Harvard Divinity School

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/.

Harvard Divinity School Professor Harvey Cox delivers the talk, "Whatever Happened to Secularization?" The talk took place during HDS's bicentennial celebration and alumni reunion on April 29, 2017. Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at hds.harvard.edu/.

Harvard President Drew Faust spoke during HDS's bicentennial celebration on April 28, 2017. Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at hds.harvard.edu/.

HDS Professor of the Practice of Public Philosophy Cornel West and Center for the Study of World Religions Visiting Scholar Sasha Dehghani delivered a talk, "Religion and Nonviolence: Past and Present." The discussion took place during the HDS bicentennial celebration and alumni reunion on April 29, 2017. Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at hds.harvard.edu/.

Alumni/Alumnae Council Chairperson Christopher J. Hanson, MDiv ’10, moderated a discussion with this year's Gomes Honorees about their time at HDS, their views on the importance of School, and their work in the world. The panel was part of HDS's bicentennial celebration and alumni reunion on April 29, 2017. This year, the council recognized the preacher and civil rights leader Rev. Dr. Charles Gilchrist Adams, B.D. ’64; the activist and educator Precious Rasheeda Muhammad, M.T.S. ’01; Mary E. Hunt, M.T.S. ’74, the feminist theologian and cofounder of the Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics, and Ritual; and the scholar David Little, Th.D. ’63, formerly the T.J. Dermot Dunphy Professor of the Practice in Religion, Ethnicity, and International Conflict at HDS. The AAC also recognizes two non-alumni who had an outsized impact on HDS: Constance Buchanan, founding director of the Women’s Studies in Religion Program, and the late Buddhist scholar Robert H.L. Slater, the first director of the Center for the Study

The panel "Violence and Justice: The Missing Piece in Our Anti-Poverty Agenda," was part of HDS's bicentennial celebration on April 28, 2017. The panel was moderated by Jeffrey D. Sachs, world-renowned professor of economics, leader in sustainable development, senior UN advisor, bestselling author, and syndicated columnist. The panelists were Gary Haugen, CEO of the International Justice Mission and author, Danielle Allen, James Bryant Conant University Professor and director, Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University, and Sheryl WuDunn, co-author of "A Path Appears: Transforming Lives, Creating Opportunity" and "Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide." Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at http://hds.harvard.edu/.

Tanenbaum CEO Joyce Dubensky and Tanenbaum’s Syrian Peacemaker Hind Kabawat will discuss Tanenbaum’s groundbreaking new book Peacemakers in Action: Profiles in Religious Peacebuilding Volume II. The event will be moderated by HDS Senior Lecturer on Religious Studies and Education Diane L. Moore, director of the Religious Literacy Project. Co-sponsored by the Religious Literacy Project at Harvard Divinity School. With generous support from the Rev. Karen Vickers Budney, MDiv ’91, and Mr. Albert J. Budney, Jr., MBA ’74, and the El-Hibri Foundation. Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at http://hds.harvard.edu/.

Between 1970 and 1985, HDS changed from an almost exclusively male institution into a school with a majority of women students and a commitment to gender analysis. Panelists who propelled the women’s studies revolution follow its reverberations into the twenty-first century. The panel was introduced by Ann Braude, director of the HDS Women's Studies in Religion Program. It was moderated by Margaret R. Miles, Bussey Professor of Theology at HDS, 1978–1996. The panelists were Katie Geneva Cannon, Annie Scales Rogers Professor of Christian Ethics, Union Presbyterian Seminar, Karen L. King, HDS Hollis Professor of Divinity, and Ping Yao, Professor of History and director of the Asian and Asian American Studies Program, California State University, Los Angeles. The panel was part of HDS's bicentennial celebration on April 28, 2017. Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at http://hds.harvard.edu/.

Harvard Divinity School Dean David N. Hempton discusses the role of HDS at Harvard, as well as the role of religion and ethics at other Harvard Schools with Harvard Graduate School of Education Dean James Ryan, Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow, and Harvard Business School Dean Nitin Nohria. The panel was part of HDS's bicentennial celebration on April 28, 2017. Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at hds.harvard.edu/.

Harvey Cox, HDS Hollis Professor of Divinity Emeritus, discusses his recent publication, The Market as God. Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at http://hds.harvard.edu/.

Listen to Kwame Dawes read "To Buy a Pair of Shoes" for the last day of our #NationalPoetryMonth 2017 celebration. Originally published in Harvard Divinity Bulletin, Summer/Autumn 2013.

Listen to Joanna Klink read "Feverish" for #NationalPoetryMonth. Originally published in Harvard Divinity Bulletin, Spring/Summer 2009.

Listen to Kim Garcia read "Genesis Suite" for #NationalPoetryMonth. Originally published in Harvard Divinity Bulletin, Autumn 2006.

Listen to Naomi Shihab Nye read "It's Good to Sit Down with a Racist Every Now and Then" for #NationalPoetryMonth. Originally published in Harvard Divinity Bulletin, Winter/Spring 2012.

Dr. Anna Sun, HDS Berggruen Fellow and Associate Professor of Sociology and Asian Studies at Kenyon College gives a lecture based on her research project for the year, "The Logic of Prayer in Contemporary China." Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at http://hds.harvard.edu/.

Listen to Tania Runyan read "Paul's Blinding of Elymas" for #NationalPoetryMonth. Originally published in Harvard Divinity Bulletin, Summer/Autumn 2012.

Eliza Griswold, HDS’s inaugural Berggruen Fellow, delivers her talk, "New Poems and a Talk on Syrian Artists in Exile," on April 13, 2017, at the Center for the Study of World Religions at HDS. Griswold, a poet, writer, and journalist, read from poems she's written this year at HDS, and present the blueprint of her Berggruen Fellowship project mapping Syrian artists, filmmakers, poets, and writers since the revolution began. Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at http://hds.harvard.edu/.