News

New Name for Andover Hall

May 01, 2019

As Harvard Divinity School prepares for the most significant renewal of the HDS campus in a century, Dean David N. Hempton announced on May 1 that Andover Hall will be renamed Swartz Hall in honor of Susan Shallcross Swartz, her husband, James R. Swartz...

Judith Lieu Named Frothingham Visiting Professor

April 30, 2019

Judith Lieu, Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity Emerita at the University of Cambridge, will be the Frothingham Visiting Professor in New Testament and Early Christianity at HDS starting in January 2020. A biblical scholar, theologian, and historian of...

Addressing the Crisis of Climate Change

April 29, 2019

The 2019 William James Lecture will be presented on May 1, 5:15 pm, by Professor Dipesh Chakrabarty, Distinguished Service Professor of History, South Asian Languages, and Civilizations at the University of Chicago. His talk, “ The Planet: An Emergent...

A Sanctuary for Artists and Activists

April 25, 2019

Some people think that politics and art don’t mix. Impose a political message, they say, and art becomes contrived and manipulative. Bring too much art to politics and it becomes unserious and impractical. Rev. Erik Martinez Resly, MDiv ’12, is not one of...

Modeling Ministry for a Multireligious World

April 25, 2019

The HDS community is home to practitioners and scholars of dozens of different religions—and to those who have no formal religious affiliation at all. One is as likely to bump into a Buddhist monk from Sri Lanka on campus as a Unitarian Universalist from...

Kazmi Reaches Out

April 24, 2019

When Salma Kazmi got to her job at the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center (ISBCC) on the morning of September 11, 2001, she found a telephone message from her boss. “Something terrible has happened,” it said. “Please call me immediately.” After she...

Video: Concordance: An Evening with Susan Howe

April 24, 2019

Award-winning American poet Susan Howe visited Harvard Divinity School on April 24 to speak about the binding together of freedom and law, spontaneity and habit, as occasions for awakening a reader to the exaltation of spirit in process. Crossing the...

Podcast: Why Hate Crimes Are on the Rise

April 23, 2019

Hate crimes committed on the basis of religious identity have surged 23 percent, the biggest annual increase since 9/11. And while many have placed blame at the foot of political leaders and specifically President Trump for emboldening anti-Semites and...

Video: Lived Religion and Spirituality in 2019

April 23, 2019

How is our lived experience of religion and spirituality changing? Where are the boundaries of religion being tested and transformed? How will scholars and practitioners define and understand religion in the future? A multi-generational panel of scholars...

HDS Student Serves as Meditation Adviser at Harvard Innovation Lab

April 22, 2019

As the meditation advisor at the Harvard Innovation Lab, or i-Lab, MDiv candidate Kassi Underwood’s practice centers around pinpointing the origin behind the common fear of what others think of us.

At USC, Soni Meets Mental Health Crisis with Mindfulness

April 22, 2019

The United States is suffering through an epidemic of youth mental illness. For Varun Soni, MTS ’99, the crisis is not only one of mind, but also of spirit. The nonprofit, independent news site The Conversation reports that “from 2009 to 2017, major...

Interrupting the Flow of Hate: 2019 Billings Preaching Competition

April 22, 2019

Each spring, Harvard Divinity School's Office of Ministry Studies organizes the Billings Preaching Prize Competition, an annual preaching competition open to second- and third-year MDiv students. The finalists delivered their sermons at the Wednesday Noon...