Harvard Divinity School

Each spring, the Office of Ministry Studies organizes the Billings Preaching Prize Finals, an annual preaching competition open to second- and third-year MDiv students. Congratulations to MDiv Sharon Christner, the 2023 Billings Preaching Prize Competition winner, and to finalists James Lewis and Stephanie Hollenberg for their incredible talents. The finals were held during Noon Service on April 19 in Williams Chapel. The event also featured a reading from Nicole Marie, the Massachusetts Bible Society scripture reading winner, and john gehman, the reading from contemporary literature winner. This event took place April 19, 2023. A full transcript can be found online: https://hds.harvard.edu/news/2023/07/28/video-2023-billings-preaching-prize-competition Learn more: https://hds.harvard.edu/

Anti-Asian hate spiked 145 percent in 2020 during the height of the pandemic. At the same time, nearly one-third of the COVID deaths among nurses were Filipina nurses. As we look back at the first three years of the COVID-19 pandemic, increasingly complex stories continue to emerge. How can religious literacy and a lens of racial justice inform the stories that we and our students hear, tell, and seek out? The Religion and Public Life program at Harvard Divinity School hosted a conversation with Professor Aprilfaye Manalang of Norfolk State University to learn about her ongoing research on religious identity, grief, and COVID with Filipina-American nurses, as well as Jeanne Shin-Cooper of Buffalo Grove High School in Illinois whose students are taking part in this critical interview project. Prof. Manalang discussed her pedagogical practice of promoting Asian-American understanding at a Historically Black University, and the process of communicating this research to a public audience via podcast. This event took place May 8, 2023. A full transcript can be found online: https://rpl.hds.harvard.edu/news/2023/07/24/video-educator-webinar-religious-literacy-and-nurses-stories-age-covid-and-anti-asian-hate Learn more: https://rpl.hds.harvard.edu/

Throughout millennia, Jews have explored individual and communal consciousness through a variety of techniques and traditions. More recently, Jews have played an outsized role in the “psychedelic renaissance” as researchers, practitioners, and advocates, including prominent leaders. A surge of interest in these substances creates an opportunity to reflect on non-ordinary experiences in Jewish life and theology more broadly. This panel, hosted by the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School, included Sam S. B. Shonkoff, the Taube Family Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies at the Graduate Theological Union, Melila Hellner-Eshed, Professor of Jewish Mysticism in the Department of Jewish Studies at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, as well as a senior research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, and Jay Michaelson is an affiliated assistant professor at Chicago Theological Seminary and the author of nine books on Judaism and contemplative practice. A full transcript is forthcoming. This event took place April 27, 2023. Learn more: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/home

The Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School hosted his conversation with Professor Fadeke Castor. CSWR Research Associate Dr. Giovanna Parmigiani and Castor discussed multiple subjectivities, ethnographic practices, and being scholar practitioners in the academic context. This event was part of the Gnoseologies: Transcendence and Transformation Today series. Castor is Assistant Professor of Religion and Africana Studies at Northeastern University and award-winning author of Spiritual Citizenship: Transnational Pathways from Black Power to Ifá in Trinidad. She is also a visiting scholar at the CSWR. A full transcript can be found online: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/news/video-multiple-subjectivities-and-ethnographic-study-lived-religion-conversation This event took place April 26, 2023. Learn more: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Tracy K. Smith took part in a poetry reading and craft talk as part of the Peripheries Poetry Series at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School. Tracy K. Smith is a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, memoirist, editor, translator, and librettist. She served as the 22nd Poet Laureate of the United States. Smith is the author of five poetry collections including, Life on Mars, which won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize; and To Free the Captives: A Plea for the American Soul which will be published in November 2023. She is a Professor of English and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University, and the Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor at Harvard Radcliffe Institute. A full transcript can be found online: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/news/video-poetry-craft-talk-and-reading-pulitzer-prize-winning-poet-tracy-k-smith This event took place May 8, 2023. Learn more: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/home

Graduating students, members of the HDS community, family, and friends took part in the Harvard Divinity School 2023 Multireligious Commencement Service. The faculty speaker was David N. Hempton, Dean of the Faculty of Divinity, Alonzo L. McDonald Family Professor of Evangelical Theological Studies, John Lord O'Brian Professor of Divinity. The digital program for the Multireligious Commencement Service can also be viewed online (https://hds.harvard.edu/sites/hwpi.harvard.edu/files/hds2/files/final_final_mrc_bulletin_20230516.pdf?m=1684942144). A full transcript can be found online: https://hds.harvard.edu/news/2023/07/28/video-harvard-divinity-school-2023-multireligious-commencement-service Learn more: https://hds.harvard.edu/

Professor Francis X. Clooney, S.J., Parkman Professor of Divinity and Professor of Comparative Theology at the Harvard Divinity School led a online conversation with the 2022-23 Yang Visiting Scholars, Dr. Heather Mellquist Lehto, and Dr. Ashok Kumar Mocherla. This conversation showed us how perspectives on the global scene might confirm, yet also challenge, how we think about Christianity and the study of Christianity here in the United States. The Yang Visiting Scholars in World Christianity program brings distinguished senior and junior scholars of world Christianity to Harvard Divinity School each year, opening up fresh perspectives, particularly from the global south. This is our second year of having Yang Visiting Scholars at HDS, and the cohort for the third year in 2023-24 has been selected and those scholars will also be in attendance. This event took place April 18, 2023. A full transcript can be found online: https://hds.harvard.edu/news/2023/07/28/video-world-christianity-christianity-west-continuities-and-differences Learn more: https://hds.harvard.edu/

Harvard Divinity School awarded 149 degrees during the 2023 Commencement Diploma Awarding Ceremony on May 25, 2023. The student speaker was MTS candidate Breana Norris. Full transcript here: https://hds.harvard.edu/news/2023/05/25/video-harvard-divinity-school-2023-commencement-diploma-awarding-ceremony Learn more: https://hds.harvard.edu/

What kind of religious and spiritual questions are raised by climate collapse? How might understanding the religious dimensions of climate collapse and responses to it inform scientific, business, policy, activist, and other professional communities seeking to develop sustainable and just climate solutions? Religion and spirituality play a crucial role in shaping drivers of climate change and responses to it worldwide. In this online conversation, Harvard Divinity School faculty members Matthew Ichihasi Potts, Janet Gyatso, and Diane L. Moore examine the religious and spiritual implications of climate change. George Sarrinikolaou, executive director of the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability at Harvard University, offered remarks as a respondent. This event was part of Harvard Climate Action Week, a celebration and acceleration of climate research, education, and engagement across Harvard University. Led by the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability and hosted by schools and centers across Harvard University, the week convened thousands of experts, decision-makers, students, alumni, and scholars. This event took place May 11, 2023. A full transcript can be found online: https://rpl.hds.harvard.edu/news/2023/07/20/video-examining-religious-and-spiritual-implications-climate-change Learn more: https://hds.harvard.edu/

The Center for the Study of World Religions hosted an author discussion (Psychedelics & the Future of Religion Series) with Professor Bill Barnard. Charles Stang, Director of the CSWR, and Barnard discussed his recent book, Liquid Light: Ayahuasca Spirituality and the Santo Daime Tradition. Liquid Light offers an in-depth immersion into the complex and fascinating world of the Santo Daime – a relatively new religion that emerged out of the Amazon rainforest region of Brazil in the middle of the twentieth century, and which now has churches throughout the world. This event took place March 27, 2023. Learn more: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/home