Francisca Cho proposes that Buddhist epistemic frameworks regarding the nature of ritual apparitions offer an account of the religious possibilities of film that is absent in Western phenomenological conversations on the same topic.

This talk examines the higher-dimensional time theories of the British aviator and writer John Dunne. Dunne developed a theory of time in which human beings transcended time and space in dreams. His views reverberated throughout popular culture in Europe and America, inspiring writers—including the British broadcaster and novelist J.B. Priestley, H.G. Wells, and Christian writers such as J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis—seeking ways of transcending the terrors of the world wars or triumphing over suffering and death.

Robert Jones, the founder and CEO of Public Religion Research Institute, characterized white, Christian America as representing centuries of cultural, political, and economic domination. Over the last couple of decades, however, demographics and culture have shifted dramatically, he said during a conversation at HDS with journalist and political analyst E.J. Dionne.

Based on personal study and experience, Anne Waldman speaks on the refuge and Bodhisattva vows, the Six Realms of Existence, “co-emergent wisdom” and a parallel vow to poetry, and the joys and contradictions therein. She integrates her own poetry, particular writers associated with the Beat Literary Movement, and Giorgio Agamben’s notion of being contemporary with one’s time as “looking into the darkness.”