This course introduces the newly emerging field of religion and ecology and traces its development over the last several decades. It explores human relations to the natural world as differentiated in religious and cultural traditions. In particular, it investigates the symbolic and lived expressions of these interconnections in diverse religious texts, ethics, and practices. In addition, the course draws on the scientific field of ecology for an understanding of the dynamic processes of Earth’s ecosystems. The course explores parallel developments in human-Earth relations defined as religious ecologies.
Similarly, it identifies narratives that orient humans to the cosmos, namely, religious cosmologies. For many years science, engineering, policy, law, and economics were considered indispensable for understanding and resolving environmental problems. We now have abundant knowledge from these disciplines about environmental issues, but still not sufficient will to engage in long- term change for the flourishing of the Earth community. Thus, there is a growing realization that religion, spirituality, ethics, and values can make important contributions, in collaboration with science and policy, to address complex ecological issues. We will examine those contributions, acknowledging both the problems and promise of religions. In addition, we view religion and ecology amid the broader emergence of environmental humanities, namely, the examination of the roles of humans in nature through the lens of history, literature, philosophy, music, and art.
Required Text:
John Grim and Mary Evelyn Tucker, Ecology and Religion, Washington, DC: Island Press, 2014.
Additional Resources:
Websites:
The Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale. http://fore.research.yale.edu/
Spiritual Ecology. http://spiritualecology.info/
Annotated Bibliography of World Religions and Ecology:
Grim, John, Russell Powell, Matthew T. Riley, Tara C. Trapani, and Mary Evelyn Tucker.
“Religion and Ecology.” Oxford Bibliographies Online: Ecology. New York: Oxford University Press, August 27, 2013. http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199830060/obo-9780199830060-0103.xml
Overviews of the Field of Religion and Ecology:
Barnhill, David Landis, and Roger S. Gottlieb, eds. Deep Ecology and World Religions: New Essays on Sacred Ground. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001.
Bauman, Whitney A., Richard R. Bohannon II, and Kevin J. O’Brien, eds. Grounding Religion: A Field Guide to the Study of Religion and Ecology. New York: Routledge, 2011.
Callicott, J. Baird. Earth’s Insights: A Survey of Ecological Insights from the Mediterranean Basin to the Australian Outback. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.
Devall, Bill, and George Sessions. Deep Ecology: Living as if Nature Mattered. Salt Lake City, UT: Peregrine Smith, 1985.
Foltz, Richard, ed. Worldviews, Religion and the Environment: A Global Anthology. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson, 2003.
Grim, John and Mary Evelyn Tucker. Ecology and Religion. Washington, DC: Island Press, 2014.
Gottlieb, Roger, ed. This Sacred Earth: Religion, Nature, Environment. New York: Routledge, 2004.
Kearns, Laurel, and Catherine Keller, eds. Ecospirit: Religions and Philosophies for the Earth. New York: Fordham University Press, 2007.
Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. Man and Nature: The Spiritual Crisis in Modern Man. Chicago: Kazi, 1997.
Rockefeller, Stephen C., and John C. Elder, eds. Spirit and Nature: Why the Environment Is a Religious Issue: An Interfaith Dialogue. Boston: Beacon, 1992.
Sponsel, Leslie. Spiritual Ecology: A Quiet Revolution. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2012.
Spretnak, Charlene. States of Grace: The Recovery of Meaning in the Postmodern Age. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.
Tucker, Mary Evelyn. Worldly Wonder: Religions Enter Their Ecological Phase. Chicago: Open Court, 2003.
Tucker, Mary Evelyn and John Grim. Series Editors. Religions of the World and Ecology, Book Series, Harvard Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard University Press, 1997-2004 (10 Volumes).
Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim (eds,), “Religion and Ecology: Can the Climate Change?” Daedalus, (Fall 2001). (http://www.amacad.org/publications/fall2001/fall2001.aspx).
Tucker, Mary Evelyn and John Grim. Editors. Worldviews and Ecology: Religion, Philosophy and the Environment. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1994.
Waldau, Paul, and Kimberley Patton, eds. A Communion of Subjects: Animals in Religion, Science, and Ethics. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006.
Literature Review:
Jenkins, Willis, and Christopher Key Chapple. “Religion and Environment.” Annual Reviews of Environment and Resources 36 (2011): 441–63.
Peer-Reviewed Journals:
Worldviews: Global Religions, Culture, and Ecology.
Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture.
Encyclopedias:
Jenkins, Willis, ed. The Spirit of Sustainability: Religion, Ethics and Philosophy. Vol. 3. The Encyclopedia of Sustainability. Great Barrington, MA: Berkshire, 2009.
Jones, Lindsay, ed. Encyclopedia of Religion. 2d ed. New York: Macmillan, 2005.
Taylor, Bron, and Jeffrey Kaplan, eds. The Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature. 2 vols. New York: Continuum, 2008.
Films:
Moyers, Bill. Spirit and Nature. 1991.
Ostrow, Marty and Terry Kay Rockefeller. Renewal: Stories from America’s Religious- Environmental Movement. Fine Cut Productions, 2008. http://www.renewalproject.net/
Swimme, Brian and Mary Evelyn Tucker. Journey of the Universe. Northcutt Productions, 2011. http://www.journeyoftheuniverse.org/especially vol. 4: 2604-2668.