Faculty Awards and Honors 2021–22

Ann D. Braude, Senior Lecturer on American Religious History and Director of the Women’s Studies in Religion Program, wrote The Art of Inclusive Excellence, together with Maisie Luo, MTS ’22, on behalf of the Swartz Hall Art Committee, for a $15,000 grant from Harvard Culture Lab to commission a work of ceramic art from Wampanoag artist Ramona Peters for installation in the newly renovated Swartz Hall at HDS.

Francis X. Clooney, S.J., Parkman Professor of Divinity and Professor of Comparative Theology, was awarded the Best Book Award, Society for Hindu-Christian Studies, for Reading the Hindu and Christian Classics (University of Virginia Press, 2019).

Cheryl Giles, Francis Greenwood Peabody Senior Lecturer on Pastoral Care and Counseling, was a finalist for Religion Reporting Excellence of the Religion News Association, for her publication Black and Buddhist: What Buddhism Can Teach Us about Race, Resilience, Transformation, and Freedom (Shambhala Publications, 2020).

HDS Dean David N. Hempton, a historian of Christianity, delivered the prestigious Gifford Lectures, titled “Networks, Nodes, and Nuclei in the History of Christianity, c. 1500–2020,” in October at the University of Edinburgh. The lectures have been delivered since 1888 and have featured scholars who have contributed to the advancement of theological thought and have broken new ground in the studies of religion, science, and philosophy.

Ousmane Kane, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Professor of Contemporary Islamic Religion and Society, Professor of African and African American Studies (FAS), was recognized with the accelerator workshop award from the Radcliffe Institute to fund the sixth Islam in Africa conference (scheduled for February 5–6, 2023). He also received an award from the Alwaleed Program to support the Islam in Africa lecture series (2021–22) and from the Center of African Studies to support research on the transformation of the pilgrimage tradition in West Africa (2021–22).

David C. Lamberth, HDS Professor of Philosophy and Theology, helped design a November 2021 Pew Research Center study on Americans’ attitudes regarding suffering and faith.

Jon D. Levenson, Albert A. List Professor of Jewish Studies at HDS, marked the 10-year anniversary of his book Inheriting Abraham: The Legacy of the Patriarch in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam with a discussion on the figure of Abraham and how his story has been interpreted by various religious traditions. He also presented a named lecture, titled “Recovering Biblical Love from Emotionalism and Eroticism,” as the Daniel J. Harrington, S.J. Memorial Lecture, Harvard Catholic Forum, Cambridge, MA. Jacob K. Olupona, Professor of African Religious Traditions with a joint appointment as Professor of African and African American Studies in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, was awarded an honorary DLitt from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and served as convenor of the Ife Summer Institute, Nigeria, during the summer of 2021.

Mayra Rivera, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Religion and Latinx Studies, continues to serve as president of the American Academy of Religion (AAR).

Harvard Divinity School renamed the main chapel in the renovated Swartz Hall the Preston N. Williams Chapel in honor of Preston Williams, Houghton Professor of Theology and Contemporary Change Emeritus at Harvard Divinity School, the first tenured African American member of the HDS faculty and the first African American to lead the School, as acting dean from 1974–75.

Teren Sevea, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies, was awarded the Harry J. Benda Prize by the Association of Asian Studies for his book Miracles and Material Life: Rice, Ore, Traps and Guns in Islamic Malaya (Cambridge University Press, 2020).