Center for the Study of World Religions

On a frigid January afternoon, students, faculty, staff, and alumni from Harvard Divinity School and Harvard College stepped carefully around the ice and snow surrounding Walden Pond. Accompanied only by a phone camera and a spirit of open curiosity, they...

The intention of this lecture and study was to investigate the intricacies and substance of a genre of devotional literature and liturgical practice in Twelver Shī‘īsm, namely the Ziyārat (visitational eulogy) of Imam al-Ḥusayn. In doing so, this talk...

The 2023-24 academic year might just be the busiest one yet at the Center for the Study of World Religions. In addition to the Center’s numerous and lively lectures, art exhibits, and guest talks that all students (and most often the general public) are...

For when we worry that transcendence might be an escape from our here and now, I want to ask whether we should be confident that we know our here and now, or in the plural, our “heres” and our “nows," writes Charles Stang, Professor of Early Christian...

In a conversation sponsored by the Transcendence and Transformation initiative of the Center for the Study of World Religions, Jack Hunter, a Welsh author and anthropologist who studies consciousness, religion, ecology, and the paranormal, discussed his...