The Transcendentalism Council of First Parish Presents

Dan McKanan, Emerson Senior Lecturer at Harvard Divinity School

Monday, October 23, 2023

7:00 PM 

First Parish, 20 Lexington Road

 The Transcendentalists were among the first descendants of white settlers to live on territory that had been inhabited by their ancestors for seven generations. And so they faced a special challenge. How could they honor their ancestors while also making reparation for the violence those ancestors had perpetrated against the indigenous and ecological communities of the Americas? This presentation will explore the distinctive spiritual practices that Unitarians and Transcendentalists created in response to this challenge—among them, the creation of “garden cemeteries,” the preservation of wild spaces, and the retelling of colonial history.