This graduate specialization focuses on the ways that religion (and spirituality) shape environmental attitudes and practices in cultures throughout the world and the way in which attitudes about nature, the environment, and health may function as a religion or spirituality, whether or not they include belief in God or gods. 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 encompassed within religion and nature include theories about the evolutionary roots and functions of religions, religion’s entanglements with environmental history, grassroots environmental movements and communities, religion, medicine and healing, environmental ethics, ecofeminism, philosophy, and theology, food and agriculture, animal studies, spirituality and health, and outdoor recreation.
Beyond the department, graduate students interested in religion and nature can take courses and work with faculty in sustainability studies, interdisciplinary ecology, sustainable development, environmental history, and environmental journalism, among other related fields. Departmental faculty are involved in numerous initiatives in these and other areas, providing opportunities for graduate student involvement. Graduate students also have opportunities to become involved in the Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture. They may also collaborate with interdisciplinary environmental studies programs elsewhere in the university.
Faculty
Anna Peterson
Anita Anantharam
Bron Taylor
Erin Prophet