Center for the Study of World Religions

Center for the Study of World Religions
Name	Center for the Study of World Religions
Established	1960
Founder	Harvard University; inspired by Gandhi-era interfaith initiatives
Type	Research institute
Location	Cambridge, Massachusetts
Parent organization	Harvard Divinity School
Director	Harvard University-appointed scholars
Website	Official site

Contents

Center for the Study of World Religions is an academic institute based at Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts founded to advance comparative, historical, and interdisciplinary study of religious traditions. It serves as a hub for scholars, visiting researchers, and practitioners from diverse traditions including Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Sikhism, and indigenous faiths. The Center has hosted notable figures connected to Martin Luther King Jr., Thomas Merton, Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama, Rabindranath Tagore, and contemporary scholars affiliated with Columbia University, Princeton University, Yale University, University of Oxford, and University of Chicago.

History

The Center was established in 1960 within Harvard Divinity School amid postwar expansion of area studies and comparative religion programs influenced by contacts between scholars at University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, and the Sorbonne. Early activities connected the Center to intercultural exchanges involving Paul Tillich, Rudolf Otto, Mircea Eliade, Wilfred Cantwell Smith, and visitors from Bhutan, Japan, India, and Tibet. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s it convened forums that brought together representatives of Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Theravada Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, Vedanta, and movements linked to Baháʼí Faith and Unitarian Universalism. The Center’s trajectory intersected with initiatives at Smith College, Yale Divinity School, Union Theological Seminary, and international projects such as conferences at United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and the World Council of Churches.

The Center’s mission aligns institutional priorities of Harvard University and Harvard Divinity School to promote rigorous scholarship on religion while engaging public discourse shaped by figures like Reinhold Niebuhr, Jon Sobrino, and Hans Küng. Objectives include fostering comparative study across traditions such as Shinto, Taoism, Confucianism, Zoroastrianism, and Afro-diasporic religions; supporting research in historical periods from Axial Age studies to contemporary inquiries into globalization and transnational movements related to Pentecostalism, Sufism, and Hasidism; and cultivating collaborations with institutions like The British Museum, Smithsonian Institution, and the Library of Congress.

The Center runs fellowship programs modeled after international exchanges associated with Fulbright Program, Guggenheim Fellowship, and visiting-scholar schemes similar to those at Institute for Advanced Study. Annual lectures have featured speakers from Princeton Theological Seminary, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Pontifical Gregorian University, Kyoto University, and Columbia Law School. It organizes conferences and symposia on themes tied to events such as the Second Vatican Council, debates around secularism post-French Revolution, and issues emerging from crises like the Syrian Civil War and climate dialogues connected to Pope Francis’s encyclical. Collaborative initiatives include partnerships with Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, New York Public Library, and regional centers at Stanford University and University of California, Berkeley.

Scholarly output from the Center appears in venues associated with Harvard University Press, Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, and journals such as Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Numen, History of Religions, Religious Studies Review, and Modern Theology. Research clusters address textual studies of sources like the Bhagavad Gita, Quran, Hebrew Bible, New Testament, Dhammapada, and commentarial traditions surrounding Maimonides and Al-Ghazali. Comparative projects have examined intersections of religion with law through cases like Brown v. Board of Education, public ethics influenced by Emmanuel Levinas, and ritual performance studies connecting to work at Theatre of Dionysus and archives such as Bodleian Library.

Educational offerings include seminars and workshops integrated with degree programs at Harvard Divinity School and cross-listed courses with Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard Law School, and Harvard Graduate School of Education. Outreach engages religious leaders from United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, interfaith coalitions including Interfaith Youth Core, and practitioners associated with Kali temple traditions, Jainism, and indigenous communities represented at National Museum of the American Indian. Public programming has partnered with media outlets and cultural festivals like the Cambridge Science Festival and forums tied to Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

Governance combines academic oversight by deans of Harvard Divinity School with advisory boards comprised of scholars and public intellectuals connected to Princeton University, Yale University, Dartmouth College, Brown University, and international partners at University of Toronto, Australian National University, and Peking University. Directors and fellows have included scholars influenced by Wilhelm Dilthey, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Charles Taylor, and contemporary theorists from Judith Butler to Talal Asad. Funding streams derive from endowments patterned after philanthropy seen in gifts to Carnegie Corporation, Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, and donor support linked to foundations such as John Templeton Foundation.

Located on the campus of Harvard Divinity School, facilities include seminar rooms, lecture halls, and archival spaces connected to collections at Harvard Library, Widener Library, Houghton Library, and special materials curated in collaboration with Harvard Art Museums. The Center houses manuscript facsimiles, ritual objects, and oral-history recordings that complement holdings like the Plimpton Collection and regional archives from South Asia, Southeast Asia, Middle East, and Africa. Digital initiatives collaborate with projects at Digital Public Library of America and World Digital Library to provide broader access to digitized texts and audio-visual resources.

Category:Harvard Divinity School Category:Religious studies organizations