RST 292 Religion and the Environment
Shaping belief and ideology, religion plays a critical role in the way we consider, interact with, and appreciate (or fail to appreciate) the physical world around us. In this class, students will critically examine the space and place of environment as this concept is constructed and imbued with meaning in religious contexts. What places are sacred, how are they understood as such, and why? What spaces “don’t count,” or are constructed with a deficit of meaning, and what are the consequences, religious and otherwise? How does religion encounter the “natural,” world and conceive of human responsibility for our shared planet? Topics considered may include: theology and eco-theologies; the politics of place-making; religious encounters with the Earth and Earth-creatures in sacred text, mystical traditions, and the lives of holy persons or saints; environmental racism and environmental imperialism; human relationships to non-human life forms and religious anthropocentrism; global environmental crisis; the (religious) politics of ecology; etc.
Distribution
RST