Forum on Religion and Ecology: Spotlights

In this episode of the Forum podcast, our host performs a reading of “The Meadow Across the Creek,” a well-known essay by a very influential figure in the field of religion and ecology: Thomas Berry. It speaks to the importance of having meaningful connections to our embodiment and embeddedness in a living Earth community and an evolving universe. As we approach the end of the calendar year, a new year is returning, giving us time to re-read works that mean a lot to us. You can find this piece in Berry’s book, The Great Work: Our Way into the Future (1999).You can also find it posted at https://thomasberry.org/the-meadow-across-the-creek/

This episode of the Forum podcast follow a years-long tradition of giving a review of the place of religion and ecology at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion (AAR). In this episode, our host Sam Mickey talks with the co-chair of the religion and ecology unit of the AAR -- Kimberly Carfore -- to discuss the present and future of this field of study. You'll hear about important attention to Indigenous traditions, interreligious dialogue. religious practice, extractivism, and more.

This episode of Spotlights features Tyler Mark Nelson, a core team member for the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology. Tyler is an educator, eco-theologian, and artist exploring the ways that humans make sense of their creaturely existence in relation to the more-than-human world. Currently he is assisting with the launch of the exciting Living Earth Community project. We talk about his personal journey into the intersection of religion and ecology, as well as his key contributions to the Living Earth Community project. Tyler brings enthusiasm and creativity into his inquiries into the intelligences of nature, ecological worldviews, and Earth law. For more information about the Living Earth Community project, visit the website: https://livingearthcommunity.com/

In this short episode, our host Sam Mickey introduces the new season of the podcast for the Forum on Religion and Ecology. The episode covers some personal details about our host as well as some discussion of what is to come for this exciting new season. A big part of this new season will be attention to the new website that has emerged from the Forum team: Living Earth Community. https://livingearthcommunity.com/

This episode is about a very special issue of The New Ecozoic Reader that has just been released. This special issue, edited by the Forum's own Sam Mickey and Sam C. King, offers retrospective and prospective views on the field of religion and ecology: looking at where we've been, where things stand now, and how the field, and our work together, could evolve going forward. The issue is very intergenerational and includes essays by both esteemed and established figures in the field, and younger scholars, just emerging on the scene. The issue includes a foreword by Iyad Abumoghli of UNEP Faith for Earth Coalition, a preface by Sam King and Sam Mickey, an Introduction by Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim, and contributions from: Heather Eaton, David Haberman, Elizabeth Allison, Whitney A. Bauman, Ibrahim Ozdemir, Jason Brown, Kim Carfore, Sarah Pike, Lisa E. Dahill, Nancy Wright, Jim Robinson, Melanie L. Harris, Christopher Key Chapple, Dan Smyer Yu, Charisma K. Lepcha, Philip P. Arnold, Sandra L. Bigtree, Graham Harvey, Russell C. Powell, Rachael Petersen, Terra Schwerin Rowe, and Larry Rasmussen. More information is available here: https://ecozoicstudies.org/the-new-ecozoic-reader/