Harvard Divinity School

Casper ter Kuile, MDiv '16, MPP '16, and Angie Thurston, MDiv '16, map and convene the Millennial leaders of spiritual communities at the forefront of religious change. From CrossFit to dinner churchers, Muslim small groups, and maker spaces, their work illuminates the rapidly shifting generational patterns in American religious life today. Full transcript here: https://hds.harvard.edu/news/2020/04/02/video-religion-new-generation Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at https://hds.harvard.edu/.

This week, the HDS Episcopal/Anglican Fellowship is offering a podcast version of Noon Service on the topic “Mary’s YES, our YES!” Celebrate the Feast of the Annunciation with Anne Stetson MDiv II, Jonathan Robert Smith MDiv II, Joris Bürmann, MDiv II, Carolyn Beard MDiv I, and The Rev. Dr. Regina L. Walton, Counselor to Episcopal/Anglican Students. Permission to podcast/stream the music in this service obtained from One License with license number A-715440.

Three Hindu monastics visiting Harvard Divinity School this year spoke on March 11, 2020, on the great tradition of the Upanisads and Vedanta, and why this wisdom is relevant in today’s global society. Featuring: Swami Sarvapriyananda (Ramakrishna Mission); Brahmacharini Shweta Chaitanya (Chinmaya Mission); Sadhak Akshar–Guru: Mahant Swami Maharaj (BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha). Moderated by Francis X. Clooney, S.J., Parkman Professor of Divinity and Professor of Comparative Theology, Harvard Divinity School. The discussant was Anantanand Rambachan, Professor of Religion, Saint Olaf College. Made possible by support from the Nagral Fund. Full transcript here: https://hds.harvard.edu/news/2020/03/19/video-vedanta-21st-century Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at https://hds.harvard.edu/.

Considerable attention has been directed to the possibility of a technological singularity when artificial intelligences “wake up” and start acting in their own self-interest. Long before then, however, humanity will confront an ethical singularity—a point at which the evaluation of values systems acquires infinite value. The computational factories and intelligence-gathering infrastructure of the global attention economy have begun to function as karmic engines, perfecting values-reinforcing feedback loops that are transforming everything from the dynamics of social interaction to geopolitics. Drawing on Buddhist resources, this talk made the case that our prospects of realizing more humane global futures depends on changing how we are present and developing both capacities for and commitments to compassionate ethical creativity. Peter D. Hershock is director of the Asian Studies Development Program at the East-West Center in Honolulu. He has authored or edited more than a dozen books on Buddhism, most recently "Philosophies of Place: An Intercultural Conversation" (edited, 2019). His current project, initiated as a 2017-18 Fellow of the Berggruen Institute in China, is a monograph on The Intelligence Revolution: The Challenges of Humane Presence in an Era of Artificial Agents and Smart Services—a reflection on the personal and societal impacts of the attention economy and artificial intelligence. Video and full transcript here: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/news/2020/02/19/intelligence-revolution-and-new-attention-economy-ethical-singularity Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at https://hds.harvard.edu/.

This event, held February 11 at the CSWR, is part of a year-long series titled "Theological Bioethics Within Marginalized Communities." This lecture is a womanist critique of a longstanding racist campaign of domestic terror in the United States. It investigated the intersectionality of racism, in particular the racist acts condoned by religious communities and by the health care system. It gave special attention to the 40-year Syphilis Study at Tuskegee conducted by the United States Public Health Service. The Rev. Dr. Joan R. Harrell is a womanist practical theologian and journalist committed to social justice. Her scholarship investigates the intersectionality of racism, sexism, xenophobia, religion, politics, media and public health inequities in marginalized communities. She is a Journalism Lecturer and the inaugural Diversity Coordinator for the Auburn University School of Communication and Journalism and Associate Pastor at the historic Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church in Montgomery, Al. Video and full transcript here: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/news/2020/02/13/video-becoming-beloved-community-midst-domestic-terror Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at https://hds.harvard.edu/.

This talk examined the forms that grief can take, in the work of Zoe Leonard, Peter Hujar, David Wojnarowicz, and John Constable. Kate Zambreno is the author of several acclaimed books, including Screen Tests, Heroines, and Green Girl. She has recently published a collection of talks and essays, Appendix Project, in the shadow of Book of Mutter, her meditation on grief. Her writing has appeared in The Paris Review, VQR, and elsewhere. A novel, Drifts, is forthcoming in May 2020. She teaches in the writing programs at Columbia University and Sarah Lawrence College. Video and full transcript here: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/news/2020/02/10/video-forms-grief Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at hds.harvard.edu/.

Stephanie Paulsell, HDS Susan Shallcross Swartz Professor of the Practice of Christian Studies and Interim Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church, discusses her recent publication on Virginia Woolf. Amy Hollywood (HDS) and Terry Tempest Williams (HDS) responded. Video and full transcript here: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/news/2019/12/02/video-religion-around-virginia-woolf-author-discussion Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at https://hds.harvard.edu/.

On November 6, 2019, Harvard Divinity School hosted its annual Theological Education Day. The day featured many panel discussions, including this one on admissions and financial aid. Full transcript here: https://hds.harvard.edu/files/hds/files/ted-financial-aid-2019.pdf Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at https://hds.harvard.edu/.

K. Healan Gaston, Harvard Divinity School Lecturer in American Religious History and Ethics, discusses her recent publication, Imagining Judeo-Christian America--Religion, Secularism, and the Redefinition of Democracy. E.J. Dionne (Harvard Divinity School) and Mark Silk (Trinity College) serve as respondents. Video and full transcript here: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/news/2019/11/18/video-imagining-judeo-christian-america-religion-secularism-and-redefinition-democracy Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at http://hds.harvard.edu/.

Artist and author Rachel Sussman shares her physical, intellectual, and spiritual journey around the world and through time-space as she discusses her epic 10-year project, "The Oldest Living Things in the World," newer mind-expanding works incubated at NASA and SETI, and, for the first time, her personal journey of spiritual awakening and transformation through her relationship with ayahuasca. Artist and author Rachel Sussman is a Guggenheim and MacDowell Colony Fellow, and two-time TED speaker. Her critically acclaimed, decade-long project "The Oldest Living Things in the World" combines art, science, and philosophy into a traveling exhibition and New York Times bestselling book. For the past five years she has been deepening her investigations of personal and cosmic time, being, and consciousness, fostered by a spiritual awakening ignited by shamanic medicine practices. Video and full transcript here: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/news/2019/11/14/video-all-time-world-artists-awakening-ayahuasca Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at http://hds.harvard.edu/.