For the second half of the twentieth century, HDS professor C. Conrad Wright, who died February 17, 2011, was the preeminent scholar of American Unitarianism and an inspiring mentor to both ministers and historians.
On October 26, 2011, a group of panelists convened to reflect on his life's work and on the ways his insights and vision can continue to guide academic and religious life in the twenty-first century.
Panelists included: G. Kim Beach, retired Unitarian Universalist minister, farmer, and leading interpreter of the work of James Luther Adams; Elz Curtiss, Unitarian Universalist minister, historian of local congregations and of congregational polity, and renowned blogger; Dean Grodzins, visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Historical Society and author of American Heretic: Theodore Parker and Transcendentalism; Gloria Korsman, research librarian at Andover-Harvard Theological Library, past chair of the standing committee at First Parish Cambridge, and president of the board of the Harvard Square Library; and David Robinson, Distinguished Professor of American Literature and Director of American Studies at Oregon State University, and the author of Natural Life: Thoreau's Worldly Transcendentalism and The Unitarians and the Universalists.