![Man walking up the steps of Swartz Hall toward the entrance](/sites/g/files/omnuum5526/files/styles/hwp_21_9__1920x825/public/2026-08/06052024-SpringCampus-047.jpg?h=11adaca1&itok=b6EquMx7) # Harvard Divinity School Welcomes New Visiting Scholars and Practitioners Scholars and artists joining the HDS community bring distinctive approaches to religion through technology, history, music, film, and Jewish studies. August 24, 2026 [ Jonathan Beasley ](/people/jonathan-beasley) Harvard Divinity School (HDS) will welcome a group of visiting scholars and artists during the 2026–27 academic year, contributing to the School’s teaching, research, and creative work. Their varied disciplines and approaches to the study of religion will create new opportunities for learning and engagement across the HDS community. “I’m thrilled to welcome this remarkable group of scholars and practitioners to Harvard Divinity School,” said HDS Dean [Marla F. Frederick](https://www.hds.harvard.edu/about/dean). “Each brings a distinctive perspective to questions that are deeply relevant to the study and practice of religion today. I am especially excited about the opportunities they will create for our students to encounter new ways of understanding religion. Together, they bring tremendous depth of scholarship and creative practice, as well as an impressive range of approaches to some of the most important questions in their fields.” ## Agana-Nsiire Agana: Exploring AI and Religion ![Agana-Nsiire Agana](/sites/g/files/omnuum5526/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/2026-08/agana_new_480x600.jpg?itok=vOxwj88x) Agana-Nsiire Agana will join HDS as Postdoctoral Researcher in Artificial Intelligence and Religion from January 2027 through June 2028. His work explores digital theology, philosophy of religion, science and religion, and World Christianity, with a particular interest in the theological and ethical questions raised by artificial intelligence. Agana completed his doctoral studies at the University of Edinburgh, where his research examined online expressions of faith in Ghana in relation to Kierkegaard’s theory of selfhood. His first monograph based on that work, *The Multiform Self*, is forthcoming from T&T Clark. His current research focuses on the AI misalignment problem, examining rogue behavior in large language models through metaphysical and ethical inquiry. Before entering academia, Agana worked as a software developer and digital entrepreneur and helped organize Ghana’s developer community. “The encounter between AI and religion mutually transforms them, producing new ways of knowing, being, and belonging around the world. I’m excited to help shape a vigorous and enlightening discussion on this at HDS. I am especially eager to engage with the wider academic community at Harvard and beyond to grapple with the complexity, urgency, and globality of issues at the intersection of AI and religion,” Agana said. ## William Banfield: Music, Religion, and Social Change ![William Banfield](/sites/g/files/omnuum5526/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/2026-08/banfield_480x600.jpg?itok=ghyCmMGy) Award-winning composer, scholar, author, and educator William “Bill” Banfield will join HDS as Visiting Professor of Religion, Social Movements, and Music for the fall 2026 semester. Banfield is Professor Emeritus and founding director of Africana Studies/Music and Society at Berklee College of Music and currently serves as composer and curator in residence with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra. His symphonies, operas, and chamber works have been performed and recorded by major orchestras and ensembles across the United States. A research associate with the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, Banfield has served three times as a Pulitzer Prize judge in American music and serves on the board of directors of ASCAP. His academic career has included appointments at the University of Minnesota, Princeton University, the University of St. Thomas, and Indiana University, as well as a W.E.B. Du Bois Fellowship at Harvard. He has also written extensively about Black music, culture, and American musical life. At HDS, Banfield will teach a course exploring relationships between religion, music, cultural expression, and movements for social change. “I am so thrilled to be teaching now at the Divinity School. I return now after having studied theology under Gordon Kaufman in 1986, then being a Du Bois fellow at Harvard in 2002. In my thesis, I argued for a ‘Theological Music,’ which claimed that music/arts—Black music in particular—lifted the people. I believe then as now, ‘our artistry is opportunity’ with intention to use it to inspire a greater lift for community, a greater good. I’m excited now about that greater good," Banfield said. ## Susannah Heschel: New Perspectives in Jewish Studies ![Susannah Heschel](/sites/g/files/omnuum5526/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/2026-08/heschel_480x600.jpg?itok=yLaQkCoS) Susannah Heschel returns this fall as Visiting Professor in Jewish Studies. The Eli M. Black Distinguished Professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College, Heschel studies Jewish and Protestant thought in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including the history of biblical scholarship and antisemitism. Her books include *Abraham Geiger and the Jewish Jesus*; *The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany*; *Jüdischer Islam: Islam und jüdisch-deutsche Selbstbestimmung*; and, with Sarah Imhoff, *The Woman Question in Jewish Studies*. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and fellowships from the National Humanities Center and Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin, among other honors, and has been a visiting professor at universities in the United States, Europe, and South Africa. “For me, Harvard Divinity School is a taste of paradise: a community of students and faculty with a passionate interest in understanding religion. What I find at HDS are people with sharp intellectual interests combined with an effort to heal the wounds of polarization that plague our society. Each day, I am challenged and inspired by my colleagues and students,” Heschel said. ## Rachel M. Wheeler: Indigenous Religious Histories and Their Legacies ![Rachel Wheeler](/sites/g/files/omnuum5526/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/2026-08/portrait_480x600.jpg?itok=-JAK3mso) Rachel M. Wheeler will join HDS as Visiting Professor for Native American Religious Studies for the spring and fall 2027 semesters. A historian of early American religion, Wheeler studies the intersections of Christianity, Indigenous history, and colonialism, with particular attention to the religious experiences of Mohican communities in the eighteenth century. Wheeler is Professor of Religious Studies and Adjunct Professor of History at Indiana University Indianapolis. Her book *To Live upon Hope: Mohicans and Missionaries in the Eighteenth-Century Northeast* examines encounters between Mohican communities and Moravian and Anglo-Protestant missionaries and the distinctive forms of Indigenous Christianity that emerged from them. Her scholarship has also incorporated music, language, and collaborative humanities research. With musicologist Sarah Eyerly, Wheeler has worked to recover and revive eighteenth-century Mohican-language hymns, resulting in scholarly publications, digital humanities projects, and the volume *Strong Wounds: Eight Mohican Moravian Hymns*. “I am thrilled to be joining Harvard Divinity School starting in January. I look forward to the opportunity to focus exclusively on teaching and research as a member of the HDS community of students, faculty, staff, and community partners, exploring the entangled histories of Christianity and colonialism and their legacies for living communities today. In our current moment, these questions feel particularly urgent,” Wheeler said. ## Susan Youssef: Religion Through the Filmmaker’s Lens ![Susan Youssef](/sites/g/files/omnuum5526/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/2026-08/youssef_480x600.jpg?itok=TlXkrAWZ) Writer, director, and artist Susan Youssef will join HDS as Filmmaker-in-Residence for the 2026–27 academic year, bringing filmmaking and visual storytelling into conversation with religion, spirituality, culture, and the human experience. Born in Brooklyn, Youssef creates films and video art that explore identity, displacement, and the divine. Her work has been selected for international film festivals including Venice, Sundance, Busan, and Toronto and has received honors including the International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI) Prize and the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema (NETPAC) Award. A Fulbright Fellow and Princess Grace Award recipient, Youssef works across feature film, episodic storytelling, and video art. Her work has been commissioned by Tate Modern and exhibited at the New Museum and The Museum of Modern Art. Before beginning her filmmaking career, she worked as a schoolteacher and journalist in Beirut. “To join Harvard Divinity School, where Dr. Leila Ahmed's foundational work on women, Islam, and representation has informed my own, is a dream come true. I am thrilled to share my craft in visual storytelling and work with our scholars to amplify their ministry and uplift the communities they serve,” Youssef said. [David Holland](https://www.hds.harvard.edu/people/david-f-holland), Associate Dean for Academic and Faculty Affairs, said the visitors will enrich both the HDS curriculum and the intellectual life of the School. "This year's visiting cohort signifies one of Harvard Divinity School's defining strengths, namely its ability to bring together the brightest minds from a vast variety of traditions and a wide array of disciplines," Holland said. "From the study of music and film to archival history and ethical inquiry, these new community members will both extend the robust variety of our course offerings and complement the methodological expertise of our faculty. Our students—and, indeed, our whole community—will benefit from their presence." *Banner image: Kristie Welsh; courtesy scholar photos* ## Other Visiting Scholars [ 2026-27 Yang Visiting Scholars arrow\_circle\_right ](https://www.hds.harvard.edu/faculty-research/research-appointments/yang-visiting-scholars-world-christianity) [ 2026-27 WSRP Research Associates arrow\_circle\_right ](https://wsrp.hds.harvard.edu/news/2026/08/04/wsrp-announces-2026-27-research-associates) See also:- [ Faculty and Research ](/discover-stories-about/faculty-and-research)