Charles Hallisey, Yehan Numata Senior Lecturer on Buddhist Literatures, talks about Buddhist Studies at Harvard, his path to teaching, and the beauty of the world. Faculty Focus is a special new podcast series from Harvard Divinity School, where we speak with HDS professors about their courses and research interests. Full episode transcript: https://hds.harvard.edu/news/2023/4/14/faculty-focus-charles-hallisey-beauty-world-buddhist-studies-harvard Learn more about HDS: hds.harvard.edu/ Music track: "Old Dog New Tricks"; Extreme Music Limited

Black Studies and Critical Race Theory constitute some of the most theoretically sophisticated conversations in the Humanities today on issues of individual and collective identities. The results have not yet been brought to bear on Jewish Studies, in general, or research on antisemitism, in particular. This talk, delivered by Shaul Magid and part of the Albert & Vera List Fund for Jewish Studies Lecture Series at the Center for the Study of World Religions, makes the case that antisemitism can be better theorized through engagement with theories of anti-Blackness, particularly Afropessimism. It focuses on how Jews write about antisemitism, how it is perceived in contemporary America, and how this discussion relates to race and Jewish identity. This event took place on April 3, 2023 Learn more: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/ Full transcript: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/news/2023/4/18/video-judeopessimism-antisemitism-history-and-critical-race-theory-shaul-magid

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 Sciences, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard Law School, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, and POPLAR at the Petrie-Flom Center. This first series of talks featured Charles Stang, Natalia Schwien, Rachael Petersen, Andrea Lerner, Ned Hall, Justin Williams, Jeffrey Breau, and Paul Gillis-Smith. This event took place on April 1, 2023 Learn more: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/ A full transcript is here: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/transcript-explorations-interdisciplinary-psychedelic-research-group-one

This lecture is the third of a four-part series this academic year. This series explores the moral and ethical questions surrounding the global climate crisis and the role of religious institutions, organization and members of the general public, outside the scientific community focused on saving the planet. Dekila Chungyalpa is a religion and ecology expert, having worked with faith and Indigenous leaders around the world on developing faith-led environmental and climate projects for 15 years. This event took place on March 22, 2023 Learn more: https://hds.harvard.edu/ Full transcript: https://hds.harvard.edu/news/2023/5/9/video-william-belden-noble-lecture-series-dekila-chungyalpa

This lecture on Jewish midwives was given by Visiting Assistant Professor of Judaism and Women's Studies in Religion Program 2022-23 Research Associate Jordan Katz. This event took place on March 22, 2023 A full transcript can be found online: https://wsrp.hds.harvard.edu/news/2023/06/07/video-rachel-salomons-and-world-jewish-midwives-early-modern-europe Learn more: https://wsrp.hds.harvard.edu/

In this special episode of Faculty Focus, HDS professors John P. Brown and Charles Hallisey talk about why this summer’s Making Change Professional and Lifelong Learning program is such a valuable experience for those looking to make an investment in themselves and gain a new perspective on the challenges they face. Held across five lively and concentrated days of collaboration, close reading, and multilayered exercises, a team of faculty members from Harvard Divinity School and Harvard Business School will share their insights and reflections about religious and non-religious meanings of “the graciousness of the world” and its relevance for how we think about making change in a “world on fire.” To be held June 4-8, 2023, at Harvard Divinity School. Apply by May 1. Learn more about Making Change and apply: https://hds.harvard.edu/academics/professional-lifelong-learning Full transcript is here: https://hds.harvard.edu/news/2023/4/5/faculty-focus-graciousness-world-and-life-well-lived

There are two distinct concepts of translation at work in the encounter between an Amazonian Indigenous people, the Wari’, and the New Tribes Mission evangelical missionaries. While the missionaries conceive translation as a process of converting meanings between languages, conceived as linguistic codes that exist independently of culture, for the Wari’, in consonance with their perspectivist ontology, it is not language that differentiates beings but their bodies, given that those with similar bodies can, as a matter of principle, communicate with each other verbally. Translation is realized through the bodily metamorphosis objectified by mimetism and making kin, shamans being the translators par excellence, capable of circulating between distinct universes and providing the Wari’ with a dictionary-like lexicon that allows them to act in the context of dangerous encounters between humans and animals. This conversation with Aparecida Vilaça, Professor of Social Anthropology at Brazil’s Museu Nacional, aims to engage these issues of translation. This event took place on March 30, 2023 Learn more: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/ Full transcript: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/news/2023/4/18/video-translation-linguistical-and-bodily-metamorphosis

This conversation was the last of the six-part series Religion and the Legacies of Slavery | A Series of Public Online Conversations. The featured speakers were HDS professors Karen L. King, David F. Holland, Dan McKanan, Terrence L. Johnson, and Tracey Hucks. This session was a discussion among presenters reflecting upon the insights shared throughout the series. In addition to identifying themes and throughlines among sessions, we returned to the overarching questions that framed this collaboration: What does the academic study of religion teach us about the complex histories and legacies of slavery? How can a deeper understanding of the roles of religion enhance our commitment to reparative action in our contemporary times? This event took place on March 20, 2023 Learn more: https://hds.harvard.edu/ A full transcript is located here: https://hds.harvard.edu/news/2023/4/2/video-reflecting-religion-and-legacies-slavery

What is dignity? Is it something conferred upon us externally by others, or an inner quality that we all possess? Drawing from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, Phakchok Rinpoche provides a fresh understanding of dignity as the power that arises when we know decisively that our nature is inherently pure. With dignity, we know that we are fundamentally whole and complete. We gain an unshakeable confidence in who we are that enables us to meet the challenges of today’s world with greater compassion and wisdom. But many of us have lost contact with dignity. In this talk, Rinpoche offered practical and poignant advice for awakening and cultivating our own inherent dignity through contemplative exercises he calls “dignity training.” This even took place on March 20, 2023 Learn more: https://hds.harvard.edu/ A full transcript is located here: https://hds.harvard.edu/news/2023/4/14/video-what-does-it-mean-awaken-our-dignity

Amahl A. Bishara, Associate Professor of Anthropology at Tufts University, and author of "Back Stories: U.S. News Producation and Palestinian Politics," discusses her book "Crossing a Line: Laws, Violence and Roadblocks to Political Expression." The book looks to sites of political practice, such as journalism, historical commemorations, street demonstrations, social media, in prison, and on the road, to analyze how Palestinians create collectivities in circumstances of constraint. Drawing on firsthand research, personal interviews, and public media, Crossing a Line illuminates how expression is always grounded in place, and how a people can struggle together for liberation even when they cannot join together in protest. The discussion was moderated by Raef Zreik, Religion and Public Life Visiting Scholar in Conflict and Peace. The event was co-sponsored by The Center for Middle Eastern Studies Harvard University. A full transcript is here: https://rpl.hds.harvard.edu/news/audio-book-event-crossing-line-laws-violence-and-roadblocks-political-expression

In this lecture Visiting Assistant Professor of African Religions and Women's Studies in Religion Program 2022-23 Research Associate Elyan Hill discusses embodied visualities and domestic enslavement in Togolese sacred arts. This event took place on February 22, 2023. Learn more: https://wsrp.hds.harvard.edu/ Full transcript: https://wsrp.hds.harvard.edu/news/2023/3/25/video-dancing-altars

Join Research Associate Dr. Giovanna Parmigiani in her conversation with Dr. Grace Nono as they discuss Dr. Nono’s work as an ethnographer and performer, about shamanism in the Philippines, and some of the possible connections between sound and healing. This event is part of the Gnoseologies Series focused on ways of knowing that are often labeled as “non-rational.” Traditionally referred to as gnosis in Western philosophical and religious traditions, and often understood in contraposition to science (episteme), these ways of knowing are becoming more and more influential in contemporary societies, popular culture, and academic research. This event took place on March 8, 2023 Learn more: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/ A full transcript is located here: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/news/2023/4/14/music-voice-healing-conversation-grace-nono

Slavery is most readily associated with the U.S. American South with the geographies of the North often eclipsed. Tracey Hucks, Victor S. Thomas Professor of Africana Religious Studies at HDS and Suzanne Young Murray Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, led a discussion on slavery and the slave trade that focuses on New England and the DeWolf family of Rhode Island. The DeWolf family was understood as the largest slave trading family in the United States and Dain Perry, a direct descendant, was featured in this webinar. The event will also highlight the reparative and healing workshops co-facilitated by Dain and his wife Constance Perry conducted throughout the U.S. at religious, social, and educational institutions. Hosted by Dr. Diane L. Moore, Faculty Director, Religion and Public Life, and Dr. Melissa Wood Bartholomew, Associate Dean of the Office of Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging. This event took place on March 6, 2023. Full transcript forthcoming. Learn more about Religion and the Legacies of Slavery: A Series of Public Online Conversations: https://hds.harvard.edu/news/religion-and-legacies-slavery

On March 2, 2023, a cohort of Harvard Divinity School students engaged in an evening of storytelling, poetry, and photography as they shared their experiences of joy and resistance from their summer in Israel/Palestine. Learn more: https://hds.harvard.edu/ A full transcript is located here: https://rpl.hds.harvard.edu/news/2023/4/8/video-displacement-and-belonging-israelpalestine

The Leading Toward Justice webinar series features panel discussions spotlighting alumni impact in the world and the ways alumni leverage their HDS training while working in secular or public professions. This session discussed the critical importance of ethical practices and religious literacy in community organizing and advocacy fields. Panelists: - Ryan Andersen, MDiv ’04 - Lead Organizer, Calgary Alliance for the Public Good - Jasmine Beach-Ferrera, MDiv ’10 - Executive Director, Campaign for Southern Equality - Erica Williams, MRPL ’22 – Spiritual Leader, Community Organizer, and International Human Rights Activist Moderated by Susan O. Hayward, MDiv ’07, Associate Director for the Religious Literacy and the Professions Initiative (RLPI) at Harvard Divinity School This event took place on February 10, 2023. Learn more: https://hds.harvard.edu/ A full transcript is located here: https://rpl.hds.harvard.edu/news/2023/4/8/video-leading-toward-justice-intersections-religion-ethics-and-community-organizing

Monica Sanford, Assistant Dean for Multireligious Ministry and Lecturer in Ministry Studies at HDS, talks about the evolution and importance of multireligious ministry and setting students up for success. Faculty Focus is a special podcast series from Harvard Divinity School, where we speak with HDS professors about their courses and research interests. Full episode transcript: https://hds.harvard.edu/news/2023/6/3/faculty-focus-monica-sanford-multireligious-ministry Learn more about HDS: hds.harvard.edu/ Music track: "Old Dog New Tricks"; Extreme Music Limited

The 1619 Project spawned an unprecedented national conversation in and outside the classroom on slavery’s ongoing afterlives in American society. The enthusiastic response to the project was not universal. A few historians noted in a letter to the Times that the project reflected “a displacement of historical understanding of ideology.” The challenge raised here underscores central ethical concerns at the center of American national identity: who is responsible for slavery? What role does religion play in addressing the lingering “afterlives” of African enslavement in the United States? Do African and African American scholars play a unique role in public debates and scholarship on slavery? HDS Professor Terrence Johnson examined how the writings of W.E.B. Du Bois and Toni Morrison established a framework for exploring the role of religion and ethics in grappling with the memory and history of African enslavement. Hosted by Dr. Diane L. Moore, Faculty Director, Religion and Public Life, and Dr. Melissa Wood Bartholomew, Associate Dean of the Office of Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging. This event took place on February 27, 2023 Learn more about Religion and the Legacies of Slavery: A Series of Public Online Conversations: https://hds.harvard.edu/news/religion-and-legacies-slavery

In this event, Dr. Amy Hale and Dr. Christa Shusko present their book Essays on Women in Western Esotericism: Beyond Seeresses and Sea Priestesses, edited by Amy Hale. They discuss some of the latest and pressing topics in the study of (Western) Esotericism and talk about some of the opportunities and challenges of inhabiting this field of study as women and scholars. This conversation is part of the Gnoseologies series. This online series focuses on ways of knowing that are often labeled as “non-rational.” Traditionally referred to as gnosis in Western philosophical and religious traditions, and often understood in contraposition to science (episteme), these ways of knowing are becoming more and more influential in contemporary societies, popular culture, and academic research. Going beyond dichotomies such as body and mind, ordinary and extraordinary, reason and experience, and matter and spirit, this series hosts scholars of different disciplines and practitioners interested in exploring and expanding the boundaries of what counts as “knowledge” today. This event took place on February 22, 2023 Learn more: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/ Full transcript: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/news/2023/3/25/video-essays-women-western-esotericism-beyond-seeresses-and-sea-priestesses

As a state-of-the-art “wearable technology” of the time, talismans provided protection, perquisites, and prescriptions for the devotees of premodern Korean Buddhism. Among a varied array of talismans discovered from tombs, stupas, and spell books, this talk focuses on a collage of the twenty-four Buddhist talismans to illustrate how they provided a vocabulary and structure to address believers’ soteriological concerns and transform their cosmological views. By examining these talismans as a crucial part of the Korean Buddhist mortuary ritual, the talk argues for the pervasiveness of talismanic culture in Chosŏn Buddhism, which allowed its followers to manage the fears of disease, demons, and death. My findings further suggest that multiple layers of ambiguities built around talismans, such as tensions between text and image, legibility and illegibility, as well as accessibility and inaccessibility, played a key role in enacting the efficacy and potency of talismans, and that the twenty-four talismans occupied a central place in Chosŏn Buddhist devotional practice. Challenging the common view of Chosŏn Buddhism as being dormant and defeated, this talk presents a surprisingly vibrant and dynamic picture of Chosŏn Buddhism through these little-studied materials. This event took place on February 6, 2023 Learn more: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/ Full transcript: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/news/2023/3/4/video-wearing-divine-protection

Randy Chung Gonzales was leading an ordinary life in his hometown of Lamas, Peru, when his employer, anthropologist Frédérique Apffel-Marglin, asked him to accompany her to an ayahuasca ceremony led by a local shaman. There, to everyone’s great surprise, Randy was initiated by discarnate entities, who instructed him and gave him healing powers. In this unique book, Randy tells his story to Frédérique, who offers cultural context and describes how she herself has been transformed from an academic anthropologist into an advocate for the sharing of indigenous wisdom and ecospirituality. Initiated by the Spirits argues powerfully that shamanic sacred plants can heal the epidemics of mental illness in Western societies, as well as the global ecological crisis. This event took place on February 9, 2023 Learn more: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/ Full transcript: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/news/2023/3/4/video-initiated-spirits-fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9rique-apffel-marglin-phd-randy-chung-gonzales

This lecture, given by Visiting Lecturer on Islam and Women's Studies in Religion Program 2022-23 Research Associate Rahina Muazu, discusses awra (an Arabic word that is translated as nakedness, genital organs, private parts, genitalia, blemish, defects, etc.) and the female voice in Islamic law. This event took place on October 27, 2022 Learn more: https://wsrp.hds.harvard.edu/ Full transcript: https://wsrp.hds.harvard.edu/news/2023/3/4/what-%E2%80%9C%E2%80%99awra%E2%80%9D-women-gendered-space-and-islamic-law

Harvard Divinity School was founded nearly forty years after slavery was abolished in Massachusetts, yet many of our school’s founders and early students were intimately familiar with both enslavement and the slave trade. Harvard and the Legacy of Slavery highlights the case of our first dean, John Gorham Palfrey, who was abandoned as a child in Boston when his father moved to Louisiana to establish a plantation. Palfrey’s mentor William Ellery Channing, who was the intellectual founder of the Divinity School, was the great grandson of a slave trader and in his own childhood was cared for by a formerly enslaved woman, Duchess Quamino. Channing was also related by marriage to the Perkins and Higginson families, who had derived vast fortunes from trade in slaves and slave-produced goods. These family legacies shaped the antislavery commitments of people like Channing and Palfrey, while the associated fortunes laid the foundation for the Divinity School endowment. In this session, we consider whether the exploration of family histories can inform reparative work in the present day. This event took place on February 13, 2023. Learn more: https://hds.harvard.edu/news/religion-and-legacies-slavery

It has long been a historical truism that, in the early modern West, pseudoscientific racial hierarchies replaced religious hierarchies as the dominant framework for understanding human difference and justifying oppressive colonialist practices, including slavery. Recent research has challenged this axiom to suggest how important religious conceptions of difference remained to the racist imagination into the modern period—and, indeed, into our present day. The convergence of racialist and religious orderings of humanity converged in American institutions like Harvard University, persisting in ways with which we have not sufficiently reckoned. This conversation is part of the Religion and the Legacies of Slavery series at HDS. The featured speakers are David F. Holland, John A. Bartlett Professor of New England Church History at HDS, and Kathryn Gin Lum, Associate Professor in Religious Studies at Stanford University. This event took place on February 6, 2023 Learn more: https://hds.harvard.edu/ Full transcript: https://hds.harvard.edu/news/2023/2/14/video-religion-race-and-double-helix-white-supremacy

As part of Harvard Divinity School's annual William James Lectures on Religious Experience, Professor John Kaag presented "William James and the Sick Soul." This lecture discussed William James's 1895 lecture entitled "Is Life Worth Living?" It was no theoretical question for James, who had contemplated suicide during an existential crisis as a young man a quarter-century earlier. This lecture showed why the founder of pragmatism and empirical psychology can still speak so directly and profoundly to anyone struggling to make a life worth living. This event took place on February 2, 2023 Learn more: https://hds.harvard.edu/ Full transcript: https://hds.harvard.edu/news/2023/3/3/video-william-james-and-sick-soul

This conversation was the first of the six-part series Religion and the Legacies of Slavery: A Series of Public Online Conversations. The featured speaker was Karen L. King, Hollis Professor of Divinity at HDS. This event took place on January 30, 2023 Learn more: https://hds.harvard.edu/ Full transcript: https://hds.harvard.edu/news/2023/2/2/video-enslavement-formation-earliest-christianity

This fall, Harvard Divinity School celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Buddhist Ministry Initiative (BMI). In honor of this anniversary, the community engaged in discussions of Buddhist ministry in the context of HDS. In this audio, Phillip Henderson, the CEO of the Ho Family Foundation, discusses the importance of the Buddhist Ministry Initiative at HDS. This event took place on October 27, 2022 Learn more: hds.harvard.edu Full transcript: https://hds.harvard.edu/news/2023/1/17/audio-bmi-10th-anniversary-phillip-henderson-and-ho-family-foundation

Peripheries is a non-profit literary and arts journal established in 2017 that publishes artistic work that is, broadly understood, "peripheral"; work that explores the interstices between discourses, traditions, languages, forms, and genres. In this spirit, along with publishing poetry, visual art, and short stories, our scope is expansive, including translations, interviews, creative nonfiction, reviews, aphorisms, recipes, instructions, and manifestos. In this video HDS celebrates the launch of the 2022 edition of Peripheries. This celebration previewed this fifth edition with a lineup of international contributors, who read, performed, and presented their artworks. This event took place on November 30, 2022 Learn more: https://www.peripheriesjournal.com/ Full transcript: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/news/video-release-party-peripheries-vol-5

As the nights grow longer and the days shorter, share in a virtual celebration of Seasons of Light, Harvard Divinity School's beloved annual multireligious service honoring the interplay of holy darkness and light in the world’s religious traditions. Performances include choral and instrumental music, readings by HDS students, the ritual kindling of many flames, and communal prayers and songs. Explore these offerings to the season in part or as a whole. Seasons of Light is hosted by Harvard Divinity School's Office of Religious and Spiritual Life under the direction of Christopher Hossfeld, Director of Music and Ritual, and Kerry A. Maloney, Chaplain and Director of Religious and Spiritual Life. Full transcript: https://hds.harvard.edu/news/2022/12/8/audio-seasons-light

As the nights grow longer and the days shorter, share in a virtual celebration of Seasons of Light, Harvard Divinity School's beloved annual multireligious service honoring the interplay of holy darkness and light in the world’s religious traditions. Performances include choral and instrumental music, readings by HDS students, the ritual kindling of many flames, and communal prayers and songs. Explore these offerings to the season in part or as a whole. Seasons of Light is hosted by Harvard Divinity School's Office of Religious and Spiritual Life under the direction of Christopher Hossfeld, Director of Music and Ritual, and Kerry A. Maloney, Chaplain and Director of Religious and Spiritual Life. Full transcript: https://hds.harvard.edu/news/2022/12/8/audio-seasons-light

As the nights grow longer and the days shorter, share in a virtual celebration of Seasons of Light, Harvard Divinity School's beloved annual multireligious service honoring the interplay of holy darkness and light in the world’s religious traditions. Performances include choral and instrumental music, readings by HDS students, the ritual kindling of many flames, and communal prayers and songs. Explore these offerings to the season in part or as a whole. Seasons of Light is hosted by Harvard Divinity School's Office of Religious and Spiritual Life under the direction of Christopher Hossfeld, Director of Music and Ritual, and Kerry A. Maloney, Chaplain and Director of Religious and Spiritual Life. Full transcript: https://hds.harvard.edu/news/2022/12/8/audio-seasons-light

As the nights grow longer and the days shorter, share in a virtual celebration of Seasons of Light, Harvard Divinity School's beloved annual multireligious service honoring the interplay of holy darkness and light in the world’s religious traditions. Performances include choral and instrumental music, readings by HDS students, the ritual kindling of many flames, and communal prayers and songs. Explore these offerings to the season in part or as a whole. Seasons of Light is hosted by Harvard Divinity School's Office of Religious and Spiritual Life under the direction of Christopher Hossfeld, Director of Music and Ritual, and Kerry A. Maloney, Chaplain and Director of Religious and Spiritual Life. Full transcript: https://hds.harvard.edu/news/2022/12/8/audio-seasons-light