Transcendentalism Initiative Events

Public events for the Transcendentalism Initiative have concluded for the 2025-26 academic year. Please check back soon for events in 2026-27. 

Past Events

VIDEO: Thoreau’s Solar and Lunar Philosophy

Charles Stang and Sarah Schorr discussed Thoreau’s extraordinary encounters with, and meditations on, the sun and the moon, and the significance of those for their ongoing book collaboration, Skywater. CHARLES STANG joined the Faculty of Divinity in 2008...
Title card for Thoreau's Solar and Lunar Philosophy

Thoreau, Abolition, and Resistance: Lessons for Our Present

A Talk by Lewis Hyde. Sponsored by the Constellation Project. It has happened before, the occupation of an American city by federal forces, and national guard troops commandeered without local consent. It happened first in 1854 when President Franklin...
Title card for Thoreau, Abolition, and Resistance: Lessons for our present

Ephemeral Field Journal: Book launch and introducing Skywater

We celebrated the publication of the book, Ephemeral Field Journal: Climate + Love in Claude Monet’s Garden (Kehrer Verlag, September 2025) by Artist-in-Residence Sarah Schorr with an essay by CSWR Director Charles Stang. When Claude Monet settled in...
Sarah Schorr siting at the edge of Walden Pond photographing art work

VIDEO: Book Talk with Richard Higgins: Thoreau's God

HDS alum Richard Higgins, the author of Thoreau’s God , explored Henry David Thoreau as an original voice in American religion. Although a harsh critic of the Christianity of his day, Thoreau was religious to the bone and had a profound sense of the holy...
Title card for Thoreau, Abolition, the Unseen and Unheard: Thoreau's Religious Quest