New Field Education Sites and Supervisors Applications Due
Please complete the application via Qualtrics Survey. See the Field Education Handbook for more information and to see if you qualify. Set up a time to meet with the Assistant Dean for Ministry Studies and Field Education before submitting an application. Qualtrics Survey link available from the Assistant Dean after initial meeting.
Contact: Ministry Studies ministrystudies@hds.harvard.edu.
Saturday, January 31, 2026, 5:00 PM.
Submit via Qualtrics Application.
Black-Jewish Pluralism Project Opening Reception
, Welcome to the Black-Jewish Pluralism Project Kickoff! The kickoff is open to all—whether you plan to apply to the program or are simply curious to learn more. Join us to learn more about the Black–Jewish Pluralism Project, meet fellow participants, and begin building a shared foundation for a semester of rigorous learning and dialogue. Professors Shaul Magid and Terrence Johnson will guide our opening panel discussion.
Together, we will explore how Black and Jewish identities, religious traditions, and political movements have intersected—through moments of solidarity, rupture, and moral imagination—and how these histories can inform more thoughtful and responsible engagement today.
The Black-Jewish Pluralism Project brings students, scholars, and community leaders into conversation, shared learning, and relationship-building. Through facilitated dialogue, historical inquiry, and guest speakers, participants will explore: Black and Jewish identities , Histories of solidarity and rupture , …
Contact: studentlife@hds.harvard.edu.
Monday, February 2, 2026, 11:00 AM – 1:30 PM.
James Room East, Swartz Hall 122, 45 Francis Ave.
Public Research Talk: Cosmic Revolutionaries: Occult Influences on Race and Revolution in Latin America
Registration is required.
Please register to attend in person.
Please register to attend on Zoom.
The politician and philosopher José Vasconcelos is best known for shaping postrevolutionary Mexico’s understanding of itself. His 1925 La raza cósmica framed mestizaje, or racial hybridity, as the destiny of world history, yet the work's esoteric dimensions—references to Atlantis and Lemuria, “Pythagorean gnosis,” and a coming “Spiritual Era”—have often been treated as peripheral.
This talk situates Vasconcelos alongside other Latin American figures, including Francisco Madero, Augusto Sandino, and, as a counterpoint, Miguel Serrano, each of whom drew on occult traditions to theorize race or revolution. Tracing these intersections between esoteric speculation and political theory, I argue that ideas of lost continents, cosmic cycles, and “root races” formed a consequential, if oft-overlooked, strand within modern conceptions of race.
JASON ĀNANDA JOSEPHSON STORM is Francis Christopher Oakley Third Century…
Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Monday, February 2, 2026, 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM.
Common Room, CSWR, 42 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA.
For more info visit cswr.hds.harvard.edu. Soup and Hope with Melissa Wood Bartholomew - Spring Faculty Speaker Lunch Series
Join the HDS community for soup and bread as we hear from HDS faculty sharing their intellectual and spiritual autobiographies. Each speaker will particularly focus on what sustains their sense of hope at this time in history. No registration is necessary.
Contact: Kerry A. Maloney, kmaloney@hds.harvard.edu.
Monday, February 2, 2026, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM.
Braun Room, Swartz Hall 101, 45 Francis Ave.
Reading Group: Death and Mourning
Registration is required.
Please register to attend each session.
Death raises existential questions of the meaning of life and our relationships to others. It transcends the mundane, resulting in a sense of awe and connection to something greater than ourselves. Although all societies, cultures, and religions respond to death, how death is experienced, commemorated, and understood varies historically, cross-culturally, and among religions even in the same societies. This reading group is gathering to explore the multiple ways in which death and mourning are viewed and conceptualized. Participants will join with the facilitator to choose specific readings and topics as we work to a better understanding of how death may be perceived, how mourners are treated and expected to act and how the dead are thought about. Do the dead continue to communicate with the living? Do they go to a better (or worse) place? Do they return in a new form having learned from their experiences on earth? How in different religious t…
Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Monday, February 2, 2026, 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM.
Conference Room, CSWR, 42 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA.
Reading Group: Moana Meditations - Indigenous Spiritualities of the South Pacific Ocean
This group meets on Wednesdays, 4-6 pm, 2/4, 2/18, 3/4, 3/25, 4/1, 4/15)
Registration is required.
Please register to attend each session.
Oceania—our ‘sea of islands’ rather than islands in a vast sea, takes up one third of the Earth and has been given many names by explorers, scholars, and those seeking geopolitical control. The ‘Pacific’ – a pacified, calm, and empty space, the Asia-Pacific, Indo-Pacific, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Pacific Islander communities are also now spread around the globe with diaspora in Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, the United States, and beyond where Christianity and Indigenous spiritualities coalesce and clash in different ways. This workshop series will be highly interactive, incorporating Indigenous poetry, artwork, and talanoa (open-ended discussions) exploring the importance of the fanua (land), and interconnection with Atua (God/s), Tagata (people) and Moana (ocean) to cultural identity and seeking climate justice. It provides opportunities for both group…
Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Wednesday, February 4, 2026, 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM.
Common Room, CSWR, 42 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA.
Faith, Clemency, and Re-entry: A Teach-In with Second Chance Justice
Join us for a teach-in with Second Chance Justice (SCJ), an interfaith coalition of people of varied backgrounds and beliefs who share a common commitment to undoing the legacy of mass incarceration. Come and learn about the current clemency and reentry system and how it is failing people returning from prison. We'll hear from people with lived experience of incarceration and brainstorm ways HDS students and staff can act on their faith values to radically resist and reimagine the carceral system. Second Chance Justice is a campaign of Massachusetts Communities Action Network (MCAN) which has a 40 year history as a faith and values rooted organization. Our two campaign teams and eight affiliates build local power throughout the Commonwealth working for a Massachusetts rooted in equity and justice believing that our state can help lead our nation towards truly being a “more perfect union.” We partner at the national level with Faith In Action.
Contact: studentlife@hds.harvard.edu.
Thursday, February 5, 2026, 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM.
James Room East, Swartz Hall 122, 45 Francis Ave.
Relational Sovereignty: Transnational Indigenous Religious Life as Decolonial Praxis
Christendom’s expansion into a settler colonial project produced a socio-political order that pathologized Indigenous relational worldviews as primitive and superstitious. These regenerated religious lifeways cultivate relational forms of kinship and restore Indigenous ontologies grounded in relational personhood. Avalos argues that Indigenous sovereignty emerges as relational and land-based, rooted in honoring pre-colonial covenants with human and more-than-human kin.
Natalie Avalos is an assistant professor of Native American and Indigenous Studies in the Ethnic Studies department at University of Colorado Boulder.
Contact: ratassi@hds.harvard.edu.
Friday, February 6, 2026, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM.
Zoom Webinar.
For more info visit harvard.zoom.us. Archival Methods: Finding the Sacred and the Profane in the Psychedelic Archive
Registration is required.
Please register to attend.
Friday, February 6, 2-5 pm - Houghton Library classroom (registrants will be contacted with location details)
Thursday, February 12, 1-4 pm - Conference Room, CSWR, 42 Francis Ave.
Friday, February 13, 1-4 pm - Houghton Library classroom (registrants will be contacted with location details)
Note: This workshop is a three-part series, and each session builds on the last. Please register only if you are able to attend all three sessions.
Please register to attend the series.
*If the event is full, please email ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu to be added to the waitlist.
This workshop will explore and engage the Ludlow-Santo Domingo Library, the world’s largest collection of psychedelic literature, housed at Harvard.
We will look at practical questions of the archive: How do you find archives you are interested in? , How do you search online to find aids and databases, and what are the limitations of those tools? , How do you authenticate objects and…
Programming Series: Psychedelics and the Future of Religion. Transcendence and Transformation. Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Friday, February 6, 2026, 2:00 PM – 5:00 PM.
Houghton Library classroom, Cambridge, MA.
For more info visit cswr.hds.harvard.edu. Art Exhibit and Reception: Esoteric Currents and Alternative Spiritualities in Modern Mexican Art
Registration is required.
Please register to attend.
Please join us for our spring 2026 art exhibit and reception, Esoteric Currents and Alternative Spiritualities in Modern Mexican Art.
This exhibition examines esoteric ideas in Mexican art after the 1910 Revolution, a time when muralism became a key tool for shaping public perceptions of national history. Artists incorporated elements of Theosophy and related esoteric movements into their depictions of Mexico’s past and of the Revolution's importance, influencing understandings of Mexico’s identity and shaping the historical narratives promoted by the post-Revolutionary government.
Public mural commissions were typically awarded to male artists; women’s efforts faced opposition. María Izquierdo became the first to receive a government commission in 1945, but her contract was canceled. Sofía Bassi created murals in prison and later in university buildings, placing her work in public space while remaining outside official channels. Cordelia Urueta,…
Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Monday, February 9, 2026, 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM.
Conference Room, CSWR, 42 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA.
For more info visit cswr.hds.harvard.edu. Greeley Lecture: Reconciling the Loss of Indigenous Eden
Registration is required.
Please register to attend in person.
Please register to attend on Zoom.
Blair Stonechild, PhD, First Nations University of Canada, will discuss his research on the concept of Indigenous Eden, its loss, and how the process of Truth and Reconciliation can bring together disparate perspectives and offer solutions for the future. Stonechild’s talk is based on five decades of research with Indigenous Elders at First Nations University of Canada, which has resulted in a trilogy on Indigenous Spirituality: The Knowledge Seeker (2016), Loss of Indigenous Eden (2020), and Challenge to Civilization (2024), published by the University of Regina Press.
BLAIR STONECHILD is a member of the Muscowpetung Saulteaux First Nation and is a survivor of the Qu’Appelle Indian Residential School. He holds a bachelor’s degree from McGill, and master’s and doctorate degrees from the University of Regina. In 1976, Blair joined the First Nations University of Canada as its first faculty member and was the…
Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Tuesday, February 10, 2026, 5:30 PM – 7:00 PM.
Center for the Study of World Religions, Common Room, 42 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA.
For more info visit cswr.hds.harvard.edu. Archival Methods: Finding the Sacred and the Profane in the Psychedelic Archive
Registration is required.
Please register to attend.
Friday, February 6, 2-5 pm - Houghton Library classroom (registrants will be contacted with location details)
Thursday, February 12, 1-4 pm - Conference Room, CSWR, 42 Francis Ave.
Friday, February 13, 1-4 pm - Houghton Library classroom (registrants will be contacted with location details)
Note: This workshop is a three-part series, and each session builds on the last. Please register only if you are able to attend all three sessions.
Please register to attend the series.
*If the event is full, please email ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu to be added to the waitlist.
This workshop will explore and engage the Ludlow-Santo Domingo Library, the world’s largest collection of psychedelic literature, housed at Harvard.
We will look at practical questions of the archive: How do you find archives you are interested in? , How do you search online to find aids and databases, and what are the limitations of those tools? , How do you authenticate objects and…
Programming Series: Psychedelics and the Future of Religion. Transcendence and Transformation. Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Thursday, February 12, 2026, 2:00 PM – 5:00 PM.
Houghton Library classroom, Cambridge, MA.
For more info visit cswr.hds.harvard.edu. Archival Methods: Finding the Sacred and the Profane in the Psychedelic Archive
Registration is required.
Please register to attend.
Friday, February 6, 2-5 pm - Houghton Library classroom (registrants will be contacted with location details)
Thursday, February 12, 1-4 pm - Conference Room, CSWR, 42 Francis Ave.
Friday, February 13, 1-4 pm - Houghton Library classroom (registrants will be contacted with location details)
Note: This workshop is a three-part series, and each session builds on the last. Please register only if you are able to attend all three sessions.
Please register to attend the series.
*If the event is full, please email ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu to be added to the waitlist.
This workshop will explore and engage the Ludlow-Santo Domingo Library, the world’s largest collection of psychedelic literature, housed at Harvard.
We will look at practical questions of the archive: How do you find archives you are interested in? , How do you search online to find aids and databases, and what are the limitations of those tools? , How do you authenticate objects and…
Programming Series: Psychedelics and the Future of Religion. Transcendence and Transformation. Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Friday, February 13, 2026, 2:00 PM – 5:00 PM.
Houghton Library classroom, Cambridge, MA.
For more info visit cswr.hds.harvard.edu. Porphyry of Tyre on Theology and Theurgy: Oracular Voices and Luminous Intellect
Registration is required.
Please register to attend this event in person.
Please register to attend this event on Zoom.
The late-ancient Mediterranean world was shaped by three competing yet mutually formative dynamics: the spread of Christianity, the proliferation of the cults known as Mysteries, and the systematization of Neoplatonic philosophy. Porphyry of Tyre, one of late antiquity's most important philosophers, sought to negotiate the tensions between these dynamics. Arguing that philosophical thinking about the gods—“theology”—and ritual interaction with them—“theurgy”—are mutually compatible, Porphyry maintained that one can participate in ceremonial practices all while remaining committed to Neoplatonist metaphysics. In doing so, he worked to hold together intellectual and religious traditions that were increasingly at risk of fragmentation. Porphyry’s Letter to Anebo and Philosophy from Oracles—newly translated as part of the CSWR’s 4T initiative—are his most significant contributions to these…
Programming Series: Transcendence and Transformation. Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Tuesday, February 17, 2026, 5:30 PM – 7:00 PM.
Preston Williams Chapel, Swartz Hall
45 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA 02138.
For more info visit cswr.hds.harvard.edu. Reading Group: Moana Meditations - Indigenous Spiritualities of the South Pacific Ocean
This group meets on Wednesdays, 4-6 pm, 2/4, 2/18, 3/4, 3/25, 4/1, 4/15)
Registration is required.
Please register to attend each session.
Oceania—our ‘sea of islands’ rather than islands in a vast sea, takes up one third of the Earth and has been given many names by explorers, scholars, and those seeking geopolitical control. The ‘Pacific’ – a pacified, calm, and empty space, the Asia-Pacific, Indo-Pacific, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Pacific Islander communities are also now spread around the globe with diaspora in Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, the United States, and beyond where Christianity and Indigenous spiritualities coalesce and clash in different ways. This workshop series will be highly interactive, incorporating Indigenous poetry, artwork, and talanoa (open-ended discussions) exploring the importance of the fanua (land), and interconnection with Atua (God/s), Tagata (people) and Moana (ocean) to cultural identity and seeking climate justice. It provides opportunities for both group…
Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Wednesday, February 18, 2026, 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM.
Common Room, CSWR, 42 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA.
Reading Group: Psychedelics Beyond Psychedelics
This group meets, Thursdays, 2/5, 2/19, 3/5, 3/26, 4/9, 4/23
Registration is required.
Please register to attend each session.
The Psychedelics Beyond Psychedelics Reading Group invites participants to explore expansive understandings of transcendence, healing, consciousness, and connection through and beyond the use of psychedelic substances. Engaging themes such as war, AI, madness, clowning, childbirth, and death, we interrogate and reimagine what constitutes the “psychedelic” within the field of psychedelic humanities. Rooted in queer, feminist, ecological, Indigenous, and decolonial perspectives, this group offers a collaborative space for exploration, critical questioning, and integration of our own experiences and communities. This reading group brings together students, staff, faculty, and members of the broader community to learn with and from each other.
Facilitators include:
LILA GLENN RIMALOVSKI is an MDiv candidate at Harvard Divinity School studying the relationship between eco-spiritual prac…
Programming Series: Psychedelics and the Future of Religion. Transcendence and Transformation. Spirituality and Psychedelics. Psychedelics and Ethics. Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Thursday, February 19, 2026, 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM.
Conference Room, CSWR, 42 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA 02138.
List Lecture: “Forging the Monotheistic Triangle: Jews, Arabs, Christians and the Promises of European Modernity” with Susannah Heschel
Registration is required.
Please register to attend in person.
Please register to attend on Zoom.
In the autumn of 1941 in Nazi Germany, a group of Christians suddenly became Jews. Baptized as children or adults and members of Protestant or Catholic churches, they were now required to wear a yellow star denoting their racial status as Jews. Complaints came from some parishioners who did not want a Jew next to them at Communion, singing with them in the church choir, or sitting in the pews. Bishops convened meetings to discuss holding separate Christian worship, uncertain if these were Christians or Jews.
The crisis of 1941 illumines key Christian theological problems: what is the relationship between Christianity and Judaism, between the sacrament of baptism and the immutability of race, between religious faith and the demands of a fascist political regime? While Jews have long been the icons of refusal in Christian eyes, modernity brought a softening, with assimilation and conversion as Jews viewed the…
Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Tuesday, February 24, 2026, 5:30 PM – 7:00 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, 2/25, 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, February 25, 2026, 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM.
Common Room, CSWR, 42 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA 02138.
Soup and Hope with Swayam Bagaria - Spring Faculty Speaker Lunch Series
Join the HDS community for soup and bread as we hear from HDS faculty sharing their intellectual and spiritual autobiographies. Each speaker will particularly focus on what sustains their sense of hope at this time in history. No registration is necessary.
Contact: Kerry A. Maloney, kmaloney@hds.harvard.edu.
Monday, March 2, 2026, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM.
Rabinowitz Room, HDS Library 331, Swartz Hall.
Hindu View of Life Lecture: Recasting the Hindu Goddess in an American Landscape
Registration is required.
Please register to attend in person.
Please register to attend on Zoom.
In 1926, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan concluded his “The Hindu View of Life” lectures by noting that Hinduism is “a growing tradition” and calling for a reworking of Hindu principles “with special reference to the needs of a more complex and mobile social order.” A century later, Hindu immigrant communities in the United States exemplify that vision, carrying their traditions across oceans and planting them in new soil. At the Parashakthi Temple in Pontiac, Michigan, the Hindu Goddess has been reimagined to flourish in her latest, Midwestern context, reflecting both the temple community’s Indian roots and its life in an American cultural, religious, and natural world. This lecture examines how a twenty-first-century Hindu view of life has taken shape within this temple and its vibrant community.
TRACY PINTCHMAN is a professor of religious studies and the director of the Global Studies Program at…
Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Tuesday, March 3, 2026, 5:30 PM – 7:00 PM.
Common Room, CSWR
42 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA.
For more info visit cswr.hds.harvard.edu. Reading Group: Moana Meditations - Indigenous Spiritualities of the South Pacific Ocean
This group meets on Wednesdays, 4-6 pm, 2/4, 2/18, 3/4, 3/25, 4/1, 4/15)
Registration is required.
Please register to attend each session.
Oceania—our ‘sea of islands’ rather than islands in a vast sea, takes up one third of the Earth and has been given many names by explorers, scholars, and those seeking geopolitical control. The ‘Pacific’ – a pacified, calm, and empty space, the Asia-Pacific, Indo-Pacific, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Pacific Islander communities are also now spread around the globe with diaspora in Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, the United States, and beyond where Christianity and Indigenous spiritualities coalesce and clash in different ways. This workshop series will be highly interactive, incorporating Indigenous poetry, artwork, and talanoa (open-ended discussions) exploring the importance of the fanua (land), and interconnection with Atua (God/s), Tagata (people) and Moana (ocean) to cultural identity and seeking climate justice. It provides opportunities for both group…
Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Wednesday, March 4, 2026, 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM.
Common Room, CSWR, 42 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA.
Reading Group: Psychedelics Beyond Psychedelics
This group meets, Thursdays, 2/5, 2/19, 3/5, 3/26, 4/9, 4/23
Registration is required.
Please register to attend each session.
The Psychedelics Beyond Psychedelics Reading Group invites participants to explore expansive understandings of transcendence, healing, consciousness, and connection through and beyond the use of psychedelic substances. Engaging themes such as war, AI, madness, clowning, childbirth, and death, we interrogate and reimagine what constitutes the “psychedelic” within the field of psychedelic humanities. Rooted in queer, feminist, ecological, Indigenous, and decolonial perspectives, this group offers a collaborative space for exploration, critical questioning, and integration of our own experiences and communities. This reading group brings together students, staff, faculty, and members of the broader community to learn with and from each other.
Facilitators include:
LILA GLENN RIMALOVSKI is an MDiv candidate at Harvard Divinity School studying the relationship between eco-spiritual prac…
Programming Series: Psychedelics and the Future of Religion. Transcendence and Transformation. Spirituality and Psychedelics. Psychedelics and Ethics. Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Thursday, March 5, 2026, 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM.
Conference Room, CSWR, 42 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA 02138.
Reading Group: Transcendentalism
This group meets on Wednesdays, 10-12 pm (1/28, 2/11, 2/25, 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, March 11, 2026, 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM.
Common Room, CSWR, 42 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA 02138.
Reading Group: Transcendentalism
This group meets on Wednesdays, 10-12 pm (1/28, 2/11, 2/25, 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, March 25, 2026, 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM.
Common Room, CSWR, 42 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA 02138.
Soup and Hope with Shaul Magid - Spring Faculty Speaker Lunch Series
Join the HDS community for soup and bread as we hear from HDS faculty sharing their intellectual and spiritual autobiographies. Each speaker will particularly focus on what sustains their sense of hope at this time in history. No registration is necessary.
Contact: Kerry A. Maloney, kmaloney@hds.harvard.edu.
Monday, April 6, 2026, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM.
Braun Room, Swartz Hall 101, 45 Francis Ave.
Reading Group: Transcendentalism
This group meets on Wednesdays, 10-12 pm (1/28, 2/11, 2/25, 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 8, 2026, 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM.
Common Room, CSWR, 42 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA 02138.