Harvard Divinity School

This year's Dudleian Lecture is presented by Dr. Paul C.H. Lim, Associate Professor of the History of Christianity and Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Vanderbilt University. Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at http://hds.harvard.edu/.

MDiv candidate Tim Gallati is studying experiences of “silence” in nature and contemplative practice with applications in virtual and augmented realities. This piece is titled "Retreat," and is the sound captured during the walk from Gallati's apartment in Central Square, through Cambridge, and into and within the retreat house of Society of Saint John the Evangelist. Headphones recommended. Read more here: https://hds.harvard.edu/news/2017/09/25/listening-ear-heart Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at hds.harvard.edu/.

Laura Dassow Walls, author of Henry David Thoreau: A Life and Richard Higgins, author of Thoreau and the Language of Trees to discuss Thoreau's life and work. Respondents include Barry Andrews, a Unitarian Universalist minister, who is the author of several books on Transcendentalism and a longtime participant in the Thoreau Society, and Terry Tempest Williams, author, conservationist, and activist who will be a writer-in-residence at HDS during the 2017–18 academic year. This event took place on September 14, 2017 and is a part of a series of events to honor the life of Henry David Thoreau in the year of his 200th birthday. Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at http://hds.harvard.edu/.

How do our views of land and landscape influence our religious imagination, and vice versa? The panelists were: Matthew L. Potts, Associate Professor of Religion and Literature and of Ministry Studies; Charles M. Stang, Professor of Early Christian Thought, Director of the Center for the Study of World Religions; and Terry Tempest Williams, Writer-in-Residence.

Delivered on September 7, 2017, by Brad S. Gregory, Professor of History and Dorothy G. Griffin Collegiate Chair at the University of Notre Dame. Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at http://hds.harvard.edu/.

Women’s Studies in Religion Program (WSRP) Research Associates discuss the courses they'll be teaching during the 2017-18 academic year, and share their thoughts on the ethical responsibility of scholars to be engaged in the study of gender. Each year, WSRP brings five scholars in gender from around the world to pursue research on women and religion and to enrich the experience of our students. Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at www.hds.harvard.edu.

On August 29, HDS Professor of the Practice of Public Philosophy Cornel West delivered the 2017 Convocation address. Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at hds.harvard.edu/.

Congratulations to the Harvard Divinity School class of 2017, who received their diplomas during the HDS Diploma Awarding Ceremony on May 25, 2017. David Price, MDiv ’17, gave the student address. Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at hds.harvard.edu/.

The 2017 Multireligious Commencement Service was held on Wednesday, May 24, at Memorial Church. Susan Shallcross Swartz Professor of the Practice of Christian Studies Stephanie Paulsell was the faculty speaker. Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at http://hds.harvard.edu/.

On the occasion of the bicentenary of the birth of the founder of the Bahá'í Faith, this presentation by Center for the Study of World Religions Visiting Fellow Sasha Dehghani provides an introduction to the life and writings of Bahá'u'lláh (1817–1892), with a focus on the principle of unity in its diverse forms of expression. Bahá'u'lláh's teachings on unity have not only earned the appreciation of some of the leading thinkers across different religions and races, such as Leo Tolstoy, E. G. Browne, Muhammad Iqbal, Mahatma Gandhi, and W.E.B. Du Bois, but have also encouraged the Bahá'ís to strive toward peaceful and coherent models of community life, and enabled them to withstand oppression in a spirit of constructive resilience. Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at http://hds.harvard.edu/.