Harvard Book Store Discussion with Dr. Tracey Hucks

February 16, 2026 | Events

Presented by Harvard Book Store (Cambridge)

🗓️ March 6th, 2026 @ 7:00pm ET

📍In-person

🗺️ 1256 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA

Harvard Book Store welcomes Dr. Rima Vesely-Flad—Founding Director of the Initiative for Black Buddhist Studies and a Visiting Affiliate Fellow at Princeton University’s Center for Culture, Society, and Religion—for a discussion of her new book, The Fire Inside: The Dharma of James Baldwin and Audre Lorde. She will be joined in conversation by Dr. Tracey Hucks—Suzanne Young Murray Professor at Harvard Radcliffe Institute and the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Africana Religious Studies at Harvard Divinity School.

This event is free; no tickets are required.

More from Dr. Rima Vesely-Flad

James Baldwin argued that racism is not a “Black problem” but a white fear-driven delusion that scapegoats Black people and evades interior work. Drawing on Baldwin’s essays and testimony, we discuss his critique of white moral pretentiousness, evasion, and the projection of shame and fear—especially the fear of death—onto Black bodies. We also see how Baldwin’s analysis relates to Buddhist teaching on dependent origination from the Rice Seedling Sutra.
In this dharma talk, we investigate the role of Sati—which is translated as knowing, awareness, presence, or mindfulness—in the writings of James Baldwin and Audre Lorde, in conversation with early Buddhist writings.
In this dharma talk, we understand the weight of suffering through the eyes of James Baldwin and Audre Lorde. We learn how Baldwin gleaned the difference between suffering due to the violence of racism, and suffering that is central to the human experience. We learn about Lorde’s embrace of the idea that pain can teach us something important, but that we need not suffer uselessly.

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