At the end of March, Prof. Cooper Harriss hosted a group of six scholars for an initial workshop on the collector, ethnomusicologist, animator, filmmaker, artist, expert on games and folkways, chronicler of Native cultures, alchemist, practitioner of the esoteric, mystic, and all-around weirdo Harry Smith (1923-1991). While Smith’s influence on 20th- and 21st-century culture remains difficult to summarize, this group’s working hypothesis holds that the the field of religious studies offers rich possibilities for doing better justice to Smith and his vision. The workshop is part of a multi-year project on Smith in the Center for Religion and the Human, funded by the Luce Foundation.
The College of Arts