Marla Frederick, a leading ethnographer and scholar focused on the African American religious experience, will become dean of Harvard Divinity School on January 1, 2024. President Claudine Gay announced the news to the University community on August 24, 2023.... Read more about Marla Frederick Named Next Dean of Harvard Divinity School
In a year of transition, I write to you with wholehearted appreciation: appreciation for the leadership that has brought HDS to where it is today, appreciation for the leadership that will take HDS into the future, and appreciation for the continued progression of the School’s mission made possible by a brilliant and devoted community.... Read more about Letter from Interim Dean David F. Holland
Navajo scholars and advocates spoke about their professional and personal experiences preserving Navajo cultural heritage in an event organized by the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology that featured Cynthia Wilson, a fellow at the Religion and Public Life program at Harvard Divinity School, and Wade Campbell, an assistant professor of archaeology and anthropology at Boston University.
This lecture was given by Jessica J. Fowler (University of Montana Western), who is an HDS Visiting Associate Professor of Women’s Studies and Catholicism on her work, "Illuminating the Empire: The Spanish Inquisition and the Spread of Global Heresy."
“What’s remarkable is how much evidence has survived systematic attempts to erase women from history and with them the warrants and models for women’s leadership. The evidence presented here is but the tip of an iceberg,” said Professor Karen King.
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 presented a historical and close philological-thematic study of this ziyāra, a text that is consistently found throughout classical and contemporary Shi‘ī prayer manuals and formative hadith works such as al-Kāfī. The ziyāra has been ascribed by Twelver Shī‘īs to the sixth Imām, Ja‘far al-Ṣādiq (d. 148/765). Unlike most studies dealing with the topic of Shī‘ī devotion, this lecture shall focus on the textual history, Qur’ānic, and mystical-theological themes which imbue this liturgy. The speakers were Vinay Khetia, Academic Director, Shia Research Institute, Toronto Furthermore, the numerous statements of esoteric or gnostic provenance found throughout this text sheds further light upon the development and promulgation of the non-rationalist stream of Shī‘īsm by authorities such as al-Kulaynī, Ibn Qawlawayh, and Ibn Babawayh al-Qummī who place the ontological function of Imāms knowledge and walāya (charismatic persona and authority) at the very centre of any notion of acceptable religiosity. It is the author's contention that this ziyāra text is part and parcel of the broader venture of early esoteric Shī‘īsm thus, a text of this genre would be most appropriately analyzed within this context. This lecture was sponsored by the Jaffer Family Foundation of NY.
Matthew Ichihashi Potts, Plummer Professor of Christian Morals at HDS and Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church, discusses creating a "space of belonging" at Memorial Church and Harvard.
