Affiliated Researchers

Frederique Apffel-Marglin

Research Affiliate

Frédérique Apffel-Marglin, PhD is Professor Emerita, Department of Anthropology at Smith College. She has also taught at Harvard University, Wellesley College, and Wesleyan University. She founded the Sachamama Center for BioCultural Regeneration (SCBR)...

Helen Berger

hberger@hds.harvard.edu

Research Affiliate

Helen A. Berger received her PhD in sociology from New York University. She specializes in the study of Witches, Wiccans, and other contemporary Pagans. Her research and publications explore how magic as an engagement with the other-than-human and more...

Photo of Helen Berger smiling into the camera

Phyllis Cole

Research Associate, Transcendentalism Initiative

Phyllis Cole is a past fellow of Harvard Divinity School's Women's Studies in Religion Program and currently a Professor Emerita of English, Women's Studies, and American Studies at Penn State Brandywine. She has been an officer or board member of the...

Richard Higgins

rhiggins@hds.harvard.edu

Associate, Transcendentalism Initiative

Richard Higgins is a writer, book coach and the author or editor of five books, including, most recently, Thoreau’s God , from the University of Chicago Press, which explores Thoreau’s iconoclastic religious quest, and Thoreau and the Language of Trees...

John Kaag

jkaag@hds.harvard.edu

Associate, Transcendentalism Initiative

John Kaag is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. His research and teaching focus on American philosophy, existentialism, and the history of ideas. He is the author of American Philosophy: A Love Story (FSG, 2016), Hiking...

Nicholas Low

nlow@hds.harvard.edu

Associate, Transcendentalism Initiative

Nicholas Low received an MTS in Philosophy of Religions from Harvard Divinity School, and received his PhD from Harvard University, Committee on the Study of Religion in November 2023. His research focuses on points of contact between theology, religion...

Megan Marshall

mmarshall@hds.harvard.edu

Associate, Transcendentalism Initiative

Megan Marshall is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Margaret Fuller: A New American Life (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013), Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013), and The Peabody Sisters (Mariner, 2006), a...

Francesco Piraino

fpiraino@hds.harvard.edu

Associate

Francesco Piraino is a sociologist of religion, culture, and art. He obtained his PhD in Sociology in 2016 at the Scuola Normale Superiore (Florence) and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (Paris), and have held research positions at KU...

Sarah Schorr

sschorr@hds.harvard.edu

Artist in Residence

Sarah Schorr is an artist-in-residence at the Center for the Study of Religion at Harvard Divinity School. A captivation with light, water, and modes of embodied contemplation runs through her work. Her new book, Ephemeral Field Journal: Climate + Love in...