Environmental Humanities and Theologies

Environmental Humanities and Theologies
Author: Rod Giblett
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 287
Release: 2018-06-13
Genre: Bibles
ISBN: 1351124080

Many ways of thinking about and living with ‘the environment’ have their roots in the Bible and the Christian cultural tradition. Environmental Humanities and Theologies shows that some of these ways are problematic. It also provides alternative ways that value both materiality and spirituality. Beginning with an environmentally friendly reading of the biblical story of creation, Environmental Humanities and Theologies goes on to discuss in succeeding chapters the environmental theology of wetlands, dragons and watery monsters (including crocodiles and alligators) in the Bible and literature. It then gives a critical reading of the environmental theology of the biblical book of Psalms. Theological concepts are found in the works of English writers of detective and devotional stories and novels, American nature writers and European Jewish writers (as succeeding chapters show). Environmental Humanities and Theologies concludes with an appreciation for Australian Aboriginal spirituality in the swamp serpent. It argues for the sacrality of marsh monsters and swamp serpents as figures of reverence and respect for living bio- and psycho-symbiotic livelihoods in bioregions of the living earth in the Symbiocene. This is the hoped-for age superseding the Anthropocene. Environmental Humanities and Theologies is aimed at those who have little or no knowledge of how theology underlies much thinking and writing about ‘the environment’ and who are looking for ways of thinking about, being and living with the earth that respect and value both spirituality and materiality. It is a new text nurturing sacrality for the Symbiocene.

Environmental Ethics, Ecological Theology, and Natural Selection

Environmental Ethics, Ecological Theology, and Natural Selection
Author: Lisa H. Sideris
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 326
Release: 2003
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 9780231126601

Lisa Sideris proposes a new way of thinking about the natural world, an environmental ethic that incorporates the ideas of natural selection and values the processes rather than the products of nature. Such an approach encourages us to take a minimally interventionist approach to nature. Only when the competitive realities of evolution are faced squarely, Sideris argues, can we generate practical environmental principles to deal with such issues as species extinction and the relationship between suffering and sentience.

The Environmental Humanities

The Environmental Humanities
Author: Robert S. Emmett
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 247
Release: 2017-10-13
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0262342308

A concise overview of this multidisciplinary field, presenting key concepts, central issues, and current research, along with concrete examples and case studies. The emergence of the environmental humanities as an academic discipline early in the twenty-first century reflects the growing conviction that environmental problems cannot be solved by science and technology alone. This book offers a concise overview of this new multidisciplinary field, presenting concepts, issues, current research, concrete examples, and case studies. Robert Emmett and David Nye show how humanists, by offering constructive knowledge as well as negative critique, can improve our understanding of such environmental problems as global warming, species extinction, and over-consumption of the earth's resources. They trace the genealogy of environmental humanities from European, Australian, and American initiatives, also showing its cross-pollination by postcolonial and feminist theories. Emmett and Nye consider a concept of place not synonymous with localism, the risks of ecotourism, and the cultivation of wild areas. They discuss the decoupling of energy use and progress, and point to OECD countries for examples of sustainable development. They explain the potential for science to do both good and harm, examine dark visions of planetary collapse, and describe more positive possibilities—alternative practices, including localization and degrowth. Finally, they examine the theoretical impact of new materialism, feminism, postcolonial criticism, animal studies, and queer ecology on the environmental humanities.

Grounding Education in Environmental Humanities

Grounding Education in Environmental Humanities
Author: Lucas Johnston
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2018-11-05
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1351003887

This edited volume draws together educators and scholars to engage with the difficulties and benefits of teaching place-based education in a distinctive culture-laden area in North America: the United States South. Despite problematic past visions of cultural homogeneity, the South has always been a culturally diverse region with many historical layers of inhabitation and migration, each with their own set of religious and secular relationships to the land. Through site-specific narratives, this volume offers a blueprint for new approaches to place-based pedagogy, with an emphasis on the intersection between religion and the environment. By offering broadly applicable examples of pedagogical methods and practices, this book confronts the need to develop more sustainable local communities to address globally significant challenges.

The Bible and the Environment

The Bible and the Environment
Author: David G. Horrell
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 160
Release: 2015-08-12
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1317324374

The biblical and Christian traditions have long been seen to have legitimated and encouraged humanity's aggressive domination of nature. Biblical visions of the future, with destruction for the earth and rescue for the elect, have also discouraged any concern for the earth's future or the welfare of future generations. But we now live in a time when environmental issues are at the centre of political and ethical debate. What is needed is a new reading of the biblical tradition that can meet the challenges of the ecological issues that face humanity at the beginning of the third millennium. 'The Bible and the Environment' examines a range of biblical texts - from Genesis to Revelation - evaluating competing interpretations. The Bible provides a thoroughly ambivalent legacy. Certainly, it cannot provide straightforward teaching on care for the environment but nor can it simply be seen as an anti-ecological book. Developing an 'ecological hermeneutic' as a way of mediating between contemporary concerns and the biblical text, 'The Bible and the Environment' presents a way of productively reading the Bible in the context of contemporary ecology.

Environmental Science and Theology in Dialogue

Environmental Science and Theology in Dialogue
Author: Russell A. Butkus
Publisher: Orbis Books
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2011
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 157075912X

This work demonstrates how understanding environmental science and theology can provide new resources for sustaining the Earth. With sidebars, discussion questions, and recommended readings, the book provides students with a text that nurtures both critical thinking and ethical action.

Arts, Religion, and the Environment

Arts, Religion, and the Environment
Author: Sigurd Bergmann
Publisher: Brill
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2018
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9789004355354

With-In : Towards an Aesth/Ethics of Prepositions / Sigurd Bergmann -- Wonder and Ernst Haeckel's Aesthetics of Nature / Whitney Bauman -- The Black Wood : Relations, Empathy and a Feeling of Oneness in Caledonian Pine Forests / Reiko Goto and Tim Collins

Aesth/ethics in Environmental Change

Aesth/ethics in Environmental Change
Author: Sigurd Bergmann
Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster
Total Pages: 217
Release: 2013
Genre: History
ISBN: 3643902921

Can aesthetics and ethics be integrated for the good of habitats, places, and spaces? How can the arts widen our perception of nature and deepen environmental ethics? Should the political meaning of a landscape be defined solely in terms of its economic and ecological values? Questions like these are explored from the angles of arts, environmental ethics, ecology, religious studies, theology, art history, and philosophy. The book prompts discussion about the aesthetic and spiritual dimension in the environmental humanities, and it offers transdisciplinary insights into the challenge of sustainability and ongoing changes in society and the environment. (Series: Studies in Religion and the Environment / Studien zur Religion und Umwelt - Vol. 7)

What are They Saying about Environmental Theology?

What are They Saying about Environmental Theology?
Author: John Hart
Publisher: Paulist Press
Total Pages: 180
Release: 2004
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 9780809142309

"This book offers a comprehensive analysis of Catholic teachings on environmental themes by exploring official statements from Rome and the bishops of the Americas, as well as from contemporary visionary theologians". (p. [4] cover).

Global Ecologies and the Environmental Humanities

Global Ecologies and the Environmental Humanities
Author: Elizabeth DeLoughrey
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 383
Release: 2015-04-10
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1317574303

This book examines current trends in scholarly thinking about the new field of the Environmental Humanities, focusing in particular on how the history of globalization and imperialism represents a special challenge to the representation of environmental issues. Essays in this path-breaking collection examine the role that narrative, visual, and aesthetic forms can play in drawing attention to and shaping our ideas about long-term and catastrophic environmental challenges such as climate change, militarism, deforestation, the pollution and management of the global commons, petrocapitalism, and the commodification of nature. The volume presents a postcolonial approach to the environmental humanities, especially in conjunction with current thinking in areas such as political ecology and environmental justice. Spanning regions such as Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, Australasia and the Pacific, as well as North America, the volume includes essays by founding figures in the field as well as new scholars, providing vital new interdisciplinary perspectives on: the politics of the earth; disaster, vulnerability, and resilience; political ecologies and environmental justice; world ecologies; and the Anthropocene. In engaging critical ecologies, the volume poses a postcolonial environmental humanities for the twenty-first century. At the heart of this is a conviction that a thoroughly global, postcolonial, and comparative approach is essential to defining the emergent field of the environmental humanities, and that this field has much to offer in understanding critical issues surrounding the creation of alternative ecological futures.