Forum on Religion and Ecology: Spotlights

This week’s episode of Spotlights features Sean Kelly, PhD, professor of Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. He discusses his new book, Becoming Gaia: On the Threshold of Planetary Initiation ( Integral Imprint , 2021). He describes the interlocking emergencies of climate change, mass extinction, and planetary apartheid in term...

This week’s episode of Spotlights features Elizabeth Allison, PhD , Associate Professor of Ecology and Religion at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in San Francisco. She talks about the graduate program she founded and chairs in Ecology, Spirituality, and Religion at CIIS , including a new online program that will launch this fall. Dr. Allison also discusses the Religion & E...

This episode features Christopher Key Chapple, PhD, Doshi Professor of Indic and Comparative Theology and founding Director of the Master of Arts in Yoga Studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. He shares his perspective as a scholar and practitioner of yoga, particularly with regard to the connections between yoga and ecology. He discusses his new book, which explores elemental medi...

This week, the Forum podcast welcomes back Kimberly Carfore, PhD . She discusses some of the strategies and practices she has used for teaching nature immersion classes online during the pandemic, including nature awareness practices, meditations, and reskilling. Although teaching nature immersion online sounds like a contradiction in terms, she discusses some of the unique opportunities it afford...

This week's episode of Spotlights features Jason Brown, PhD., lecturer in the Humanities and the School of Resource and Environmental Management at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada. He talks about his research and teaching with trees and forests at the intersection of religion, anthropology, and ecology, including some strategies for teaching online. He also discusses his e...

This week’s episode of Spotlights features Timothy Harvie, PhD , Associate Professor of Philosophy and Ethics and Program Coordinator of Social Justice and Catholic Studies at St. Mary’s University in Calgary, Alberta. He talks about his work with eco-theology, animals, evolution, and philosophical foundations for the study of religion and ecology. He also discusses some of his writing projects, i...

This episode of Spotlights features Susan Bratton, PhD, a Professor at Baylor University in the Department of Environmental Science. She talks about her work at the intersection of religion and environmental ethics, particularly in light of her exciting new book, Religion and the Environment: An Introduction , which provides a thorough and thoughtful introduction to the field.  This new introducto...

This week's episode of Spotlights features Elizabeth McAnally, PhD, the newsletter editor and website manager for the Forum on Religion and Ecology. She discusses her work for the Forum and gives an overview of her book, Loving Water Across Religions: Contributions to an Integral Water Ethic (Orbis Books, 2018). We also discuss her ecologically oriented practices of yoga and Chinese internal...

This week's episode of Spotlights features Russell Powell , PhD, and Timothy Grieve-Carlson . Russell is a visiting professor of Environmental Theology and Ethics at Boston College, and Timothy is a doctoral candidate in Rice University's Department of Religion. They invite early-career scholars to participate in a newly emerging reading group, the Religion and Ecology Early-Career Schol...

This week's episode of Spotlights features Vijaya Nagarajan, PhD, an associate professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies and in the Program of Environmental Studies at the University of San Francisco. She talks about her teaching, research, and activism at the intersection of Hinduism and ecology, with particular attention to her book, Feeding A Thousand Souls: Women, Ritu...

This week’s episode of the Forum on Religion and Ecology podcast features Tyler M. Tully, a doctoral candidate in religious studies and the Arthur Peacocke Graduate Scholar in Science and Religion at the University of Oxford. He talks about his work at the intersection of Indigenous religion, critical race theory, traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), secularism, and (post)humanism. He also disc...

This episode of Spotlights features Dr. Sarah Pike , professor in the Comparative Religion & Humanities Department at California State University, Chico. She discusses her ethnographic and historical research at the intersection of religion and ecology, particularly with New Age and Neopagan communities. She also talks about her most recent book, For the Wild: Ritual and Commitment in Radical...

This week's episode of the FORE podcast features Jacob Erickson, PhD, Assistant Professor of Theological Ethics in the School of Religion at Trinity College Dublin. He introduces some of his work with theopoetics and queer ecology, and he shares some reflections on this year's virtual meeting of the American Academy of Religion, talking about some ways that nature, cosmology, ecology, bo...

In this week's episode, Sam Mickey talks with Kimberly Carfore , PhD, who is an environmental studies professor at the University of San Francisco and a steering committee member for the Religion and Ecology unit of the American Academy of Religion. They reflect on the first week of this year's virtual meeting of the AAR, focusing specifically on ecologically oriented panels, including p...

This week's episode of Spotlights is all about the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion (AAR) , which is taking place virtually this year, from November 30 to December 10. Our host (Sam Mickey) discusses the importance of the AAR for scholars of theology and religion, with specific attention to the AAR groups that focus on issues related to ecology, including the Religion and Ec...

This week's episode of Spotlights features Whitney Bauman, PhD, Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Florida International University, and co-founder and co-director of the nonprofit research center, Counterpoint: Navigating Knowledge . Whitney discusses the personal and professional influences that shape his engagement with religion and ecology, and he talks about some ideas from his...

This week’s episode features Andreas Karelas, executive director of RE-volv — a nonprofit organization that empowers communities to invest in solar energy — and author of the new book, Climate Courage: How Tackling Climate Change Can Build Community, Transform the Economy, and Bridge the Political Divide in America (Beacon Press, 2020). Andreas discusses community-oriented solutions to climate cha...

This episode of Spotlights features Chris Ives, professor of religious studies at Stonehill College. He discusses his work with Zen Buddhism, ethics, and ecology, including teaching and writing as well as practice and activism. His latest book, Zen on the Trail, draws on his personal experiences with hiking and backpacking to describe the meditative power of walking and pilgrimage. You can find mo...

This week's episode features Mitchell Thomashow, renowned educator and author, with a brand new book coming out this week, To Know the World: A New Vision for Environmental Learning . The discussion covers some of the main themes and topics of the book, including the Anthropocene, memory, improvisation, and cosmopolitan bioregionalism. You can find more information about the new book and othe...

This week's episode of Spotlights features the chief administrator for the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology, Tara Trapani. She talks about her work with the Forum, including some exciting, new projects happening there, especially the freshly redesigned website. She leads us through the website, navigating the abundance and diversity of news, events, bibliographies, multimedia resources, and...

In this episode of Spotlights, Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim talk with the host (Sam Mickey) about the new encyclical from Pope Francis, Fratelli Tutti. They provide historical, religious, and ecological context for understanding what this encyclical means and how it is relevant for efforts to create a more loving, just, and open world.  You can read the encyclical here: http://www.vatican.va/c...

This episode features Rev. Dr. Christopher Carter, an assistant professor of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of San Diego, in San Diego, California. He is also the co-creator of Racial Resilience, an anti-racism and anti-bias training program that utilizes the combined insights of contemplative practices and critical race theories. You can learn more about his work through the lin...

In this week's episode, I talk with Evan Berry about his teaching, research, and writing on topics of religion and ecology, climate change, and environmental humanities.

This episode of Spotlights features Hava Tirosh-Samuelson , Regents Professor of History, Irving and Miriam Lowe Professor of Modern Judaism, and Director of Jewish Studies at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona. She discusses the ways that Judaism and ecology intersect in her work. 

This is the inaugural episode of Spotlights, a podcast from the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology. This episode features the co-founders of the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology, Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim. Welcoming us into autumn, they discuss new partnerships and exciting developments at the Forum, including this new podcast. They also discuss some current news about religion and ecolog...