Public Research Talk: Michael Prettyman Instructions for Dancing: Opacity and Inquiry in Artistic Practice
Registration is required.
Please register to attend in person.
Please register to attend on Zoom.
Drawing on my work as a painter and my training in comparative theology, this talk examines artistic intuition as a form of non-propositional knowledge and asks how creative insight emerges. The dynamics of the creative process resist articulation, but when examined through the lens of comparative studies, yield parallels with apophatic and contemplative disciplines, including the suspension of conceptual certainty, the cultivation of sustained attention, and a tolerance for ambiguity and unknowing.
Using a sequence of paintings and studio-based examples, I will trace how intuition develops in practice and is trained through repetition, resistance, and forms of inner visualization framed as a shared process of seeking among artists and students, particularly those without formal religious affiliation. By articulating the structures surrounding what cannot be fully seen within the creative process, the talk…
Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Monday, April 27, 2026, 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM.
Common Room, CSWR, 42 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA.
For more info visit cswr.hds.harvard.edu. Reading Group: Transcendentalism
This group meets on Wednesdays, 10-12 pm (1/28, 2/11, 3/4, 3/11, 3/25, 4/8)
Registration is required.
Please register to attend each session.
American Transcendentalism emerged in the mid-1800s from New England Unitarianism and European Romanticism. It distinguished itself by rejecting convention, challenging traditional religious doctrines of authority and election, opposing dominant philosophies, discarding genteel literary styles, and defying political complacency regarding slavery, gender inequality, and disenfranchisement. At Harvard, Transcendentalists were seen as mystics, misfits, rogues, and dissidents. Their refusals, however, sparked a social movement based on friendship and collaboration, united by a radical spirituality promising personal renewal and social transformation. This reading group invites participants to explore both sides of that legacy. We'll focus on Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller in the fall, and on figures including Bronson Alcott, Theodore Parker,…
Programming Series: Transcendence and Transformation. Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Wednesday, April 29, 2026, 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM.
Common Room, CSWR, 42 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA 02138.
The Uneasy Lives of Saints: A Conversation on After Transformation and Undead
Registration is required.
Please register to attend in person.
Please register to attend on Zoom.
Join Maia Kotrosits, author of After Transformation (Duke, 2025), and Madeline Vosch, author of Undead (Beacon Press, 2026), for a reading and discussion of their new books, each of which explores the history and texts of early Christianity through self-writing, blurring the distinctions between the sacred and the profane. How do the themes and traces of ancient Christianity live on in our experience and the texture of the everyday? What written forms best hold the collision of the personal, the historical, and the structural? Can memoir become a cultural-historical archive of its own?
Maia Kotrosits is an expert in first through fifth-century Christianity. She received her PhD from Union Theological Seminary in NYC in 2013, has since taught at Amherst College and Denison University, and is currently a researcher with Harvard's Center for the Study of World Religions. She is also the author of The Lives of…
Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Wednesday, April 29, 2026, 3:00 PM – 4:30 PM.
Common Room, CSWR, 42 Francis Ave, Cambridge.
For more info visit cswr.hds.harvard.edu. Walking Tour of Harvard’s Psychedelic History
Registration is required. Please meet in the front driveway of the CSWR, 42 Francis Ave.
While research on psychedelics is ever present in our contemporary moment, there is a long tradition of interest in psychoactive drugs at Harvard University—from the ethnobotanical studies of the 1940s, to “mind-control” experiments of the 1950s, to the “heyday” of psychedelic research and activism of the 1960s. This walking tour traipses through the history of psychedelics at Harvard—stitching together figures as far back as Ralph Waldo Emerson, to little-known heroes of ‘60s drug culture, to contemporary felons, fugitives, and academics. This tour will be guided by CSWR Psychedelics and Spiritualty Program Leads, JEFFREY BREAU and PAUL GILLIS-SMITH. The tour is also accessible via Spotify, linked here.
The tour will cover about 2 miles. Comfortable walking shoes are recommended. The tour will convene in front of the CSWR, at 42 Francis Avenue, Cambridge, MA, at 5:00pm, and conclude in Harvard Square at the Kennedy…
Programming Series: Psychedelics and the Future of Religion. Transcendence and Transformation. Psychedelics and Ethics. Spirituality and Psychedelics. Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
(617)495-4476.
Wednesday, April 29, 2026, 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM.
Center for the Study of World Religions
42 Francis Ave.
Cambridge, MA.
Workshop: "The Long Way Home": Mysticism as a Dimension of Human Experience
Registration is required.
“Please note: Registration for the workshop is now fully subscribed.”
Registration is required and limited to 22 participants. Participants are expected to attend both days of the workshop.
A two-part seminar led by Michael Prettyman, CSWR Artist-in-Residence
What if the deepest thing you’ve ever felt has been felt by others, but named differently? This two-part seminar invites participants to explore mysticism as a recurring dimension of human experience across cultures and traditions. Drawing on ancient sources and contemporary theological reflection, the seminar approaches mysticism not as a system of belief, but as a mode of inquiry grounded in lived experience. Combining theory and practice, each session pairs guided discussion with simple exercises and visualizations designed to sharpen attention and help participants recognize and translate their own creative impulses. The seminar is shaped by the conviction that creativity is not something we simply produce through force of…
Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
LDSedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Thursday, April 30, 2026, 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM.
Common Room, CSWR, 42 Francis Ave. Cambridge.
For more info visit cswr.hds.harvard.edu. Workshop: "The Long Way Home": Mysticism as a Dimension of Human Experience
Registration is required.
“Please note: Registration for the workshop is now fully subscribed.”
Registration is required and limited to 22 participants. Participants are expected to attend both days of the workshop.
A two-part seminar led by Michael Prettyman, CSWR Artist-in-Residence
What if the deepest thing you’ve ever felt has been felt by others, but named differently? This two-part seminar invites participants to explore mysticism as a recurring dimension of human experience across cultures and traditions. Drawing on ancient sources and contemporary theological reflection, the seminar approaches mysticism not as a system of belief, but as a mode of inquiry grounded in lived experience. Combining theory and practice, each session pairs guided discussion with simple exercises and visualizations designed to sharpen attention and help participants recognize and translate their own creative impulses. The seminar is shaped by the conviction that creativity is not something we simply produce through force of…
Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
LDSedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Friday, May 1, 2026, 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM.
Common Room, CSWR, 42 Francis Ave. Cambridge.
For more info visit cswr.hds.harvard.edu.