CSWR Welcomes Its Spring 2026 Scholars and Artists
Nicole Bauer
Nicole Bauer is a cultural historian specializing in early modern France. Her first book, Tracing the Shadow of Secrecy and Government Transparency (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) examined the changing attitudes towards secrecy in pre-revolutionary and revolutionary France. Her most recent book, Zen and the Anxious Academic: Resilience and Resistance Through Contemplative Practice (Lexington Books, 2024) explores the challenges academics face today, including burnout, anxiety, imposter syndrome, and the balance between activism and scholarship. It examines how Indigenous wisdom and ancient contemplative practices can support modern teachers and scholars. At the Center for the Study of World Religions, she will be conducting research for her current book project, Power, Possession, and the Modern Self. This book project will focus on the connection between mystical experiences and other altered states of consciousness, compassion, and ideas of the self in Enlightenment Europe and the Atlantic World.
Her research has been supported by the France-Stanford Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, where she was the inaugural fellow, the University of Siegen (Universität Siegen), and the Institut français d’Amérique. Passionate about public humanities, she is also the Associate Director of the Oklahoma Center for the Humanities, and has written public scholarship for the Los Angeles Review of Books, the Washington Post, and others. She teaches courses on the Enlightenment, gender and queer theory, and dabbles in film studies.
Jane Hirshfield
Jane Hirshfield’s poetry is praised as that of a “modern master” and “among the most important poetry in the world today.” She addresses pressing issues, spanning political, ecological, scientific, metaphysical, and personal themes, crises of the biosphere, questions of social justice, and quandaries of heart, mind, and spirit.
Her publications include The Asking (2023), The Beauty (National Book Award longlist, 2015), Given Sugar, Given Salt (NBCC finalist, 2001), and After (a 2006 best book). Her co-translated poetry book, The Heart of Haiku, was an Amazon Best Book, 2011.
Hirshfield has received fellowships from the Guggenheim, Rockefeller Foundation, NEA, and Academy of American Poets; served as Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets; co-founded Poets For Science; and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
She taught at Stanford, UC Berkeley, Bennington College, and Queen’s University. Her work has been translated into over 15 languages and set to music by composers including John Adams and Philip Glass. Her TED-ED animated lesson on metaphor has over 1.5 million views
Marcin Fabjański
Marcin Fabjański is a former Harvard Divinity School postdoctoral researcher and lecturer, and an assistant professor in philosophy at the University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland. He is the author of 12 books, which explore topics ranging from Eastern and Western philosophical traditions to the practical applications of meditation in modern life. His work draws on his expertise in Buddhist philosophy, supported by three years of meditation in monasteries in Asia, as well as Stoicism and recent studies on human flourishing. Marcin’s approach is rooted in the belief that philosophy is not just a theoretical pursuit, but a powerful tool for living a fulfilled, harmonious life.
Michael Prettyman
Michael Prettyman is a New York–based painter whose work explores the intersection of creativity and spiritual practice. After studying in Buddhist monasteries in India and Nepal, he brings a contemplative depth to his art, informed by his Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School. His paintings invite viewers into a heightened awareness, linking this deeper perception to the idea of art as a transformative experience. In this sense, Prettyman’s works are like a finger pointing to the moon—they are both portals and signposts to a world beyond the everyday. They don’t merely create a calm, reflective space, but also suggest and provoke a journey into deeper layers of experience and insight. He exhibits his paintings in galleries and museums around the world, under his name and his alter ego, Colot of Wolves.
Stuart Ray Sarbacker
Stuart Ray Sarbacker is Professor of Comparative Religion and Indian Philosophy in the School of History, Philosophy, and Religion at Oregon State University. His research explores Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, with a focus on yoga, mind-body discipline, and the intersections of religion, philosophy, and technology. He is the author of Tracing the Path of Yoga: The History and Philosophy of Indian Mind-Body Discipline (SUNY Press, 2021) and co-founder of the American Academy of Religion’s Yoga in Theory and Practice unit.
Sarbacker recently directed a three-year Luce Foundation–funded program on religion and technology at the Institute for Buddhist Studies in Berkeley. His current work applies Indian contemplative philosophy and ethics to emergent technologies, including research on the “Psychedelic Renaissance” and the Oregon Psilocybin Initiative. He has written extensively on the role of psychoactive substances in historical and contemporary yoga and meditation traditions. A graduate of Oregon’s first state-approved psilocybin facilitator training program (InnerTrek), he is also a longtime yoga practitioner and teacher.
Sarah Schorr
Sarah Schorr is a visual artist in residence at the CSWR. A captivation with light, water, and modes of embodied contemplation runs through her work. Her new book, Ephemeral Field Journal: Climate + Love in Claude Monet’s Garden (Kehrer Verlag, 2025), follows her experiments with water during her residency at Claude Monet’s Garden in Giverny, France, as a Terra Foundation Fellow with support from Monet House/The Versailles Foundation. A solo show of her visual work, including images from her collaboration with CSWR Director Charles Stang, is exhibited at Leica Gallery Boston until March 22, 2026.
Susan Shumaker
Susan Shumaker is a producer and story developer with Florentine Films and Ewers Brothers Productions, under the leadership of director Ken Burns. She is currently working on a documentary film biography of Henry David Thoreau. Susan joined Florentine in 2002 and has been an integral part of the Emmy award-winning teams working on The War, The National Parks, The Dust Bowl, Country Music, and, most recently, The American Buffalo. Before Florentine, Susan worked at Harvard University with Diana Eck as the first coordinator of the Pluralism Project, and as a curator at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Her introduction to film came through her work producing digital multimedia, including the award-winning educational CD-ROM, On Common Ground: World Religions in America. She lives on a farm in West Virginia with her family, three quirky cats, and a very loving golden retriever.
Shannon Taggart
Shannon Taggart is a photographer, writer, and curator known for exploring how photography can navigate the boundaries between the seen and unseen. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Stephen Cohen Gallery in Los Angeles, the Photographic Resource Center in Boston, the Robert Mann Gallery in New York, and the Gallery of Everything in London. Her book, Séance (Atelier Éditions, 2019), was named one of TIME Magazine’s “Best Photobooks of 2019” and has been featured by CNN Style, Bookforum, the New York Times T Style Magazine, Financial Times, Lensculture, Le Monde, the Washington Post, and The Paris Review, among others. She is currently working on an illustrated book about The Society for Research on Rapport and Telekinesis (SORRAT), one of the strangest cases in the history of parapsychology. She is based in St. Paul, MN.
