Blog
Welcome to the new Yale Forum Blog!
We will be sharing a variety of original content including interviews, reviews, reports from the field, new and enhanced resources on the Forum website, content from our new video podcast series, FORE Spotlights, and much more.
Check back every Tuesday and Thursday for new content.
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, Ritual and Ecology in India—An Exploration of the Kōlam (Oxford University Press, 2018).
You can learn more about her book at ...
We have, at last, reached the completion of 2020, a pivotal year in the history of our world. As we rest, poised on the threshold of a fresh, new year, we wanted to take a few moments for quiet reflection and share a couple of poems that evoke this spirit.
May your 2021 be filled with peace, joy, and moments of deep stillness.
I'm Going to Start Living Like a Mystic
Today I am pulling on a green wool sweater
and...
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, colonialism, and (post)humanism. He also discusses his dissertation, “Critical Materialisms: Power, Place, and Personhood in White and Black 'Red' Spaces...
Solstice December 21, 2020
Dear Family and Friends-
A storm this week brought 10 inches of sparkling snow. Driveway plowed, entry shoveled and roof-edges raked – how can we express gratitude for those who have kept our lives even and productive during this worldwide pandemic? We hang decorations on our friend, the tangerine...
This episode of Spotlights features Dr. Sarah Pike, professor in the Comparative Religion and Humanities Department at California State University, Chico. She discusses her ethnographic and historical research at the intersection of religion and ecology, particularly with regard to New Age and Neopagan communities. She also talks about her most recent book, For the Wild: Ritual and Commitment in Radical Eco-Activism. Since this is our winter solstice episode, she provides us with some reflections on this seasonal event. You can find more...
The 4th Annual Flaring Forth Celebration, organized and hosted by Thomas Spiritbringer, was held November 9, 2020. The previous three celebrations were held at Holy Names University in Oakland, California, but this year it was held online due to the pandemic. The virtual format created an opportunity to gather with people from around the world. We celebrated three anniversaries: Thomas Berry’s birth anniversary in 1914, The Universe Story publication in 1992, and The Universe Story Calendar...
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, bodies, and affect showed up in various panels and in the virtual media ecosystem of the conference itself. You can learn more about his...
As 2020 draws to a close, we wanted to take a look back and shine a spotlight on a few of the many wonderful volumes that have come out in the field this year. To go to the publisher's page for any book, just click on the title. Further resources for exploration have also been provided, when available. Titles are arranged chronologically.
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In this week's episode of Spotlights, Sam Mickey welcomes Kimberly Carfore, PhD, to the podcast. She 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. Together they reflect on the first week of AAR's virtual meeting, which began November 30th and will conclude later this week on December 10. Their discussion focuses specifically on ecologically panels happening at the conference,...
Welcome to December and the closing weeks of what has been quite a rollercoaster of a year for our world. We wanted to highlight a few of the many upcoming events related to the field this month. These events are not organized by the Forum, so if you have questions about them, please contact the organizers of each individual event. All of the following events are virtual and online, due to the continuing global pandemic.
November 29-December 10
Virtual AAR Annual Meeting 2020...