Key Thinkers in Religion and Environment

Book excerpt: Key Thinkers in Religion and Environment provides a theoretical foundation for scholarship related to the intersection of religions, natures and cultures across disciplines. The text introduces students to the major names, theoretical issues, and methodological orientations of the field while giving professors maximum freedom to insert case studies and examples as they wish. Students will come away with an understanding of the most important scholars, their theoretical contributions, and the scholarly conundrums with which they wrestled. The book includes figures who are foundational to the field of religious studies more broadly, foregrounding key themes in their works which highlight the “nature” in/of their argumentation, whilst also highlighting the voices of women and people of color. The thinkers come from a range of fields, including religious studies, philosophy, anthropology, sociology, American Indian studies, ethology, agroecology, theology, and environmental history, demonstrating the importance and impact of interdisciplinary research. The book also offers a theoretical orientation which illuminates methodological and theoretical deficits in religious studies more generally, whilst opening new avenues for thinking about environmental ethics. It is a must-read for all students and researchers of religion and the environment.