Harvard Divinity School

Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad presented "Hindu View of Life: Speaking For and Against Oneself" on Monday, September 17, at the Center for the Study of World Religions at HDS. By reflecting on three key textual passages, Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad engaged with the intersectional nature of his Hindu identity. This examination of Hinduism and intersectionality offered a new perspective on how identity is crea...

Religious traditions insist on the importance of cultivating our faculty of attention, whether it be attention to ourselves, others, our environment, or the presence of the divine in any of these three. This panel will explore whether and how the practice of writing, especially fiction writing, helps us cultivate this art of attention. What is it about writing, and the imagination and patience req...

As part of the efforts to promote the study of Islam in Africa at Harvard, an Islam in Africa conference series was initiated under the sponsorship of HDS, NELC, CAS, AAAS, and the Hutchins Center with the goal to convene an international symposium every year to facilitate intellectual conversation between junior and senior scholars involved in cutting edge research in the field. In line with the...

Panel 1 of West Africa and the Maghreb: Reassessing Intellectual Connections in the 21st Century Panelists: Armaan Sidiqi, Harvard University, “Perspectives on “Politicized Sufism”: A Case Study of the ṭarīqa QadīrīBoutchichiyya” Jaison M. Carter, Harvard University, ”Black Muslimness Mobilized: A Study of West African Sufism in Diaspora” Ariela Marcus-Sells, Elon University, “Technologies of Devo...

Panel 2 of West Africa and the Maghreb: Prayers, Invocations, and the Talismanic Tradition Panelists: James C. Riggan, Florida State University, “Qur’anic Exorcism in North and West Africa” Zachary Wright, Northwestern University Qatar and Adam Larson, Weill Cornell University – Qatar,“Genealogy of Prayer Manuals 18th Century to the Present” Paul Anderson, Harvard, “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewilde...

Panel 3 of West Africa and the Maghreb: Re-evalutating the Historic Core Curriculum Panelists: Ismail Warcheid, CNRS France, “Scholarly Networks, Legal Debates, and Territorial Integration” David Owen, Harvard University, “Of Radd and Sharḥ and Ṭurra: The Long and Late Dynamism of the African Commentary Tradition on Akhḍarī's Sullam on Avicennian Organon Logic” Alexis Trouillot, Université Paris V...

Panel 4 of West Africa and the Maghreb: Jihadi Ideology: What is New, What is Not? Panelists: William Miles, Northeastern University, “Jihadism in Muslim West Africa in Historical Perspective” Abdulbasit Kassim, Rice University, Jihadi-Salafism and the Vocabulary of Takfīr in the 21st Century Hausaland and Bornu” Zekeria Ould Ahmed Salem, Northwestern University Evanston, “Assessing the Salafi Cur...

Panel 5 of West Africa and the Maghreb: New Intellectual Connections Panelists: Mansour Kedidir, CRASC Algeria, “Connections of Intellectuals in the Maghreb and Sub-Saharan Africa: Trajectories and Representations” Fatima Harrak, Institute of African Studies, Rabat Morocco, “Research on Moroccan-African Relations at the Rabat Institute of African Studies” Robert Parks, CEMA, Algeria, “American Res...

Women’s Studies in Religion Program (WSRP) 2017–18 Research Associates discuss their research and share their thoughts on the ethical responsibility of scholars to be engaged in the study of gender. Each year, WSRP brings five scholars in gender from around the world to pursue research on women and religion and to enrich the experience of our students. Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and...

​Dr. Frank Rogers delivers the keynote for "Cultivating Resilience Through the Peaks and Valleys of Chaplaincy" conference. The conference focuses on resiliency practices upheld by seasoned chaplains from the major fields of chaplaincy. Rogers is the Muriel Bernice Roberts Professor of Spiritual Formation and Narrative Pedagogy and the co-director of the Center for Engaged Compassion at the Clarem...

Francisca Cho proposes that Buddhist epistemic frameworks regarding the nature of ritual apparitions offer an account of the religious possibilities of film that is absent in Western phenomenological conversations on the same topic. Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at http://hds.harvard.edu/.

Congratulations to the Harvard Divinity School class of 2018, who received their diplomas during the HDS Diploma Awarding Ceremony on May 25, 2017. Lindsey Franklin, MDiv ’18, and Denson Staples, MDiv ’18, gave the student address. Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at http://hds.harvard.edu/.

The promotion of more just and peaceful societies is a fundamental goal of the United Nations (UN). In response to the spike in violent conflict worldwide and unparalleled levels of forced displacement, the UN broke new ground in 2016 with two “peacebuilding resolutions,” which set forth a new UN approach to “sustaining peace” that addresses “all stages of conflict” and “all its dimensions.” Durin...

David Freudberg of Humankind talks with Rabbi Patricia Karlin-Neumann and Sensei Joshin Byrnes. Cultivating Resilience Through the Peaks and Valleys of Chaplaincy focuses on resiliency practices upheld by seasoned chaplains from the major fields of chaplaincy. Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at http://hds.harvard.edu/.

Kimberly Blockett, Visiting Associate Professor of Women's Studies and African American Religions, and WSRP Research Associate and Colorado Scholar, Brandywine, presents “#sayhername: Recovering Zilpha Elaw’s Rebellious Evangelicalism." Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at http://hds.harvard.edu/.

Laura R. Prieto, Visiting Professor of Women’s Studies and American Religious History from Simmons College, presents “Making Disciples: Women, Missions, and Colonial Education in the Early 20th-Century Philippines”. Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at http://hds.harvard.edu/.

HDS students Hal Edmonson, Lou Fish-Sadin, Sally Fritsche, and Isaac Martinez deliver sermons for the Billings Preaching Prize Competition during Noon Service on April 11, 2018. The annual preaching competition is open to second- and third-year MDiv students. In addition, Samm Melton, the Massachusetts Bible Society scripture reading winner read the scripture passage. 02:16 Samm Melton 03:58 Hal E...

Terry Tempest Williams, the 2017–18 Writer-in-Residence at Harvard Divinity School, delivers the 2018 Ingersoll Lecture. She has been called "a citizen writer," a writer who speaks and speaks out eloquently on behalf of an ethical stance toward life. A conservationist and fierce advocate for freedom of speech, she has consistently shown us how environmental issues are social issues that ultimately...

The 2018 Peter J. Gomes STB '68 Memorial honorees speak for the final installment of this year’s Divinity Dialogues. The panelists were: Robert Michael Franklin, MDiv '78; Jalane D. Schmidt, MDiv '96, AM '05, PhD '05; Simran Jeet Singh, MTS '08; Karen I. Tse, MDiv '00; and Ann D. Braude, Senior Lecturer on American Religious History and director of the Women’s Studies in Religion Program. Learn mo...

Estonian composer Arvo Pärt is the most performed living composer in the world today. His style is often characterized as a “mystic” or “holy” minimalism, inspired in part by Gregorian chant. This panel explores the religious dimensions of Pärt’s music and how it has been received, performed, and adapted for various vocal and instrumental ensembles. Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its...

Satigata is a group of Harvard Divinity School alumni and students who blend Buddhist chanting, modern rock, and folk set to guitar, hand drums, and Buddhist bells. They recently released the album "Boundless." For more information visit: Jaya/Berlin. Based on the song "Take me Away" by Jaya. Mantra melody by Chris Berlin.

Violence is not inevitable in stressed and oppressed communities and the building of peace in those communities requires the building of bridges between unlikely collaborators. That's the lesson learned in Boston over three decades of trying to change the trajectory of proven-risk youth and their families. This session of the fourth annual RPP Colloquium Series features Rev. Dr. Ray Hammond, MD '7...

America is no longer a majority-white-Christian nation. Journalist, author, commentator, and Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne and Dr. Robert P. Jones, author of The End of White Christian America, discuss this seismic change, its impact on the politics and social values of the United States, and its implications for the future. Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illum...

Based on personal study and experience, Anne Waldman speaks on the refuge and Bodhisattva vows, the Six Realms of Existence, “co-emergent wisdom” and a parallel vow to poetry, and the joys and contradictions therein. She integrates her own poetry, particular writers associated with the Beat Literary Movement, and Giorgio Agamben’s notion of being contemporary with one’s time as “looking into the d...

This session of the fourth annual RPP Colloquium Series explores some of the key challenges that nonviolent resistance movements face, including obstacles to building and maintaining movement cohesion, ensuring effective communication, and gaining political leverage; how advocates of principled nonviolence (who promote nonviolence on a moral basis) often clash with advocates of civil resistance (w...