Public Research Talk: Emancipating Ecology: The Emerson-Thoreau Fault Line and Why It Matters for the Climate Crisis — Russell C. Powell
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Thoreau is a hero of environmental politics. Why isn't Emerson?
As ecological thought has increasingly emphasized particular places, histories, and forms of life, Thoreau has come to embody an ethic of attention to what resists universal abstraction. Yet climate change confronts us with injustices that extend beyond local contexts, making the abandonment of universality—and the emancipation it promises—a political liability.
Revisiting Emerson as a thinker of universality, this talk asks how environmental politics might meet the demands of justice while remaining faithful to particular places and concerns. Though Thoreau and Emerson represent different strands of the Transcendentalist legacy, both are essential to an environmental politics that is adequate to our historical moment.
Russell C. Powell is Research Affiliate for the Transcendentalism Initiative at the Center for the Study of World Religions.…
Programming Series: Transcendentalism. Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Tuesday, September 8, 2026, 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM.
Common Room, CSWR
42 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA.
For more info visit cswr.hds.harvard.edu. Exploring Spirituality in Nature Writing: A Writing Workshop Series in Creative Nonfiction
This workshop is currently full. Thank you for your interest! If you'd like to be added to the waitlist, please contact Laurie Sedgwick at ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Registration was limited to 12 participants.
This workshop series meets on four consecutive Wednesdays—September 9, 16, 23, and 30—from 4:00–6:00 p.m. Because each session builds on the previous one, participants are expected to attend all four sessions.
When William Ellery Channing claimed in an 1828 sermon that “we are brought into harmony with the creation” in proportion to our pursuit of our own “likeness to God,” he could not have known that his theology would help inspire a literary tradition that continues to explore spiritual growth through encounters with the natural world. American nature writing developed some of its strongest roots in the ideas of Channing and the American Transcendentalists he influenced. Emerson explored selfhood and spirituality through nature, famously writing of standing in the woods and sensing that he was…
Programming Series: Transcendentalism. Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Wednesday, September 9, 2026, 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM.
Conference Room, Center for the Study of World Religions, 42 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA.
For more info visit cswr.hds.harvard.edu. Public Research Talk: Transcendental Imagination: The Case for a New American Renaissance with Kristen Case
Registration is required.
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This talk explores the transcendentalist reimagining of sociality and temporality, aspects of human experience that underwent broad transformations in the late nineteenth century. In our own time, as we navigate unprecedented access to the globe and to one another while also experiencing ever-increasing loneliness and disconnection, the relationship between self and world is once more a site of contestation and cultural renegotiation.
At the same time, our hyperconnectivity means that our experience of time is ever more fragmented, accelerated, and homogenized. As human creativity and connection are threatened by AI and algorithmic determinism, the example of the transcendentalist writers can help us recommit to an imaginative reorganization of our experience.
Kristen Case is a poet and scholar whose books include American Pragmatism and Poetic Practice, Little Arias, Principles of Economics, Henry David…
Programming Series: Transcendentalism. Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Monday, September 14, 2026, 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM.
Common Room, Center for the Study of World Religions
42 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA.
For more info visit cswr.hds.harvard.edu. “So Pure and Bright a Light”*: Photographs in Praise of Place by Carl Austin Hyatt
Registration is required.
Please register to attend in person.
*Title phrase drawn from Henry David Thoreau.
“That aim in life is the highest which requires … a lifetime to appreciate a single phenomenon! You must camp down beside it, as for life, having reached your land of promise, and give yourself wholly to it.”
—Henry David Thoreau
As Thoreau understood, perception is an intentional and participatory act—an act of intimacy sustained by the heart. It is a lived commitment. For New Hampshire Seacoast–based photographer Carl Austin Hyatt, reading Thoreau as a young man inspired a passion to find his own “land of promise.” The New England coast has become for Hyatt what Walden was for Thoreau.
“Today, as ever,” Hyatt says, “sustained intimacy with our natural surroundings generates a world of its own, reciprocally nurturing the soul of the artist and what Ralph Waldo Emerson called the World Soul.” As Hyatt has observed, “The fate of the world rests on humanity awakening to our ensouled world.”
Carl…
Programming Series: Transcendentalism. Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Monday, September 14, 2026, 4:00 PM – 5:30 PM.
Conference Room, CSWR, 42 Francis Ave.
Cambridge, MA.
For more info visit cswr.hds.harvard.edu. Exploring Spirituality in Nature Writing: A Writing Workshop Series in Creative Nonfiction
This workshop is currently full. Thank you for your interest! If you'd like to be added to the waitlist, please contact Laurie Sedgwick at ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Registration was limited to 12 participants.
This workshop series meets on four consecutive Wednesdays—September 9, 16, 23, and 30—from 4:00–6:00 p.m. Because each session builds on the previous one, participants are expected to attend all four sessions.
When William Ellery Channing claimed in an 1828 sermon that “we are brought into harmony with the creation” in proportion to our pursuit of our own “likeness to God,” he could not have known that his theology would help inspire a literary tradition that continues to explore spiritual growth through encounters with the natural world. American nature writing developed some of its strongest roots in the ideas of Channing and the American Transcendentalists he influenced. Emerson explored selfhood and spirituality through nature, famously writing of standing in the woods and sensing that he was…
Programming Series: Transcendentalism. Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM.
Conference Room, Center for the Study of World Religions, 42 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA.
For more info visit cswr.hds.harvard.edu. Public Research Talk: Franklin Benjamin Sanborn, Radical Reconstruction, and the Antislavery Roots of American Social Science - Peter Wirzbicki
Registration required.
Please register to attend in person.
Please register to attend on Zoom.
Franklin Sanborn lived two lives. He is best known as a Transcendentalist firebrand: a friend of Emerson and Thoreau, a member of John Brown’s famed “Secret Six,” and one of the first chroniclers of the Transcendentalist movement. Through his work, he helped preserve the spirit of Transcendentalism in the late nineteenth century. Yet he may have been even more influential as a leader of the American Social Science Association, the nation’s first social science organization, which played a major role in the professionalization of history, economics, and sociology.
These two worlds appear radically different: one defined by the exuberant romanticism and political idealism of the antebellum era, the other by the restrained scientific study of society. This talk asks whether these two sides of Sanborn can be reconciled. In doing so, it considers how the spirit of Transcendentalism may have evolved and survived in the…
Programming Series: Transcendentalism. Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Monday, September 21, 2026, 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM.
Common Room, CSWR
42 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA.
For more info visit cswr.hds.harvard.edu. Exploring Spirituality in Nature Writing: A Writing Workshop Series in Creative Nonfiction
This workshop is currently full. Thank you for your interest! If you'd like to be added to the waitlist, please contact Laurie Sedgwick at ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Registration was limited to 12 participants.
This workshop series meets on four consecutive Wednesdays—September 9, 16, 23, and 30—from 4:00–6:00 p.m. Because each session builds on the previous one, participants are expected to attend all four sessions.
When William Ellery Channing claimed in an 1828 sermon that “we are brought into harmony with the creation” in proportion to our pursuit of our own “likeness to God,” he could not have known that his theology would help inspire a literary tradition that continues to explore spiritual growth through encounters with the natural world. American nature writing developed some of its strongest roots in the ideas of Channing and the American Transcendentalists he influenced. Emerson explored selfhood and spirituality through nature, famously writing of standing in the woods and sensing that he was…
Programming Series: Transcendentalism. Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Wednesday, September 23, 2026, 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM.
Conference Room, Center for the Study of World Religions, 42 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA.
For more info visit cswr.hds.harvard.edu. Public Research Talk: A Transcendentalist Peace: American Pacifism from Lydia Maria Child to Jane Addams
Registration is required.
Please register to attend in person.
Please register to attend on Zoom.
In 1839, abolitionist Lydia Maria Child called the first Peace Convention in Boston “unquestionably the greatest event of the nineteenth century.” “Posterity will marvel,” she wrote, “at the early adoption of such transcendental principles.” Seventy-five years later, Jane Addams honed transcendentalist ideas into a theory of pacifism that Child would have recognized—one built on moral self-reliance, faith in individual transformation, and a dedication to justice through applied democracy. These women's ideas, and the example of their lives, are deeply relevant today as we struggle, in a war-torn world, to imagine a lasting peace.
Lydia Moland is the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor of Philosophy at Colby College. She is the author of Lydia Maria Child: A Radical American Life (2022), a biography of abolitionist Lydia Maria Child. Her writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington…
Programming Series: Transcendentalism. Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Monday, September 28, 2026, 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM.
Common Room, CSWR
42 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA.
For more info visit cswr.hds.harvard.edu. Exploring Spirituality in Nature Writing: A Writing Workshop Series in Creative Nonfiction
This workshop is currently full. Thank you for your interest! If you'd like to be added to the waitlist, please contact Laurie Sedgwick at ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Registration was limited to 12 participants.
This workshop series meets on four consecutive Wednesdays—September 9, 16, 23, and 30—from 4:00–6:00 p.m. Because each session builds on the previous one, participants are expected to attend all four sessions.
When William Ellery Channing claimed in an 1828 sermon that “we are brought into harmony with the creation” in proportion to our pursuit of our own “likeness to God,” he could not have known that his theology would help inspire a literary tradition that continues to explore spiritual growth through encounters with the natural world. American nature writing developed some of its strongest roots in the ideas of Channing and the American Transcendentalists he influenced. Emerson explored selfhood and spirituality through nature, famously writing of standing in the woods and sensing that he was…
Programming Series: Transcendentalism. Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Wednesday, September 30, 2026, 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM.
Conference Room, Center for the Study of World Religions, 42 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA.
For more info visit cswr.hds.harvard.edu. Imaginative Seeing in Goethe, Coleridge, and Emerson: Pathways to a Phenomenological Ecology — Ryan Shea
Registration is required.
Please register to attend in person.
Please register to attend on Zoom.
In “The Poet,” Emerson said that imagination is “a very high sort of seeing.” This talk explores the imagination as an organ of direct intuitive perception that might become the foundation for a new phenomenological science of ecology. The first part explores the historical and cultural resonances among conceptions of the imagination in German Idealism, British Romanticism, and American Transcendentalism, as represented by Goethe, Coleridge, and Emerson. The second part engages the audience in interactive imaginative exercises that invite participants to see new things for themselves.
Ryan Shea is a full-time researcher and educator at The Nature Institute in Ghent, New York. Previously, he taught environmental philosophy, philosophy of science, interdisciplinary humanities, and nature writing at Providence College for eight years. He is also a doctoral researcher with MESH (Multidisciplinary Environmental…
Programming Series: Transcendentalism. Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Friday, October 2, 2026, 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM.
Common Room, CSWR, 42 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA.
Living Transcendentalism: Phenomenological Ecology and Nature's Wholeness Talk and Workshop
Living Transcendentalism: Phenomenological Ecology and Nature’s Wholeness
Friday, October 2, 3:30–5:00 pm Opening Talk & Discussion: Imaginative Seeing in Goethe, Coleridge, and Emerson: Pathways to a Phenomenological Ecology
Saturday, October 3, 9:00 am–5:00 pm Workshop: Living Transcendentalism: Phenomenological Ecology and Participating in Nature’s Wholeness
Registration is required.
Please register to attend in person.
The Friday opening talk and discussion is open to all.
Registration for the Saturday workshop includes attendance at both the Friday opening talk and the Saturday workshop. Workshop participation is limited to 15 attendees.
Inspired by the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, this two-day workshop invites participants to cultivate a deeper relationship with nature's wholeness. Friday afternoon’s talk introduces the imagination as an organ of participatory knowing. Saturday’s all-day workshop is devoted to attending carefully to plants in their immediate appearances…
Programming Series: Transcendentalism. Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Saturday, October 3, 2026, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM.
Common Room, CSWR, 42 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA.
For more info visit cswr.hds.harvard.edu. In this Twilight: Tar Paintings in Conversation with American Transcendentalism by Christopher Volpe
Registration is required.
Please register to attend in person.
Please join us for the opening reception of Christopher Volpe's exhibition, In this Twilight: Tar Paintings in Conversation with American Transcendentalism.
Titled with a line from Whitman's Leaves of Grass, In this Twilight opens a space between longing for spiritual union with Nature and awareness of ecological decline. This body of work draws on the literature of American Transcendentalism to reflect on today's intertwined social and ecological crises not only as scientific or political challenges but also as the result of longstanding spiritual crises.
Each painting's title references the writings of Whitman, Emerson, Fuller, or Thoreau, while the imagery draws on the common flora and fauna of New England.
The primary medium is industrial coal tar, a byproduct of fossil fuel production. These paintings are made from one of the defining toxic byproducts of industrial civilization—the very material through which modern society has transformed…
Programming Series: Transcendentalism. Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Event Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Tuesday, October 13, 2026, 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM.
Common Room, CSWR, 42 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA.
For more info visit cswr.hds.harvard.edu. Stanley Cavell's Transcendental Etudes Conference
Registration is required.
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Please register to attend on Zoom.
Organized to commemorate the centenary of philosopher Stanley Cavell's (1926–2018) birth, Stanley Cavell's Transcendental Etudes brings together leading scholars to explore the enduring significance of his thought for contemporary conversations in religion, ethics, and politics. While Cavell is widely recognized for his contributions to ordinary language philosophy, aesthetics, literary criticism, and political theory, the religious dimensions of his work have received comparatively less attention.
Presented as part of the Center for the Study of World Religions' Transcendentalism Initiative, the conference explores the dimensions of Cavell's thought that emerge through his sustained engagement with Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and the broader Transcendentalist tradition.
The conference will feature four keynote addresses and a concluding panel discussion examining the continued relevance of…
Programming Series: Transcendentalism. Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Thursday, October 22, 2026, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM.
Braun Room, Swartz Hall
45 Francis Ave.
Cambridge, MA.
Public Research Talk: Transcending the Ordinary: Thoreau's Second Experiment
Registration is required.
Please register to attend in person.
Please register to attend on Zoom.
This talk will introduce Thorson's just-published book, The Walden Experiments: The Science of Henry David Thoreau. It will open with two examples of Thoreau's science in Walden, his "agent" for accessing "Universal Intelligence." In the first case, he will show a striking visual image of something yellow on black, which seized Thoreau’s visual perception as does abstract art. On closer inspection, he recognizes this to be "the sulphur-like pollen of pitch the pine" floating on the surface of Walden Pond that will eventually sink downward through his "great ocean of solitude" to reach the bottom, the sedimentary archive of deep-time where the airborne sexual grains of life will merge with cosmic dust in the place where "Walden sleeps with stars in its bosom." In this example, Thoreau’s art prompted his science, which became transcendental literature. Following a second example involving blue lake ice, Thorson…
Programming Series: Transcendentalism. Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Monday, November 9, 2026, 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM.
Common Room, CSWR
42 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA.
For more info visit cswr.hds.harvard.edu.