Save the Date & Call for Papers: Psychedelic Intersections: Cross-cultural Manifestations of the Sacred Conference, Feb.17, 2024

Harvard Divinity School’s (HDS) Center for the Study of World Religions and the Harvard Psychedelics Project at HDS are excited to announce the upcoming Psychedelic Intersections: Cross-cultural Manifestations of the Sacred Conference. This one-day academic conference will be held on February 17, 2024, at Harvard University (exact location forthcoming). 

This event builds on Explorations in Interdisciplinary Psychedelic Research held at HDS last April, which was the first interdisciplinary psychedelics conference at Harvard, which highlighted the wealth of psychedelic research happening at Harvard. 

Psychedelic Intersections expands beyond Harvard to explore how psychedelics and religion intersect across disciplines, countries, and communities. How does psychedelic spirituality emerge and diverge in different cultural contexts? What considerations are necessary to promote healthy partnership? And how can bridges be built across existing divides?  

This year we will be inviting speakers to present across four different, yet interlocking, tracks: 

  • Psychedelic Spirituality and Indigenous Traditions

  • Psychedelic Spirituality and Medicine

  • Psychedelic Spirituality and the Underground 

  • Psychedelic Spirituality and Race

In addition to plenary keynotes, this year’s conference will feature panel presentations and in-depth discussions on each of these intersecting areas. We are calling for papers from scholars and/or practitioners whose work speaks to one or more of these panel topics. See below for submission details. 

Submission Guidelines:

To support our mission of interdisciplinary and intersectional dialogue, we welcome abstracts from scholars of diverse fields, backgrounds, and career stages. Given the conference’s expansive social and cultural focus, we especially encourage scholars representing religious studies, anthropology, sociology, philosophy, history, other fields in the humanities and social sciences, and those whose work meaningfully intersects with the humanities to apply. Similarly, scholars whose work focuses on peoples and traditions underrepresented in psychedelic studies and those working in international contexts are highly encouraged to submit. In limited cases, translation services may be available, though we request that abstracts be submitted in English. Submissions from scholars in any discipline, as well as those outside of academia, are more than welcome, but we request that all abstracts adhere to academic standards of argumentation and support.

Abstracts should be between 250-300 words. We will favor submissions that include a full final draft, however this is not mandatory. We accept conference papers of all lengths and styles, but presentations will be limited to 15 minutes. 

Abstracts (or full papers) should be emailed to cswr@hds.harvard.edu and must also include the following:

  • Title of the presentation

  • Presenter(s) name, affiliation, and contact information

  • Brief biography (50-100 words)

  • Indication of the preferred presentation format (paper or panel) 

  • Focus area(s): 

    • Psychedelic Spirituality and Indigenous Traditions

    • Psychedelic Spirituality and Medicine

    • Psychedelic Spirituality and the Underground

    • Psychedelic Spirituality and Race

  • A concise summary of the research question, methodology, and main findings

Important Dates:

Submission Deadline: December 1, 2023

Notification of Acceptance: January 4, 2024

Conference Date: Saturday, February 17, 2024

Edited Volume: We will be pursuing publication of an edited volume based on this conference. While not guaranteed, it is possible that presenters will publish their papers with us in that volume. Details will be forthcoming, but presenters should plan to contribute their submission to any subsequent volume and should not submit an abstract if they anticipate this being a problem. As a result, we request that submissions not include work that has already been published or accepted for publication elsewhere. 

Funding: An honorarium of $1000 will be provided to speakers whose papers are selected.

See also: