The class starts in the dark. One student, swathed in white cloth, reclines against a mirrored wall. She is soon surrounded by a half-circle of peers, while another classmate begins reciting The Lord’s Prayer. Soon after, all hell breaks loose — metaphorically — as the seated student begins writhing and speaking in tongues. The scene, a reinterpretation of one from the 1973 horror film “The Exorcist,” then disbands, and the students regroup, preparing for a seminar-style discussion with a professor from the Divinity School. Another weekly installment of English 90ex, “The Exorcist...

Five luminaries, including Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Aly Raisman offer their takes on this month’s topic: bravery.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

“Twelve years ago, my younger daughter, Elizabeth, was in Vermont at a pre-wedding party with her best friends from Spelman. She went to bed and when she woke up, she couldn’t speak. All she could say [was], ‘Yes, I know.’ They rushed her to a local hospital then to the University of Vermont, where I saw her. Her mouth was twisted—a classic sign of a stroke—and oh, she cried in my arms, and I cried. [Doctors] didn’t know...