Harvard Divinity School

Held on December 7–8, 2017, the Religious Literacy and the Professions Initiative (RLPI) seeks to consider how religion is embedded in both constructive and antagonistic approaches to immigration, especially with respect to work undertaken by (or in collaboration with) governmental agencies. Shaun Casey, MDiv ’83, ThD ’98, gives the keynote address at the Religious Literacy and Government Symposium. Nadeem Mazen, Cambridge City Council member, and Diane L. Moore, director of the Religious Literacy Project at Harvard Divinity School, respond. Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at http://hds.harvard.edu/.

From the Commission of Appraisal in 1936 to the Black Empowerment impulse of the 1960s, James Luther Adams was a significant shaper of Unitarian and Unitarian Universalist institutions. And as a social ethicist, he helped envision the new national and international institutions that emerged in the post-World War II period. Professor Dan McKanan’s lecture explores the way Adams translated his theological and ethical vision into institutional practice, seeking insights that might help religious liberals respond faithfully to the institutional crises of the twenty-first century. Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at http://hds.harvard.edu/.

Journalist and author E.J. Dionne, William H. Bloomberg Visiting Professor, delivers the 2017 Horace De Y. Lentz Lecture.

The South Asian Religions Colloquium (SARC) seeks to share ongoing, current scholarly research on topics in South Asian religions with Harvard students and faculty as well as the wider Boston academic community. This event features speaker James Mallinson, Senior Lecturer in Sanskrit and Classical Indian Studies at the University of London. Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at http://hds.harvard.edu/.

As part of the American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, this panel reflects on the interaction between religion scholars and law enforcement officials over the past 25 years and what may be learned from that experience to inform interaction going forward. Panelists include Eileen Barker, London School of Economics and Political Science; Michael Barkun, Syracuse University; David T. Resch, Federal Bureau of Investigation; Robin Montgomery, Brookfield, CT; Steven Weitzman, University of Pennsylvania; Eugene V. Gallagher, Connecticut College; and Gregory B. Saathoff, University of Virginia. Nancy Ammerman of Boston University serves as the respondent. Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at http://hds.harvard.edu/.

"Forests think." Eduardo Kohn, author of the book How Forests Think, discusses a kind of thinking, which he calls “sylvan," that is manifested by tropical forests and those that live with them. This mode of thought can provide an ethical orientation in these times of planetary human-driven ecological devastation that some call the “Anthropocene." He presents his work as “cosmic diplomacy." How Forests Think, which has been translated into several languages, won the 2014 Gregory Bateson Prize and is short-listed for the upcoming 2018 Prix littéraire François Sommer. Eduardo Kohn's research continues to be concerned with capacitating sylvan thinking in its many forms. He teaches Anthropology at McGill University. Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at http://hds.harvard.edu/.

WSRP 2017–18 Research Associate Avital Davidovich-Eshed, PhD (Bar Ilan University), Visiting Lecturer in Women's Studies and Judaism, delivers her talk, "Enclosed Gardens Revealed: The Concept of Virginity in Medieval Jewish Culture." Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at http://hds.harvard.edu/.

At the 2017 Diversity and Explorations Program (DivEx), Davíd Carrasco presents his talk, "Gifts from Mexico: Revitalizing Life Through the Day of the Dead Celebration". He describes one of the gifts from Mexico and Mexican's is the idea of convivencia, which he defines as "living together in order to give life the upper hand over death." He discusses three examples of convivencia that he has experienced and ends on the ways in which convivencia exists on our campus. Davíd Carrasco is Harvard Divinity School's Neil L. Rudenstine Professor of the Study of Latin America, with a joint appointment with the Department of Anthropology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. DivEx is a three-day introduction to graduate programs at Harvard Divinity School that span religious and cultural divides to prepare ethical leaders to work in a complex world. Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at http://hds.harvard.edu/.

Journalist and author E.J. Dionne, William H. Bloomberg Visiting Professor, delivers the 2017 Horace De Y. Lentz Lecture. Dionne is a distinguished journalist and author, political commentator, and longtime op-ed columnist for The Washington Post. He is also a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, a government professor at Georgetown University, and a frequent commentator on politics for National Public Radio, ABC’s “This Week,” and MSNBC. His most recent book, co-authored with Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann, is One Nation After Trump: A Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate, and the Not-Yet Deported. Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at http://hds.harvard.edu/.

As part of the Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation Speakers Series, Khenpo Sodargye speaks about developing inner peace. Khenpo Sodargye is the abbot and senior educator at the renowned Larung Buddhist Institute, the largest Buddhist academy of this kind in the world. Khenpo trained closely with Khenchen Jigme Phuntsok Rinpoche, one of the great luminaries of his generation. As a Tibetan lama, Buddhist scholar and teacher, prolific translator into Chinese, and modern Buddhist thinker, Khenpo Sodargye is renowned across Asia and the west for his interest in the integration of traditional Buddhist teachings with global issues and modern life. Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at http://hds.harvard.edu/.