Director's Letter
Greetings, friends and colleagues,
As we turn toward spring at the Center for the Study of World Religions, I find myself grateful for this community, and for the ways our shared work continues to raise new questions about transcendence and transformation across traditions. The fall semester brought many beautiful and inspiring moments, and the months ahead promise the same.
Looking back briefly, I’m still energized by our October workshop in Concord, “Expanding Circles: Transcendentalism’s Past, Present, and Future," which launched the Center’s new Transcendentalism Initiative. The Initiative invited us to reimagine American Transcendentalism as a living tradition, one that continues to shape religious, ethical, and political imaginations. You will be hearing much more about this work in the coming semester and next year, as the initiative grows and deepens.
Fall also marked a milestone for our Texts and Translations of Transcendence and Transformation (4T) series with the launch of The Pearlsong—celebrated through scholarship, conversation, and an exquisite vocal performance by our Artist-in-Residence, Jane Sheldon. And our public spaces came alive through the exhibition “Sacred Plants of the Muysca — In the Words and Photos of Community Members,” which explored how the sacred can be lived as an embodied political practice, integral to territorial sovereignty and Indigenous revitalization in an urban setting.
Throughout the semester, we were proud to share outstanding research and publications from members of our community, from research reflections and guest essays to conference papers and digital displays, each showcasing the intellectual creativity and rigor of our research community.
This spring, we are delighted to welcome a new remarkable cohort of scholars, artists, and poets-in-residence: Jane Hirshfield, Sarah Schorr, Michael Prettyman, Shannon Taggart, Marcin Fabjański, Nicole Bauer, Stuart Sarbacker, and Susan Shumaker. Over the months ahead, they will be writing, creating, researching, and sharing their work with you through public talks, readings, exhibitions, and essays.
I hope you can join Sarah Schorr and me on January 26 for a conversation on Thoreau’s encounters with the sun and the moon, and then again on January 29 for a special poetry reading with Jane Hirshfield. Later this semester, we’ll open a new exhibition on February 9 exploring occult currents in modern Mexican art, offering the opportunity to experience works in their intended forms as wall murals and easel paintings. We’ll continue a rich set of workshops and reading groups, from grief and mourning to Transcendentalism, psychedelic archival research, and Indigenous spirituality of the South Pacific.
We will also celebrate the second volume in the 4T series on February 17 with an event aptly titled “Porphyry of Tyre on Theology and Theurgy: Oracular Voices and Luminous Intellect.” And throughout the spring, we look forward to sharing new publications and digital platforms currently in development, more on those soon.
In the meantime, I invite you to follow our news, read along, and, whenever you can, join us in person. If you are in the area, I hope you will stop by to see our exhibition, on view through May 2026, and to experience the unique community that is this Center.
With gratitude and anticipation,
Charles M. Stang Director, Center for the Study of World Religions