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
Ken Burns Presents "Henry David Thoreau": A Screening and Discussion with the Filmmakers and Scholars
The Center for the Study of World Religions’ Transcendentalism Initiative will host a special screening of Episode 2 of Henry David Thoreau, a new documentary directed by Erik Ewers and Christopher Loren Ewers and produced by Ken Burns. The film is...
VIDEO: Book Talk with Lawrence Buell: Henry David Thoreau: Thinking Disobediently
As part of our Transcendentalism initiative, we are pleased to host a book talk with Lawrence Buell in celebration of the publication of Henry David Thoreau: Living Disobediently (Oxford University Press, 2024). While no single event could fully encompass...
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...
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...
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...
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...