Harvard Divinity School

How do you measure and govern for happiness? Harvard Divinity School hosted an international conference on April 13, 2019, inspired by the Gross National Happiness policies of the Kingdom of Bhutan. During this conference, academics, practitioners, politicians, corporate leaders and spiritual leaders sought answers to the question of universal happiness. This panel covered the Bhutanese statecraft on Economics and the Spirit of GNH. Panelists included Dasho Karma Tshiteem, Professor Sophus Reinert, Professor Wolfgang Drechsler, and Professor John Helliwell. Full transcript here: https://hds.harvard.edu/files/hds/files/panel-one.pdf?m=1600910876 Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at http://hds.harvard.edu/.

This monthly public series, convened by Dean David N. Hempton of HDS, brings together a cross-disciplinary RPP Working Group of faculty, experts, students, and alumni from across Harvard University and the local area to explore topics and cases in religions and the practice of peace. This meeting concerned indigenous guardianship and culture with intersections of nature and peace. Speakers • Margarita Mora, Director of Partnerships, Nia Tero • Indira S. Raimberdy, Executive Director, Peace Building Center Moderator • Professor Dan McKanan, Ralph Waldo Emerson Unitarian Universalist Association Senior Lecturer in Divinity, Harvard Divinity School For more info, please see: https://tinyurl.com/y4g89cxo https://hds.harvard.edu/news/2019/04/11/video-indigenous-guardianship-nature-peace Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at http://hds.harvard.edu/.

The ongoing destruction of Earth’s natural systems is the result of decisions, made daily, by billions of people. These decisions are voluntary and involuntary at once, collective and personal. The question must be asked: what is driving our actions? How do we reignite and reimagine a spiritual relationship with this beautiful planet we call home? From traditions around the world, and from within ourselves, how might we create different narratives that honor nature and acknowledge the sacred? Two indigenous leaders—Nainoa Thompson and Angaangaq Angakkorsuaq (Uncle)—have both been identified by their communities as messengers who are sharing their wisdom with us as we try to heal this broken world together, and they will guide us through these challenging questions as they reflect on their traditions and spiritual practices. Storytelling is a form of bearing witness to change as we contemplate what it means to be responsible citizens in the Anthropocene. Full transcript here: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/news/2019/04/04/video-indigenous-views-climate-change Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at hds.harvard.edu/.

Damaris S. Parsitau, 2018-19 WSRP Visiting Associate Professor, delivers the lecture “The Kingdom of Holy Women: Pentecostalism, Sex and Women’s Bodies in an African Church,” which is based on five years of ethnographic research carried out at the Ministry of Repentance and Holiness, a new and controversial Pentecostal church based in Kenya. Her book-in-progress explores the Ministry’s aims to control, discipline and objectify women’s bodies as sites of tensions and erotic desires that make women responsible for the sins of others and their supposed failure to enter the anticipated Kingdom of God. Full transcript here: https://wsrp.hds.harvard.edu/news/2019/04/03/video-kingdom-holy-women-african-church Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at hds.harvard.edu/.

This talk contradicts the longstanding reading of Emerson as invested in idealism and instead charts his obsession with matter both organic and inorganic, organized and unorganized. By attending to his interest in sciences of life, Branka Arsić reconstructs the geological and botanical theories that led him to formulate a genuinely vitalist ontology; and by outlining his vitalism through readings of both early and late essays and lectures, Arsić will ultimately be asking what the ethical and political consequences of his vitalism are. Branka Arsić specializes in literatures of the 19th century Americas and their scientific, philosophical, and religious contexts. She is the author, most recently, of Bird Relics: Grief and Vitalism in Thoreau (Harvard University Press, 2016). Full transcript here: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/news/2019/04/03/video-all-one-stuff-emersons-materialism Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at hds.harvard.edu/.

The Harvard Divinity School Buddhist Community (HBC) hosted the Fifth Annual Buddhism and Race Conference: Centering Intersectionalities, on March 8, 2019 at Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA. During this conference, scholars, sangha leaders, activists, and students from diverse backgrounds joined together to engage in conversations about issues at the intersection of Buddhism, race, and beyond. This panel discussed the intersections of Buddhism, Race, and Multiple Religious Belongings. Full transcript here: https://hds.harvard.edu/files/hds/files/buddhism-panel-2.pdf Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at http://hds.harvard.edu/.

Dr. Alaa Murabit discusses the promotion of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), at Harvard Divinity School, highlighting the intersection between women's leadership, religion, and sustainable development. She presents unique examples of women's religious leadership to advance human rights, societal development, and peacebuilding and explores the importance of leveraging religious scholarship. Speaker: Dr. Alaa Murabit, UN High-Level Commissioner and SDG Global Advocate Moderator and Discussant: Professor Jocelyne Cesari, T. J. Dermot Dunphy Visiting Professor of Religion, Violence, and Peacebuilding for 2018-19 at Harvard Divinity School For more info: https://tinyurl.com/y5jc894g Full transcript here: https://hds.harvard.edu/news/2019/03/14/video-promoting-the-un-sustainable-development-goals Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at http://hds.harvard.edu/.

Presented as a rational, scientific, and practical religion, modern Buddhism appears to have all the answers. Even the secular forms of mindfulness promise ever-increasing practitioners that Buddhist meditation will provide the solutions to all their mental, emotional, and spiritual issues. But is there a problem with all of this? In his new book, "A Critique of Western Buddhism: Ruins of the Buddhist Real," scholar Glenn Wallis argues that there is, and that Buddhism as we know it "must be ruined." On March 11, 2019, Wallis was in conversation with HDS professor Charles Hallisey at the Center for the Study of World Religions. Glenn Wallis holds a Ph.D. in Buddhist studies from Harvard University's Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies. He is the founder and director of Incite Seminars, in Philadelphia. Charles Hallisey is the Yehan Numata Senior Lecturer on Buddhist Literatures at Harvard Divinity School. His research centers on Theravada Buddhism in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, Pali language and literature, Buddhist ethics, and literature in Buddhist culture. Full transcript here: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/news/2019/03/11/case-against-buddhism Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at http://hds.harvard.edu/.

On March 1, 2019, Harvard Divinity School hosted its third annual Black Religion, Spirituality, and Culture Conference. The theme was Blackness at the Margins. The day featured many panel discussions, including this one. The revolutionary artist Nina Simone once said, “It’s an artist’s duty to reflect the times.” What does it mean to create art that reveals and speaks to the contemporary social, cultural, intellectual, and political times? The panel addresses many facets of the role of art in these times. Full transcript here: https://hds.harvard.edu/files/hds/files/brcs-panel-3.pdf Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at www.hds.harvard.edu.

On March 1, 2019, Harvard Divinity School hosted its third annual Black Religion, Spirituality, and Culture Conference. The theme was Blackness at the Margins. The day featured many panel discussions, including this one. This conversation addressed immigration, gentrification, and the politics of displacement. Full transcript here: https://hds.harvard.edu/files/hds/files/brsc-panel-2.pdf Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at www.hds.harvard.edu.