Harvard Divinity School

The 2020-21 Fellows in Conflict and Peace at Religion and Public Life at Harvard Divinity School share their backgrounds, fellowship projects, and how they hope to engage with the RCPI and RPL communities during their fellowship year. To engage further, get in touch with RPL at https://rpl.hds.harvard.edu/about/contact-us.

The 2020-21 Fellows in Conflict and Peace at Religion and Public Life at Harvard Divinity School share their backgrounds, fellowship projects, and how they hope to engage with the RCPI and RPL communities during their fellowship year. To engage further, get in touch with RPL at https://rpl.hds.harvard.edu/about/contact-us.

The COVID-19 pandemic offers an opportunity to explore how religion and whiteness are interconnected. Where is religion in a president refusing to wear masks in public? What of whiteness in a governor suing one of its state’s own cities to prevent mask mandates? These current events, and their asymmetrical racialized consequences, offer a view of whiteness’s historical and phenomenological role as...

As the 2020 presidential election nears, Lauren R. Kerby and Jeff Sharlet discussed the politics of white evangelicals in the U.S. today. Kerby's book, Saving History: How White Evangelicals Tour the Nation's Capital and Redeem a Christian America, offers a starting point for this important conversation about how race, nationalism, and Christianity become entangled for many white evangelicals thro...

Mystical-type experiences are profound and often characterized by an authoritative sense of the unity and sacredness and sometimes interpreted as an encounter with God or Ultimate Reality. Although such experiences have been described by mystics and religious figures throughout the ages, there are few experimental studies because such experiences usually occur at low rates and often unpredictably....

This conversation was presented on August 27, 2020, by the HDS Women’s Studies in Religion Program, which brings five scholars in gender from around the country each year to enrich the experience of HDS students. The research associates shared their thoughts on the ethical responsibility of scholars to be engaged in the study of gender. Full transcript here: https://wsrp.hds.harvard.edu/news/2020/...

In conjunction with the HDS Committee on Racial Justice and Healing and in cooperation with the courses "Theories and Methods in the Study of Religion" (T&M) and "Introduction to Ministry Studies" (IMS), Professors David Holland and Matthew Potts hosted a two-part series of community conversations on issues of white supremacy and anti-blackness in the study of ministry and religion. On September 2...

Cornell William Brooks, Visiting Professor of the Practice of Prophetic Religion and Public Leadership at HDS and Professor of the Practice of Public Leadership and Social Justice at Harvard Kennedy School, virtually delivered the 205th Convocation address at Harvard Divinity School. Brooks's address was entitled "George and Jesus: Policing an Insurrection of Hope." Full transcript here: https://h...

John Camardella’s students have learned how to go beyond the textbook and embrace the “complex ways that religions function in the human experience.” Camardella is a world religions educator at Prospect High School in Illinois. Interview Transcript: We want our students to make a difference in society and all of us in education have to examine that if our time in the classroom is preparing them to...

Religious literacy is one of the “most urgent issues that anyone serious about social justice can undertake.” An RPL fellowship gave Greg Khalil the space to critically think about his work. Khalil is the co-founder and president of Telos Group. Interview Transcript: I do a lot of work in building social movement, including communities of faith, across lines of difference. And this work is complic...

Gathering Historias, an initiative of the Arnold Arboretum, envisions an outdoor landscape that fully includes and connects the stories of our expanding Latino communities. Developed by Steven Fisher, a master’s degree candidate at the Harvard Divinity School, this project recognizes that the diverse voices of Latino communities can contribute to our cultural narratives of the environment. In this...

Casper ter Kuile, MDiv '16, MPP '16, and Angie Thurston, MDiv '16, map and convene the Millennial leaders of spiritual communities at the forefront of religious change. From CrossFit to dinner churchers, Muslim small groups, and maker spaces, their work illuminates the rapidly shifting generational patterns in American religious life today. Full transcript here: https://hds.harvard.edu/news/2020/0...

This week, the HDS Episcopal/Anglican Fellowship is offering a podcast version of Noon Service on the topic “Mary’s YES, our YES!” Celebrate the Feast of the Annunciation with Anne Stetson MDiv II, Jonathan Robert Smith MDiv II, Joris Bürmann, MDiv II, Carolyn Beard MDiv I, and The Rev. Dr. Regina L. Walton, Counselor to Episcopal/Anglican Students. Permission to podcast/stream the music in this s...

Three Hindu monastics visiting Harvard Divinity School this year spoke on March 11, 2020, on the great tradition of the Upanisads and Vedanta, and why this wisdom is relevant in today’s global society. Featuring: Swami Sarvapriyananda (Ramakrishna Mission); Brahmacharini Shweta Chaitanya (Chinmaya Mission); Sadhak Akshar–Guru: Mahant Swami Maharaj (BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha). Moderated by Francis...

Considerable attention has been directed to the possibility of a technological singularity when artificial intelligences “wake up” and start acting in their own self-interest. Long before then, however, humanity will confront an ethical singularity—a point at which the evaluation of values systems acquires infinite value. The computational factories and intelligence-gathering infrastructure of the...

This event, held February 11 at the CSWR, is part of a year-long series titled "Theological Bioethics Within Marginalized Communities." This lecture is a womanist critique of a longstanding racist campaign of domestic terror in the United States. It investigated the intersectionality of racism, in particular the racist acts condoned by religious communities and by the health care system. It gave s...

This talk examined the forms that grief can take, in the work of Zoe Leonard, Peter Hujar, David Wojnarowicz, and John Constable. Kate Zambreno is the author of several acclaimed books, including Screen Tests, Heroines, and Green Girl. She has recently published a collection of talks and essays, Appendix Project, in the shadow of Book of Mutter, her meditation on grief. Her writing has appeared in...

Stephanie Paulsell, HDS Susan Shallcross Swartz Professor of the Practice of Christian Studies and Interim Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church, discusses her recent publication on Virginia Woolf. Amy Hollywood (HDS) and Terry Tempest Williams (HDS) responded. Video and full transcript here: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/news/2019/12/02/video-religion-around-virginia-woolf-author-discussion Learn...

On November 6, 2019, Harvard Divinity School hosted its annual Theological Education Day. The day featured many panel discussions, including this one on admissions and financial aid. Full transcript here: https://hds.harvard.edu/files/hds/files/ted-financial-aid-2019.pdf Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at https://hds.harvard.edu/.

K. Healan Gaston, Harvard Divinity School Lecturer in American Religious History and Ethics, discusses her recent publication, Imagining Judeo-Christian America--Religion, Secularism, and the Redefinition of Democracy. E.J. Dionne (Harvard Divinity School) and Mark Silk (Trinity College) serve as respondents. Video and full transcript here: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/news/2019/11/18/video-imagin...

Artist and author Rachel Sussman shares her physical, intellectual, and spiritual journey around the world and through time-space as she discusses her epic 10-year project, "The Oldest Living Things in the World," newer mind-expanding works incubated at NASA and SETI, and, for the first time, her personal journey of spiritual awakening and transformation through her relationship with ayahuasca. Ar...

On Thursday, November 14, 2019, Kerry M. Sonia, WSRP Research Associate and Visiting Assistant Professor of Women's Studies and Hebrew Bible, gave the lecture, “Like a Woman in Labor: The Ritual and Social Dimensions of Childbirth in the Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel.” Video and full transcript here: https://wsrp.hds.harvard.edu/news/2019/11/14/video-making-babies-childbirth-and-ceramic-producti...

What might it look like to see Jerusalem, with its cross-hatched encounters between people of diverse faiths and cultures, as a city of the book? Merav Mack and Benjamin Balint share their forays into the city's most inaccessible reaches in the making of their recently published book, Jerusalem: City of the Book. Video and full transcript here: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/news/2019/11/11/video-je...

Graham Harvey, professor of religious studies at The Open University (UK), discusses animism and how our relations are damaged by ongoing efforts to separate (human) culture from ‘nature’ and humans from other species. Engaging with Indigenous knowledges, Harvey seeks to replace ‘nature’ with more respectful relationships with the world. Graham Harvey is professor of religious studies at The Open...

On November 6, 2019, Harvard Divinity School hosted its annual Theological Education Day. Dean David N. Hempton and Angela Counts, Director of Admissions, welcomed participants. Full transcript here: https://hds.harvard.edu/files/hds/files/ted-welcome-2019.pdf Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at https://hds.harvard.edu/.