The Practice of Wisdom Panel at the Cambridge Public Library

Contributors Davíd Carrasco, Arthur Kleinman, Stephanie Paulsell & Michael Puett present their book in conversation with Rev. Matthew Potts Harvard Book Store and the Cambridge Public Library welcome Davíd Carrasco, the Neil L. Rudenstine Professor of the Study of Latin America at Harvard University, Arthur Kleinman, the Esther and Sidney Rabb Professor of Anthropology at Harvard, Stephanie Paulsell, Professor Emerita at Harvard Divinity School, and Michael Puett, the Walter C. Klein Professor of Chinese History and Anthropology at Harvard, for a discussion of their new book, The Practice of Wisdom: Five Quests. They will be joined in conversation by Rev. Matthew Ichihashi Potts—Minister in the Memorial Church and Plummer Professor of Christian Morals at Harvard University. Ticketing RSVP for free to this event or choose the "Book-Included" ticket to reserve a copy of The Practice of Wisdom and pick it up at the event. Following the presentation will be a book signing. Note: Books bundled with tickets may only be picked up at the venue the night of the event, and cannot be picked up in-store beforehand. Ticket holders who purchased a book-included ticket and are unable to attend the event will be able to pick up their book at Harvard Book Store up to 30 days following the event. This offer expires after 30 days. Please note we cannot guarantee signed copies will be available to ticket holders who do not attend the event. About The Practice of Wisdom A master class from four renowned Harvard professors—an anthropologist, a physician, a theologian, and a historian—on discovering wisdom in challenging times. In moments of uncertainty, to whom do we turn for solace and insight? How can we endure and overcome our own suffering? Harvard University professors Davíd Carrasco, Arthur Kleinman, Stephanie Paulsell, and Michael Puett turn to great thinkers, artists, and religious traditions not for definitive answers, but for lessons we can bring to our own quests for wisdom. Wisdom, they find, is not an abstract ideal but a way of living formed by caring for others and through everyday practices of solitude, ritual, and art. Based on their celebrated Harvard course, The Practice of Wisdom helps us brave loneliness, grief, and crises and bring beauty, healing, and spiritual significance into our lives. Wisdom, they teach, is an ongoing quest—a practice to be lived and deliberately cultivated. Through five interwoven chapters, we travel from Chinese temples and Hindu ashrams to Emily Dickinson’s Homestead and US-Mexico borderlands. We encounter philosopher William James on the power of the subconscious after trauma; theologian Howard Thurman on solitude as a source of dignity; Toni Morrison on the interplay between mercy and goodness; writer John Phillip Santos on generational wisdom; physician Paul Farmer on medical compassion; and Confucius on ritual as a way of breaking the patterns that entrap us. We hear from Wendy Doniger, the eminent scholar of Hinduism, whose reflections present wisdom as a lifelong, unfinished art of seeking meaning, balance, and purpose. Threaded throughout this short but powerful book is the image of the labyrinth: life as a series of turns that carry us through adversity and loss to hard-won clarity and grace. Led by teachers who have walked these paths, lost their way, and carried on, we learn the art—and practice—of living wisely. Bios Davíd Carrasco, Neil L. Rudenstine Professor of the Study of Latin America at Harvard University, is Director of the Moses Mesoamerican Archive, author of The Religions of Mesoamerica, City of Sacrifice, and Quetzalcoatl and the Irony of Empire. Photo Credit: Timothy Greenfield Sanders Arthur Kleinman has taught for over forty years in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School and in the Department of Anthropology, where he is Rabb Professor. He is the author of The Illness Narratives: Suffering, Healing, and the Human Condition and The Soul of Care: The Moral Education of a Husband and Doctor. Photo Credit: Torben Eskerod Stephanie Paulsell is Professor Emerita at Harvard Divinity School and a long-standing columnist at the Christian Century. She is the author of Religion Around Virginia Woolf and coeditor of Toni Morrison: Goodness and the Literary Imagination. Photo Credit: Jeffrey Blackwell Michael Puett, Walter C. Klein Professor of Chinese History and Anthropology and Director of the Asia Center at Harvard University, is the author of The Path: What Chinese Philosophers Can Teach Us About the Good Life and To Become a God: Cosmology, Sacrifice, and Self-Divinization in Early China. Photo Credit: Charles Michael The Rev. Matthew Ichihashi Potts, Minister in the Memorial Church and Plummer Professor of Christian Morals at Harvard University, previously served as Professor of Religion and Literature and of Ministry Studies at Harvard Divinity School. He is the author of Cormac McCarthy and the Signs of Sacrament: Literature, Theology, and the Moral of Stories and Forgiveness: An Alternative Account. Co-Sponsor The Cambridge Public Library inspires minds, and empower community. They support a Cambridge where everyone has equitable opportunities to learn, people live their best lives and democracy thrives. The Library’s programming provides an opportunity for civic dialogue, conversation, and learning, which includes exploring a wide range of views. Visit their website to learn more. Subscribe to their email list to stay up to date on their events.