Center for the Study of World Religions (CSWR)

Francesco Piraino explores how the Muridiyya, a Senegalese Sufi order founded by Shaykh Amadou Bamba, reimagines Africa, Africanness, and Blackness as expansive spiritual horizons.

Through the work of two contemporary Senegalese-Italian artists, Moulaye Niang and Maïmouna Guerresi, Piraino shows how Murid spirituality offers a powerful vision of “Universal Blackness” as a horizon for inclusive humanism, artistic devotion, and multiracial global community.

For these artists, art is not simply a way to represent Islam. It is a way to live, embody, and transmit spiritual presence.

Read the full Research Reflection: https://shorturl.at/kwWg3

What did “Aryavarta” come to mean in the nineteenth century?

In a recent research reflection, Marina Alexandrova examines the revival of an ancient Sanskrit term that came to signify far more than a geographical region in northern India.

The essay traces how Aryavarta was taken up by the Theosophical Society, especially Helena Blavatsky and Henry Steel Olcott, and considers the Society’s early alliance with Swami Dayananda Saraswati and the Arya Samaj. It shows how competing visions of Aryavarta shaped debates over Vedic authority, Hindu reform, anti-colonial thought, and universal religion.

Read the full essay: https://shorturl.at/dNwvN

For Michael Prettyman, inspiration does not arrive as command or certainty. It comes through rupture, pressure, resistance, and release.

In a recent Research Reflection, Prettyman turns to dehiscence, the splitting open of a fruit, seedpod, wound, or form, to think about artistic making and apophatic mysticism. In the studio, he suggests, images often emerge where control begins to give way: strange presences enter seascapes, landscapes catch fire, and the work insists on forms the artist did not intend.

To paint, here, is not simply to compose an image, but to allow an opening to occur. As Prettyman writes, “It loves to happen.”

Read the full reflection here: https://shorturl.at/jr7MU

On April 2, 2026, the Center for the Study of World Religions hosted a book talk with Lawrence Buell, Powell M. Cabot Professor of American Literature Emeritus at Harvard University, in celebration of the publication of Henry David Thoreau: Living Disobediently (Oxford University Press, 2024).

In his talk, Buell reflected on the aims and arguments of his new book before joining Charles Stang, Director, CSWR, for a conversation and questions from the audience.

The event honored Buell’s foundational contributions to the study of Transcendentalism and to American literary and cultural history more broadly, while reflecting on Thoreau’s legacy and the future of Transcendentalism studies.

Watch the conversation here: https://shorturl.at/hXLeR

Psychedelic Intersections 2026: Bridging Humanities, Religion, and Law, held April 9-11, opened with reflections from leaders across the Harvard Study of Psychedelics in Society and Culture, including representatives from the Center for the Study of World Religions, the Petri Flom Center, and the Mahindra Humanities Center.

The conference began with the keynote conversation “How to Think Like a Multiverse: Psychedelic Pathways to Embracing a Diverse World,” featuring Ramzi Fawaz, Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Philip Deloria, Leverett Saltonstall Professor of History at Harvard University.

Together, they considered what it might take to cultivate wonder, curiosity, and delight in difference rather than fear, rage, or violence, and how psychedelic experience might offer tools for navigating human diversity in an increasingly xenophobic world.

Watch the conversation here: https://shorturl.at/lvzm1

Across Indic, Greek, Roman, Norse, and Celtic traditions, recurring motifs of the slain hero’s apotheosis and privileged afterlife point to a shared mythic inheritance.

In “Apotheosis and Afterlife of the Indo-European Hero,” David Gordon White traces these patterns across Indo-European traditions, demonstrating how stories of heroic death, apotheosis, and afterlife travel across mythic and ritual worlds.

Read the full piece through this link: https://shorturl.at/uDT0k

Find out more about the Archive of Mystical Experiences: https://shorturl.at/GqTMj

On April 7, 2026, the Center for the Study of World Religions welcomed acclaimed poet, playwright, and translator Sholeh Wolpé for an evening of poetry reading and discussion centered on The Invisible Sun, the first comprehensive English collection of poetry by the twelfth-century Persian mystic Attar.

Revered by Rumi as his master, Attar remains one of the foundational voices of the Persian Sufi tradition. Through readings and conversation, Wolpé reflected on the process of translating Attar’s poetry and bringing his meditations on spiritual awakening, longing, and self-knowledge to contemporary English readers.

To watch, please visit https://shorturl.at/UThlU

Nicholas Low, Research Fellow at the Center for the Study of World Religions, reflects on the work of Roberto Calasso and the persistence of myth, divinity, and the sacred within modern literary imagination.

Engaging Calasso’s Literature and the Gods, he considers how ancient deities were not erased by monotheism, but displaced into literature, language, and the imagination, where they continue to shape contemporary consciousness and public life.

To read The Literary Gods of Roberto Calasso, visit: https://shorturl.at/OCC7n

Research reflections are part of an ongoing series spotlighting the academic study of religion.

How do traditions of yoga, ta**ra, magic, and occultism intersect across cultures and intellectual histories?

In Episode 20 of Om-gnosis, Keith Edward Cantú speaks with scholar Gordan Djurdjevic about Western esotericism, South Asian spirituality, siddhis, symbolic language, initiation, and spiritual transformation. The conversation also explores the growing importance of comparative approaches in the study of esotericism and religion.

Djurdjevic is the author of India and the Occult: The Influence of South Asian Spirituality on Modern Western Occultism and Sayings of Gorakhnāth: Annotated Translation of the Gorakh Bānī.

Watch the full episode here: https://shorturl.at/df0Ag

Learn more about Om-gnosis: https://shorturl.at/COiP3

What would it mean to inherit Thoreau today?

In a recent essay for the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School, Russell C. Powell reflects on the continuing relevance of Henry David Thoreau in light of the new PBS documentary Henry David Thoreau, produced by Ken Burns and Don Henley.

Rather than understanding Transcendentalism as a retreat from public life, the essay explores how Thoreau’s thought continues to shape conversations around ecological awareness, democracy, civic responsibility, and the unfinished pursuit of justice.

Drawing on thinkers including Alain Badiou, Jacques Derrida, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, Powell suggests that Thoreau’s enduring significance lies in reminding us that ideals such as equality and freedom remain ongoing ethical and historical projects.

Read more: https://shorturl.at/Nm8q8

Explore more from the CSWR’s Transcendentalism Initiative: https://shorturl.at/dLXPJ