Religion and Public Life Spring 2024 Summit
Lead with Love: Just Peacebuilding and Moral Imagination
Join us at the inaugural Religion and Public Life Summit to reconnect, network, share our stories, be inspired, and deepen commitments to advancing the public understanding of religion in service of a just world at peace. Together we will seek fresh and sustainable pathways for just peacebuilding across religious, cultural, and social divides. This year, we will focus on expanding our understanding of love and the moral imagination it calls forth from us.
The summit will include a keynote speaker, an unconference, performances, and a series of discussions. We hope you will gather with us and other alumnx, students, faculty, and fellows in the Religion and Public Life and broader Harvard Divinity School communities.
REGISTER NOW
The RPL Spring 2024 Summit is open only to invited guests. Please do not distribute this page link or the invitation link. Attendance is limited. Please register above by Monday, April 8, 2024.
Programming: Friday, May 3, 2024
5:00 – 5:30 pm | Arrival and Check-In | Across from James Room, Swartz Hall
Registered conference attendees will need to check in. Upon checking in, attendees will receive a conference program booklet, name tag, and other conference supplies.
5:30 – 6:30 pm | Conference Opening Reception | Braun Room, Swartz Hall
A high-top table reception will be provided for conference attendees. Please note any accessibility accommodations you may need when you register.
6:30 – 6:45 pm | Keynote Address Entry Opens | James Room, Swartz Hall
6:45 – 8:00 pm | Keynote Address: The Very Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas | James Room, Swartz Hall
This event is open to the public.
The Very Rev. Dr. Douglas will then address us on the themes of just peacebuilding and moral imagination.
The Rev. Kelly Brown Douglas, Ph.D., is Interim President of the Episcopal Divinity School. From 2017 to 2023, she was Dean of the Episcopal Divinity School at Union Theological Seminary and Professor of Theology. She was named the Bill and Judith Moyers Chair in Theology at Union in November 2019. She also serves as the Canon Theologian at the Washington National Cathedral and Theologian in Residence at Trinity Church Wall Street.
Prior to Union, Douglas served as Professor of Religion at Goucher College where she held the Susan D. Morgan Professorship of Religion and is now Professor Emeritus. Before Goucher, she was Associate Professor of Theology at Howard University School of Divinity (1987-2001) and Assistant Professor of Religion at Edward Waters College (1986-1987). Ordained as an Episcopal priest in 1983, Douglas holds a master’s degree in theology and a Ph.D. in systematic theology from Union.
Douglas is the author of many articles and six books, including Sexuality and the Black Church: A Womanist Perspective, Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God, and Resurrection Hope: A Future Where Black Lives Matter, which won the 2023 Grawemeyer Award in Religion. Her academic work has focused on womanist theology, sexuality and the Black church.
8:00 pm | Adjournment
Programming: Saturday, May 4, 2024
8:00 – 9:00 am | Breakfast and Check-in | James Room, Swartz Hall
All registered conference attendees who were not able to attend Friday evening will need to check in. Upon checking-in attendees will receive a conference program booklet, name tag, and other conference supplies.
9:00 – 9:30 am | Welcome | James Room, Swartz Hall
Welcome given by Diane L. Moore, MDiv ’84, Associate Dean of Religion and Public Life; Lecturer on Religion, Conflict, and Peace; Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of World Religions.
9:30 – 11:30 am | Inheritance Theater Project: Collaborative Playmaking Workshop | James Room, Swartz Hall
Jon has spent more than 20 years making art with communities around the country as an actor, playwright, and teaching artist. Jon has served as an artist in residence at Union Theological Seminary, The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and many other religious and educational institutions. He was a Spielberg Fellow in Jewish Theater Education with the Foundation for Jewish Camp and received a fellowship from the Covenant Foundation to create The In[HEIR]itance Project in 2015.
As an actor, Jon has performed in over 90 cities around the globe. His stage credits include a dog, a 2,000-year-old bird, an elderly orthodox Jew, a spurned housewife, a horse, a British naval officer in 1700s Jamaica, a goat, Jesus Christ, a lawyer, a wrestler, a hapless police chief, and a cyclops. Jon holds a BFA in Acting from NYU/Tisch.
11:45 am – 1:00 pm | Unconference Session | Various Breakout Rooms in Swartz Hall
This unconference session is a participant-proposed and -led space to showcase your work and interests. We will host various breakout sessions that have been proposed and chosen by participants.
If you are interested in leading an unconference session, please submit your proposal in your registration form. Your topic should speak to your work as it relates to structural peace, moral imagination, religious literacy, and the RPL method.
1:00 – 2:00 pm | Lunch | James Room, Swartz Hall
2:15 – 3:30 pm | Program Set One | Various Breakout Rooms in Swartz Hall
Participants will choose to attend one program from a selection of three. Programs will be given by alums, faculty, and fellows, focusing on various salient issues.
3:30 – 3:45 pm | Coffee and tea break | James Room, Swartz Hall
3:45 – 5:00 pm | Program Set Two | Various Breakout Rooms in Swartz Hall
Participants will choose to attend one program from a selection of three. Programs will be given by alums, faculty, and fellows, focusing on various salient issues.
5:15 – 6:30 pm | Dinner | Braun Room, Swartz Hall
A high-top table dinner will be provided for conference attendees. Please note any accessibility accommodations you may need when you register.
6:30 – 7:00 pm | Transition
7:00 – 9:00 pm | Evening Entertainment with Omar Offendum | James Room, Swartz Hall
This event is open to the public.
Over the course of his 20-year career, he’s been featured on prominent world news outlets (Al Jazeera, BBC, PBS, LA Times), lectured at a number of prestigious academic institutions (Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Northwestern, UT-Austin, UCLA, SOAS, Georgetown, American University of Beirut, Education City Doha), collaborated with major museums and cultural organizations (LACMA / Penn Museum / Ithra / Shangri-La / Arab-American National Museum / The Brooklyn Museum), and helped raise millions of dollars for various humanitarian relief groups (Islamic Relief, Karam Foundation, ANERA, Syrian-American Medical Society).
Offendum was recently invited by the Qatar Foundation to perform at over a dozen matches during the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Doha. He was also named a Kennedy Center Citizen Artist Fellow, an Arab America Foundation "40 Under 40" award recipient, and a member of both the Pillars Fund cohort for Muslim Narrative Change and the RaceForward Butterfly Lab cohort for Immigrant Narrative Strategy. His recent foray into theater with the off-Broadway hit production "Little Syria" has sold out multiple runs at iconic venues across America: the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), The Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago, The Center for Artistic Performance at UCLA, and Joe's Pub at The Public Theater in NYC.
After 17 wonderful years in Los Angeles, he currently resides in the great state of New York with his wife and two little children, while daydreaming about the jasmine tree-lined streets of Damascus.
9:00 pm | Conference Adjournment
Planning Your Visit
We recommend that you make hotel arrangements as early as possible as rooms may be limited.
Cambria Hotel Boston Somerville515 Somerville Ave
Somerville, MA 02143
Main: 617-341-9040 Porter Square Hotel
1924 Massachusetts Ave
Cambridge, MA 02140
Main: 617-499-3399 Hotel 1868
1868 Massachusetts Ave
Cambridge, MA 02140
Main: 617-499-2998 Harvard Square Hotel
110 Mount Auburn Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Main: 617-864-5200 A Friendly Inn at Harvard Square
1673 Cambridge Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Main: 617-547 – 7851 Irving House at Harvard
24 Irving Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Main: 617-547-4600
Parking
Parking is available at the 52 Oxford Street Parking Garage.
The entrance is located at Oxford Street and Everett Street and is about 0.1 miles from the HDS campus.
University guests can also log in to the permit site and purchase their own permits:
- Go to the Daily Parking Permit Purchasing site.
- Log in as a Visitor, create a log in and password if this is the first time.
- If this is the first time logging in, you will need to indicate that you are affiliated with HDS, the department code is 1002.
- To purchase a permit, select the parking lot on the home page, on the next page, enter the license plate number and state, and the date(s) for the permits. Permits can only be purchased less than 2 weeks ahead through the online system.
- Use RENTAL as the license plate number for rental cars.
- Payment can be made through Pay Pal or a credit card.
- Once purchased, you will be able to print or save a PDF of the permit.
- The permit needs to be displayed on the dashboard of the parked car.
- Please note that the permit holder must stop at the Guard House on the way into the 52 Oxford Street Garage, show the guard the permit and they will give the permit holder a ticket to swipe. This will allow access into the garage. The permit holder must keep the swipe ticket with them as it allows pedestrian access back into the garage to get their car. They swipe the ticket to call the elevator to the ground floor. Note: hitting the button on the elevator will not bring the elevator to them.
For additional visitor parking, please visit the Harvard Transportation Parking Locations site.
Contact
Please contact rpl@hds.harvard.edu if you have any questions.
Harvard Divinity School welcomes individuals with disabilities to participate in its programs and activities. If you would like to request accommodations, please contact rpl@hds.harvard.edu in advance of your participation.
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