Justice and Public Theology: C.T. Vivian and the Moral Struggle for Democracy
As we mark the 65th anniversary of the Freedom Rides in Alabama and Mississippi, please join Religion and Public Life for a conversation about how commitments to justice and moral integrity inform public understandings of democratic struggle and moral formation. Centering the preaching and writings of the late C.T. Vivian, this event considers how Black preaching cultivated a public theology that challenged racial violence, confronted long-standing structures of discrimination, and transformed American public life. Join Quinton Dixie, Associate Research Professor of the History of Christianity in the U.S. and Black Church Studies at Duke Divinity School and Rev. Dr. Leslie D. Callahan, Senior Pastor of St. Paul’s Baptist Church in Philadelphia for a discussion of the political significance of social preaching in the Civil Rights Tradition.
Speaker Bios
Quinton Dixie, Ph.D.
Associate Research Professor of the History of Christianity in the United States and Black Church Studies; Director of the Office of…
Contact: Reem Atassi | Administrative Director, Religion and Public Life | ratassi@hds.harvard.edu.
Tuesday, April 28, 2026, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM.
Zoom; Registration Required.
For more info visit harvard.zoom.us. Contesting World Christianity: Neotraditional Resurgences in Africa
Christianity has been present in Africa for over two millennia and recent statistics indicate that Africa is now home to the world’s largest Christian population. This talk examines some of the pockets of resistance to the expansion of Christianity in Africa, with particular attention to the resurgence of neotraditional forms. What is new in these developments, and what is at stake for world Christianity in Africa?
Ludovic Lado is a Jesuit priest and associate professor of anthropology at CEFOD Business School in N'Djamena, Chad. He holds a doctorate in social and cultural anthropology from the University of Oxford (UK) and has previously taught at the Catholic University of Central Africa in Yaoundé (Cameroon) and the Jesuit University in Abidjan (Côte d’Ivoire). His research focuses on the intersection of religion and society in Africa, with a particular emphasis on African Catholicism. He has edited two volumes on medical and religious pluralism in sub-Saharan Africa and is the author of The Politics of G…
Contact: Kevin Chimo - <kchimo@hds.harvard.edu.
Tuesday, April 28, 2026, 4:30 PM – 6:00 PM.
CSWR Common Room.
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. The Glorians: Visitations from the Holy Ordinary | Book Talk with Terry Tempest Williams
Please register to attend.Join us on Wednesday, April 29, 2026, from 4:30–6:00 p.m. in the Cader Room for The Glorians: Visitations from the Holy Ordinary, a conversation with HDS Writer-in-Residence Terry Tempest Williams and Stephanie Paulsell. Following brief opening remarks from Dean Marla Frederick, Terry will offer a short reading from The Glorians and then join Stephanie for an extended conversation about the work, followed by audience Q&A. Attendees are invited to order the book in advance from Back of Beyond Books. Please register here for this event.
Contact: Steffanny Rosario - srosario@hds.harvard.edu.
Wednesday, April 29, 2026, 4:30 PM – 6:00 PM.
Cader Room.
For more info visit harvard.az1.qualtrics.com. 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. HDS 300 Words Presents: Suture Magazine at ARTS First
Please join HDS 300 Words as we celebrate the launch of the first edition of Suture Magazine, a creative writing magazine run entirely by HDS students! The launch party will be at Holden Chapel in Harvard Yard from 6:30-8:30pm, and we will be handing out free copies of the magazine as well as listening to our writers read some of the pieces in the publication. Hope to see you there!
Contact: studentlife@gds.harvard.edu.
Thursday, April 30, 2026, 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM.
Holden Chapel, Harvard Yard.
Yoltajtol – Palabra del Corazón: Nahuatl Workshop (Second Edition)
The Raphael and Fletcher Lee Moses Mesoamerican Archive and Research Project (MMARP) is pleased to share the second edition of Yoltajtol – Palabra del Corazón, a workshop centered on Nahuatl language and cultural expression. This session will be led by Francisco Sánchez Conde, a Nahua writer, interpreter, and researcher of oral traditions from San Miguel Tzinacapan, Puebla, with support from Sitalin Sánchez Acevedo. The workshop invites participants to explore the theme “Food, Nature, and Territory,” reflecting on how identity, memory, and place are interconnected through language, plants, animals, and everyday practices. All are welcome. For more information, please email the MMARP Coordinator, Meli Buentello-Olivo, at mbuentelloolivo@fas.harvard.edu.
Contact: mbuentelloolivo@fas.harvard.edu.
Friday, May 1, 2026, 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM.
Tozzer Building, Room 203
21 Divinity Ave
Cambridge, MA 02138.
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.