Buddhism and Race Speaker Series: Larry Yang: "Multicultural History of Dharma and Diversity: Focus on US and Insight Meditation Communities"
This event is free and open to the public, but registration is required.
Please join us for the first monthly event in the Harvard Buddhist Community's 2021 Buddhism and Race Speaker Series. January's event features Larry Yang, a nationally renowned Insight meditation teacher and the author of Awakening Together: The Spiritual Practice of Inclusivity and Community. Larry Yang will be giving a talk entitled "Multicultural History of Dharma and Diversity: Focus on US and Insight Meditation communities." There will be time for Q&A following the presentation.
The Buddhism and Race Conference was conceived by the Harvard Buddhist Community in 2015. Ever since, the conference has become an annual event that brings together sangha leaders, activists, scholars, and students from diverse backgrounds to build capacity in addressing power at the intersection of race, gender, sexuality and class in our communities. This year, the conference has been reimagined as the 2021 Buddhism and Race Speaker Series (BRSS),…
Contact: buddhismandrace.com.
Thursday, January 28, 2021, 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM.
Zoom (Registration required. See link in event description.).
For more info visit www.eventbrite.com. Psychedelics: The Ancient Religion with No Name?: A Conversation with Brian Muraresku and Charles Stang
This event is free and open to the public, but registration is required. The most influential religious historian of the twentieth century, Huston Smith, once referred to it as the "best-kept secret" in history. Did the ancient Greeks use drugs to find God? And did the earliest Christians inherit the same secret tradition? A profound knowledge of visionary plants, herbs, and fungi passed from one generation to the next, ever since the Stone Age? Join us for a discussion between CSWR Director Charles Stang and Brian Muraresku about his new book, The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name, a groundbreaking dive into the role of psychedelics in the ancient Mediterranean world.
Brian C. Muraresku graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Brown University in 2002 with a degree in Latin, Greek and Sanskrit. As an alumnus of Georgetown Law and a member of the New York Bar, he has been practicing law internationally for fifteen years. In arbitration with the NFL in 2018, Muraresku represented the…
Contact: CSWR, 617.495.4476.
Monday, February 1, 2021, 5:00 PM – 6:30 PM.
Zoom (Registration required. See link in event description.).
Virtual Voices of Divinity: Making Meaning in 2021 at the Crossroads of Business and Capitalism, Ethics, Faith, and Justice
This event is free and open to the public, but registration is required.
Join us for "Making Meaning in 2021 at the Crossroads of Business and Capitalism, Ethics, Faith, and Justice."
Featured speakers include: John P. Brown, MBA '74, MDiv '88, Practitioner in Residence in Religion, Business Ethics, and the Economic Order, Harvard Divinity School , Katherine Collins, MTS '11, Head of Sustainable Investing, Putnam Investments , Karim Hutson, MBA '03, MTS '08, Founder & Managing Member, Genesis Companies , Al-Husein Madhany, MTS '01, Head of Global People Operations, Moveworks.ai.
Contact: derevents@hds.harvard.edu.
Tuesday, February 2, 2021, 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM.
Zoom (Registration required. See link in event description.).
For more info visit harvard.zoom.us. 5th Annual Black Religion, Spirituality, and Culture Conference
Registration is now open.
The Fifth Annual Black Religion, Spirituality, and Culture Conference at Harvard, hosted by Harvard Divinity School’s Harambee Students of African Descent, is a two-day event scheduled for February 11-12, 2021. Our conference seeks to advance exploration of Black Religions as it relates to culture by means of cross-disciplinary dialogue, scholarship, and training in ethical leadership.
This year’s conference, themed "B.L.A.C.K.: Black Liberation, Activism, Community, and Kinship" will include panels on Ayibobo! Dancing Deities in the Diaspora: Danced Religions of Afrikan Diasporic Spiritual-Religious Traditions; Global Militarization of Police: Black Freedom and International Solidarity; Native and African Ways of Being in Community: Resilience as Resistance; and more. Visit the event website for more information and schedule.
Contact: studentlife@hds.harvard.edu.
Thursday, February 11, 2021 – Friday, February 12, 2021.
Online.
For more info visit www.harvardbrscc-fifth.com. Gods, Guns, and Girls: Gender, Agency, and Spirituality in a Congolese Rebel Movement
Georgette Ledgister (Agnes Scott College), Visiting Lecturer on Women's Studies and African Religions, will give the lecture, “Gods, Guns, and Girls: Gender, Agency, and Spirituality in a Congolese Rebel Movement.”.
Contact: Tracy Wall.
Thursday, February 11, 2021, 12:00 PM.
TBD.
UNCOMMON: A Virtual Gala in Support of Homeless Ministries
Please join Homeless Ministries at our virtual gala as we celebrate the Cambridge community’s uncommon commitment to the common good, even in the midst of pandemic. Our guest speaker will be Michael Sandel, Professor of Government at Harvard and author of The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good? In conversation with Dr. Sandel will be HDS Professor Stephanie Paulsell, Interim Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church.
Tickets are $20 each, and include a Zoom book group session as well as a cooking demonstration by celebrity chef Tony Maws. All funds raised support the First Church Shelter and Friday Café.
Tickets and info about how to purchase the book can be found on the event website.
Contact: info@firstchurchcambridge.org.
Saturday, February 20, 2021, 7:00 PM – 8:15 PM.
Online via Zoom.
For more info visit www.firstchurchcambridge.org. What is Psychedelic Chaplaincy?
This event is free and open to the public, but registration is required.
This panel will bring together Daan Keiman, spiritual caregiver and facilitator at a psilocybin retreat in the Netherlands, with Jamie Beachy, a MAPS MDMA Therapist and director of the Center for Contemplative Chaplaincy at Naropa University, in dialogue with Trace Haythorn of ACPE to explore their visions for psychedelic chaplaincy: what is the potential role of spiritual caregivers in providing support for people preparing for, undergoing, or integrating psychedelic experiences? What are the challenges in creating psychedelic education and training opportunities for chaplains and clergy? To what extent does the continually increasing access to psychedelics call on us to rethink, reshape, or expand conceptions of chaplaincy writ large?
Contact: CSWR, 617.495.4476.
Monday, February 22, 2021, 4:00 PM – 5:30 PM.
Zoom (Registration required. See link in event description.).
For more info visit harvard.zoom.us. Virtual Panel on Abuse of Power in Alternative and Emerging Spiritual and Cultural Organizations
Please email the Program for the Evolution of Spirituality in order to register.
One of the core mandates of Harvard’s new Program for the Evolution of Spirituality is to look honestly at both the positive and negative dimensions of emerging spiritual movements.
We are keenly aware that the abuse of power is a sensitive topic. Open discussion of past experiences of abuse has the potential to be re-traumatizing. Organizations that abuse power exist on a broad spectrum, and it is important to acknowledge differences and ambiguities as well as recognize that each person’s experience is a complex mix; abuse of power can be entered into intentionally or unintentionally, and many of these spaces present the potential to be greatly empowering for people who have been disempowered in the past. Simultaneously, it is equally important to be forthright in naming those realities that are unacceptable.
Please join us for a virtual panel with four panelists where we hope to foster a complex conversation on power…
Contact: pes@hds.harvard.edu.
Thursday, February 25, 2021, 12:00 PM.
Online.
Author Discussion: Who’s Your Daddy by Arisa White in Conversation with Rev. angel Kyodo williams Sensei
This event is free and open to the public, but registration is required. Who’s Your Daddy is Arisa White's debut poetic memoir for which, with funding from the Center for Cultural Innovation in Los Angeles, she was able to go to Guyana, South America, to meet her father after 30-plus years of estrangement. With this same artist grant, White was able to offer community workshops for people to write letters to their own absent fathers, and some of those letters became centos in the collection. Poet Terrance Hayes writes that Who’s Your Daddy “gives us archives, allegories, and wholly new songs.” It is a collection of healing and repair, which took White seven years to complete, starting in her Jesus Year. Through the lyric, she attempts to renovate her relationship with her father, patriarchy, and masculinity from the absence he gave. Augury Books will publish Who’s Your Daddy on March 1, 2021. Much of Arisa White's poetry and contemplative practice have been informed by the spiritual writings and…
Contact: CSWR, 617.495.4476.
Wednesday, March 3, 2021, 5:00 PM – 6:30 PM.
Zoom (Registration required. See link in event description.).
For more info visit harvard.zoom.us. A Gendered Analysis of an Egyptian Mortuary Ritual
Mariam Ayad (The American University in Cairo), Visiting Associate Professor of Women’s Studies and Near Eastern Religions, will give the lecture, “A Gendered Analysis of an Egyptian Mortuary Ritual.”.
Contact: Tracy Wall.
Thursday, March 11, 2021, 12:00 PM.
TBD.
HDS Reorientation & Common Read Program
Restorative Justice & Transforming Mass Incarceration, a conversation featuring HDS Professor Matt Potts and HDS MTS candidate Eboni Nash.
Check back for more information.
Contact: Melissa Bartholomew, HDS Associate Dean of DIB.
Wednesday, March 24, 2021, 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM.
Zoom (link to be provided).