This episode features Kimberly Carfore, PhD, co-chair of the religion and ecology unit at the American Academy of Religion (AAR). We discuss the religion and ecology events at this year's annual meeting of the AAR, including some of the panel presentations, receptions, overarching themes, and future directions for this unique unit. Hope, happiness, Indigenous values, and feminist theology are among the topics we cover. Many previous podcast guests are mentioned in the process, underscoring how much the field of religion and ecology is a community built on shared concerns and solidarity.

This episode features Ricardo Rozzi, PhD, a Chilean ecologist and philosopher who is a professor at the University of North Texas and the Universidad de Magallanes (UMAG). His research combines ecology and philosophy through the study of the interrelations between the ways of knowing and inhabiting the natural world, proposing a dynamic continuous reciprocal feedback between both domains. We discuss his work with biocultural conservation, field environmental philosophy, and liberation theology, with particular attention to the unique cultural, ecological, and political context of Chile and Latin America.

This episode features Beth Norcross, founder and director of the Center for Spirituality in Nature, which provides numerous programs that offer spiritual guidance for developing deep, sustained, loving relationships with nature. She is also the co-author (with Leah Rampy) of a forthcoming book, Discovering the Spiritual Wisdom of Trees, which will be published with Broadleaf Books on Earth Day (April 22) 2025. We discuss her perspective on the intersection of spirituality and nature, and her deep appreciation for the wisdom of trees. 

This episode features Paul Waldau, an educator, activist and scholar who works at the intersection of animal studies, law, ethics, religion, and cultural studies. Former professor at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York, where he is the senior faculty for the Master of Science program in Anthrozoology, he is an author and editor of several books on animal studies, including The Specter of Speciesism: Buddhist and Christian Views of Animals (Oxford University Press, 2001), Animal Studies: An Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2013), and A Communion of Subjects: Animals in Religion, Science, and Ethics, edited with Kimberey Patton (Columbia University Press, 2006). We talk about animals, sentience, dialogue between science and religion, and much more.

This episode Les Sponsel, PhD, Professor Emeritus in the department of Anthropology at the University of Hawaii. We talk about his transdisciplinary research and teaching as one of the pioneers in developing the field of spiritual ecology—a complex. diverse, and dynamic arena at the interfaces of religions and spiritualities on the one hand and, on the other, environments, ecologies, and environmentalisms with intellectual, spiritual, and practical components. Along with numerous journal articles, book chapters, encyclopedia articles, monographs, and several edited and co-edited books, he is also the author of the highly acclaimed book, Spiritual Ecology: A Quiet Revolution (2012). You can learn more on his website, https://spiritualecology.info/ 

This episode features Philip Arnold, PhD, Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Religion at Syracuse University, Director of the  Skä·noñh—Great Law of Peace Center, and President of the   Indigenous Values Initiative. He is interviewed by John Grim, PhD, co-founder and co-director of the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology. They talk about many facets of Phil’s work, especially in light of his new book, The Urgency of Indigenous Values (Syracuse University Press, 2023). 

Welcome to the beginning of the fifth year for the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology podcast. In this short episode, our host welcomes everyone to a new season, while also giving a brief refresher about what religion and ecology is all about. It is an academic field of study as well as a moral force for personal and social change, examining the problems and promise that religious traditions hold for facilitating the emergence of a sustainable and just Earth community.

This is the final episode of our fourth season. In this short episode, our host gives a quick summary of how the podcast has grown in the last four years. Then he gives a brief overview of a new book on climate change from the German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk, Prometheus’s Remorse: From the Gift of Fire to Global Arson. It's a good account of the cultural, ecological, and ethical implications of humanity's unique and complicated relationship with fire. The Forum on Religion and Ecology podcast will be back with a new season of episodes soon. Now is a good time to go through previous seasons to catch any episodes you might have missed, or enjoy some of your favorite episodes a second time.

This episode features Kathryn Lawson, PhD, lecturer in philosophy at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. We discuss her new book, Ecological Ethics and the Philosophy of Simone Weil: Decreation for the Anthropocene, which was just released in the Environmental Ethics series at Routledge. We discuss her unique juxtaposition of the 20th-century French philosopher Simone Weil and the challenges that the Anthropocene poses for ecological ethics. Some of the topics covered include Weil's concepts of decreation, grace, attention, and ethical action, as well as Weil's reading of Plato as a non-dual thinker who affirms life and embodiment. This episode will surely be of interest to anyone concerned with the importance of spiritual practice for ecological ethics as well as anyone concerned with the way that the Western philosophical traditions bears upon contemporary ecological issues. 

This episode features our host, Sam Mickey, discussing the new posthumous publication from the French philosopher Bruno Latour, If We Lose The Earth, We Lose Our Souls, in which Latour calls upon Christians to join the struggle to avert a climate catastrophe. It's a short text that examines connections between cosmology, ecology, and Catholicism, including discussion of Pope Francis, incarnation, redemption, apocalypse, preaching, the problem of anthropocentrism, and more.