On the evening of December 12, 2023, the James room at Harvard Divinity School's Swartz Hall played host to the engaging and thought-provoking event, "Enheduana: Voicing the Feminine Divine." Attracting an audience of close to 200 in person and over zoom, the evening’s presentations and world premiere performance explored the literary contributions and religious history of Enheduana, the earliest known poet, author and high priestess to Inana, the goddess of war, sex, change and destruction in the ancient Sumerian city-state of Ur.... Read more about Enheduana: Voicing the Feminine Divine - A Movement of Ancient Insight and Modern Interpretation

CSWR: What can you tell us about the genesis of "To the Stars"? 

Douglas Knehans (DK): The work was designed as the result of a commission from Anne Harley and part of her “Voices of the Pearl” project. Anne provided some overall parameters for the composition: that it be not all slow; that it included some of the more warlike or combative qualities referenced in the text; that it be for a ‘portable’ ensemble with no large percussion. Once we decided that the ensemble would include violin, bass clarinet, ‘hand’ percussion, two sopranos and electronics, I went about...

by Gosia Sklodowska

Peripheries, our annual literary and arts journal, occupies a special place at the CSWR. The journal publishes poetry, prose, visual art, and music that is, broadly understood, "peripheral"; work that, in form, explores the interstices between discourses, traditions, languages, art forms, and genres; and, in topic, explores the marginal, the incidental, the tangential, and boundary- and limit-experiences, such a mystical experiences on the margins of religious traditions. In this, the journal is consistent with the Center’s focus on the...