Psychedelics and Aesthetics Reading Group Meeting on Wednesday April 16

Promotional poster for If It Were Love (2020) by Patric Chiha.

I’m really looking forward to the next meeting of Psychedelics and Aesthetics, the reading group I lead at Harvard Divinity School’s Center for the Study of World Religions (CSWR). We will meet on Wednesday, 4/16 3-5 pm EST at the CSWR conference room to discuss trance and dance in rave culture, along with associated cultural expressions and drug experiences.

I'm particularly excited to talk about the film If It Were Love (2020) by Patric Chiha, which documents a dance performance piece about 90s rave culture called Crowd, developed and directed by Gisèle Vienne. Gisèle describes Crowd as part of ongoing research project on the "relationship between the artistic and the religious and especially those thoughts and emotions which are improper, of their spaces of expression – archaic and contemporary, actual and potential".

This will be our penultimate meeting of the semester and I hope to see you there! Free admission, registration required. Register to attend the Psychedelics and Aesthetics Reading Group.