Harvard Divinity School
Expand your understanding of the ways religion shapes the world with lectures, interviews, and reflections from Harvard Divinity School.
Episodes
August 4, 2025 • 107 mins
For episode 15 of Pop Apocalypse, we welcome Fryderyk Kwiatkowski, Assistant Professor at the University of Krakow, on to discuss the relationship between ancient Gnostic myth and modern cinema. Fryderyk takes us through the impact European intellectuals Carl Jung, Hans Jonas, and Eric Voegelin on popular conceptions of Gnosticism. Then we dive into analyses of the Gnostic elements in films like the Matrix, Dark City, Truman Show, ...
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July 7, 2025 • 78 mins
For episode 14 of Pop Apocalypse, we welcome the linguist and philosopher Wouter Kusters. Kusters is the author of Pure Madness (2004) and A Philosophy of Madness (2014), both of which won the Dutch Socrates Award for best philosophy book of the year. We discuss how the experience of psychotic thinking challenges and illuminates our notions of language, philosophy, and mysticism. Along the way, we touch on the similarities between ...
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June 17, 2025 • 16 mins
David Holden, MDiv '24, came to HDS after a career in politics in search of ways to help others heal as a hospital chaplain.
Transcript forthcoming.
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April 30, 2025 • 36 mins
On this episode of the Hope Podcast, we hear from second year MTS students Becca Leviss and Rucha Modi sharing the story of their early HDS friendship as a source for inspiration.
Transcript: https://www.hds.harvard.edu/news/2025/04/30hope-podcast-featuring-becca-leviss-and-rucha-modi-mts-candidates
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April 30, 2025 • 22 mins
On this episode of the Hope Podcast, we hear from third year MDiv candidate Matta Zheng who teaches us about the interconnections between justice, the mundane, and hope.
Transcript: https://www.hds.harvard.edu/news/2025/04/29/hope-podcast-featuring-matta-zheng-mdiv-candidate
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April 25, 2025 • 68 mins
For Episode 13 of Pop Apocalypse, we welcome Shannon Taggart, an American photographer, writer, researcher, and curator known for exploring how photography can navigate boundaries between the seen and unseen. Her book, Séance (Fulger Press, 2019), offers hundreds of photographs documenting contemporary Spiritualism across the U.S. and Britain. We discuss what sparked Shannon’s interests in Spiritualism, the intersecting histories o...
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March 24, 2025 • 29 mins
In this episode of the Hope Podcast, we hear from 2nd year MDiv candidate Paula Ortiz. Together we discuss the Andes mountains, being awestruck, and seeing hope in the present.
Transcript: https://www.hds.harvard.edu/news/2025/03/26/hope-podcast-featuring-paula-ortiz-mdiv-candidate
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March 22, 2025 • 16 mins
You’re listening to Harvard Divinity School's Praxis Podcast, where I, Maddison Tenney, interview HDS students about what brought them here, what they study, and where they hope to go next. This week's guest, Kristen Maples, MDiv '24, explores end of life care and the sacred practice of watching horror films.
Full transcript: https://www.hds.harvard.edu/news/2025/03/25/end-life-care-and-horror-scholarship-praxis-podcast-featuring-...
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March 10, 2025 • 58 mins
When is peace not peace? When does pluralism only seem like pluralism from the perspective of the people in power?
Christianity famously took form during the Pax Romana—an era of celebrated stability in the Roman empire—even as its message about the dawn of the messianic age and the coming of the kingdom of God resonated among those who saw the same age, instead, as a time of political oppression, cosmic upheaval, and eschatologi...
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March 10, 2025 • 65 mins
"Christian Nationalism in Global Perspective," a conversation with David Hempton and one of the 2024-25 Yang Visiting Scholars, Nilay Saiya.
This event took place on February 27, 2025.
Full transcript: https://www.hds.harvard.edu/news/2025/03/05/video-yang-scholars-2025-christian-nationalism-global-perspective
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March 5, 2025 • 54 mins
Although the sectarian labels of Sunni and Shi’a are widely used today to cover a range of identities and beliefs held by Muslims across the Islamic World, there are many foundational questions remaining over the origins of sectarian identity in Islam as well as its implications across time. The field has largely understudied theories of sectarianism and the precise applications of Sunni and Shi’a labels, including the content of t...
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March 1, 2025 • 30 mins
In this episode of the Hope Podcast, first-year Marty Martinage explains how storytelling, representation, and even silly stickers can help guide us to hope.
Transcript: https://www.hds.harvard.edu/news/2025/03/03/hope-podcast-featuring-marty-matinage-mdiv-candidate
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February 26, 2025 • 90 mins
For the 12th episode of Pop Apocalypse, Matt Dillon welcomes the philosopher, artist, and musician Haela Ravenna Hunt-Hendrix. Haela is best known as the songwriter and singer for the black metal band, Liturgy, which has released six full albums and one EP. We discuss Haela’s early relationships to Christianity and metal music, her philosophical training, and her recent conversion to Orthodox Christianity. Along the way, we explore...
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February 18, 2025 • 22 mins
In this episode of the Hope Podcast, we sit down with second year MDiv candidate Ivy Wang. Together we talk about her journey through different Harvard schools and what it may feel like to find a new home in beauty and mystery.
Transcript: https://www.hds.harvard.edu/news/2025/02/20/hope-podcast-featuring-ivy-wang-mdiv-candidate
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February 18, 2025 • 22 mins
In this episode of the Hope Podcast, we hear from Joyce Cheng, a first year MTS student. This in episode we discuss Joyce's idea of hope, her faith, and what brings her to HDS.
Transcript: https://www.hds.harvard.edu/news/2025/02/20/hope-podcast-featuring-joyce-cheng-mts-candidate
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February 17, 2025 • 13 mins
Creative practice and religious experience overlap in this week’s Praxis podcast with Jack Tripp, MTS’ 25. In sharing about his artistic practice, Jack offers his perspective on the surrender required for his ceramics and his spiritual life.
Full transcript: https://www.hds.harvard.edu/news/2025/03/03/ceramics-and-surrender-praxis-podcast-featuring-jack-tripp-mts-25
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February 7, 2025 • 36 mins
In this long read from Harvard Divinity Bulletin, a 'Divine Comedy' reading group with two artist friends deepens the author’s understanding of Dante’s transcendent friendship with Virgil.
This is a special audio version of "On Assignment, Virgil Rescues Dante from the Wilderness," a feature written and read by Diane Mehta and appearing in the Autumn/Winter 2024 issue of Harvard Divinity Bulletin.
Read or follow along on the Har...
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February 1, 2025 • 22 mins
This week’s Praxis episode features Rebecca Oreskes, who recently graduated HDS with her Master of Theological Studies degree. After a 25 year career in the forest service, she decided to return to school to become a chaplain, focusing on end of life care.
Full transcript: https://www.hds.harvard.edu/news/2024/10/24/intersection-of-healing-veteran-service-and-motherhood-a-praxis-podcast-with-Amy-Sexauer.
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January 13, 2025 • 75 mins
For Episode 11 of Pop Apocalypse, we welcome Jennifer Higgie. Jennifer is the author of several books, including Bedlam, a novel about the artist Richard Dadd; The Mirror and the Palette, a history of women’s self-portraits; and The Other Side: A Story of Women in Art and the Spirit World, a beautiful and personal study of the relationship between spiritual experience and art in the lives of modern women. In this career-spanning ch...
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December 9, 2024 • 65 mins
Part of the "Symposium on Religion and American Democracy," held September 27, 2024.
The Importance of HBCUs in the Making of American Democracy
Speakers:
-Jelani M. Favors, Henry E. Frye Distinguished Professor of History, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University
-Tony Frazier, Assistant Professor of History, The Pennsylvania State University
-Crystal R. Sanders, Associate Professor of African American Stu...
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