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Fields of Study —
Religion and Nature
The Field
This graduate specialization is the first in the U.S. to focus on the ways that
religion shapes environmental attitudes and practices in cultures throughout
the world. We cannot address contemporary environmental problems without
understanding the complex, reciprocal relationships among human cultures,
religions, and the earth’s living systems.
For several decades, scholars from many disciplines have addressed
religion's role in shaping human relations to nature. Some of the areas of study within the program
include grassroots environmental movements and communities; environmental
ethics, philosophy, and theology; sustainable agriculture and food; animals and
religion; outdoor recreation; and regional emphases in India, Latin America, and North
America. Departmental
faculty are involved in numerous initiatives in these and other areas,
including Environmental Values and Practices; the Society for the Study of
Religion, Nature, and Culture; Women, Water, and Equity in India; Global
Religion in Practice; and Sustainable
Agriculture. Graduate students have
opportunities to become involved in many of these projects. They may also work with departmental faculty
involved in the study of Religion in the Americas and Religions of Asia and,
beyond the department, in interdisciplinary environmental studies programs
elsewhere in the university.
Faculty
The Department of Religion boasts several widely-recognized scholars in this
emerging field. Anna Peterson has
published widely on environmental ethics, religion and social change, and
grassroots religious communities. Her
books include Being Human: Ethics, Environment, and Our Place in the World
(2001), which explores the links between understandings of human and non-human
nature, and Seeds of the Kingdom: Utopian Communities in the Americas (2005),
which examines agrarian communities striving for social and ecological
sustainability in the U.S. and Latin America.
Her current research examines the gap between expressed environmental
values and actual practices, and the theoretical as well as practical
significance of this disjuncture.
Whitney Sanford studies religious attitudes
towards agricultural sustainability, particularly in South Asia and Latin America. Her recently completed manuscript Transforming Agriculture: Hindu Narrative
and Ecological Imagination explores how Hindu narratives of agriculture can
provide the foundation for an improved agricultural ethic. Current research
interests include the relationship between agricultural biotechnology and forms
of neo-colonialism, particularly in Latin America and India. Her new
project "Gandhi's Environmental Legacy: Food Sovereignty and Social
Movements" investigates Gandhi's influence on sustainability and food and
water sovereignty movements in India, Sri Lanka and Mexico.
Bron Taylor has studied grassroots environmentalism, including the edited volume
Ecological Resistance Movements: The Global Emergence of Radical and Popular
Environmentalism (1993), as well as many articles and chapters. He also edited the two-volume Encyclopedia of
Religion and Nature (2005). He is completing
a manuscript Dark Green Religion that
looks at religion and nature in North America
and, in addition, hs projects on religion and science. He was a founder of the
Society for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture and its journal,
Religion and Nature.
Several other departmental faculty contribute to the Religion and Nature program.
Vasudha Narayanan, a scholar of religion in South Asia,
has published several articles and chapters on Hindu environmental values. Mario Poceski has also written on Buddhism
and nature. Robin Wright has conducted
research among indigenous peoples in the Amazon since the 1970s, with special
interest in the impacts of development on the environment and indigenous
peoples and the relations of humans and nature in indigenous cosmologies. The graduate program in Religion and Nature
also draws on faculty and resources from across the university, including
internationally recognized programs in Interdisciplinary Ecology and Tropical
Conservation and Development.
Graduate Students
Graduate students in Religion and Nature have a broad range of research interests,
including the religious and ethical dimensions of fly fishing, wolf
reintroduction, environmental education, Muslim agrarian communities, and
mountaintop removal in Appalachia.
Required courses:
REL 6107 Religion and Nature (Core Seminar); REL 6183 Religion and
Environmental Ethics (Core Seminar); One course each (minimum) from
designated courses exploring Religion and Nature in the Western World,
and Religion and Nature in Asia (Students without undergraduate
degrees, or graduate coursework or degrees in the natural sciences,
will be expected to take at least one course grounded in the natural
sciences, as approved by their graduate committee.)
Language requirement:
Tested competence in at least one and in many cases two non-English
languages selected in consultation with the faculty supervisory
committee on the basis of their relevance to the student's research
program.
Qualifying examinations: 1)
Religion and Nature in Religious Studies and the Social and Natural
Sciences 2) Religion and Nature in Ethics and Philosophy 3) A region,
discipline or tradition-based exam, which could be, for example,
Religion and Nature in the Western or Eastern Hemisphere, or Religion
and Nature in North (or Latin) America; Religion and Nature in Islam,
Indigenous Religions etc. The bibliography for this exam will be
determined by committee in consultation with area faculty. 4) An exam
in the student’s secondary area, i.e., one of the standard exams
in either Religions of Asia or Religion in the Americas. 5) Oral
examination. Most students will take the above four exams. Alternatives
may be approved by the mutual agreement of the committee and student. A
student taking a global, comparative approach, for example, may propose
taking for the fourth exam, a second region, discipline or
tradition-based exam, such as both religion and nature in Eastern
hemisphere and religion and nature in the Western hemisphere.
Religion and Nature Curriculum:
Religion and Nature Courses
Religion and Nature Electives
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