November 10 2024

Josef Sorett, Columbia University

Let’s face it: In our guild, more often than not, the term “public” is akin to a four-letter word. For many, placing the word public in front of intellectual, at best, creates a lesser species, and at worst, invokes an oxymoron. A rather crude academic orthodoxy—we all pick it up in graduate school—is that to go public is to dumb down. One can’t possibly address the public—read: be popular, accessible, etc.—and still be smart (or maintain intellectual integrity), the logic goes.

Joseph M. Kramp, John Jay College and Marymount Manhattan College

"I have seen slaves on horseback, and princes walking on foot like slaves." — Ecclesiastes 10.7

Graduate students live off of temporary employment—often manual labor—since we move constantly and frequently spend only short periods of time in one area. However, some of us are fortunate enough to have work fall in our lap that pays well, demands little, and comes with newfound status. We all know of students who land these jobs because they list the job on their CV and publicize this work experience. Oftentimes these students assume that the readers of their CV will see a direct relationship between the job and the strengthening of a particular skill they want to highlight; these students are correct to assume this, in part, because we give certain forms of employment instant social esteem.

by Julia Watts Belser, Missouri State University

How do religious responses to environmental crisis engage with — or turn away from — the ethical demands of environmental injustice?

by Larry L. Rasmussen, Union Theological Seminary

Humankind is on a venture for which we are not well-prepared — life in a new geological age. Given the name Anthropocene by scientists because of the domination of cumulative human activities, this age succeeds the late Holocene, the era that has hosted all human religions and made possible all human civilizations to date.

by Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, Seattle University

How will our teaching help equip ourselves, our students, and our world to meet the unprecedented challenge facing humankind in the early twenty-first century — forging a sustainable relationship between humankind and planet Earth and doing so in ways that build social justice within and between societies?

by Melanie L. Harris, Texas Christian University

The image of black women’s bodies stretched along roads in North Carolina to block toxic waste dump trucks from carrying hazardous soil into their gardens stays with me each time I teach environmental ethics. As James Cone reminds us in his essay “Whose Earth Is it Anyway?,” these brave black churchwomen began a protest against soil contamination in Warren County in 1982. The protest would attract thousands to the streets and land hundreds in jail. While jail time is all too familiar to those engaged in justice movements in the South, it is important to remember that fighting for justice often has a cost. Holding up the banner for racial, economic, gender, sexual, and earth justice is a complex job that can leave marks — even in the college classroom.

by Sharon V. Betcher, Vancouver School of Theology

Where there is ecological devastation, disability is increasingly present. But the prevailing human cultural presumption views human disability as an individual tragedy, unique and occasional. Even as we bemoan mutations in indicator species such as frogs, we seem unable to consider the effects of ecological devastation on the human community. Disability studies and ecological studies have not really addressed this shared zone of concern. Admittedly, though I wrote my dissertation in the area of ecotheology and have consequently published in disability studies, I myself have not entirely figured out how to think about this intersection.

by Pankaj Jain, University of North Texas

An eminent scholar recently came to our university campus and spoke about the role of the diverse religious communities of the world and their attitudes toward the environment. He showed examples from several indigenous communities from North America, South America, Africa, and Asia. Yet when he referred to the traditions of India, he used these words: “India has the most bizarre culture in the world, where even a cobra is worshipped. This is a bit of an overshoot.” It amazes me that even in this supposedly globalized world, India continues to mystify scholars.

by Sandra B. Lubarsky, Appalachian State University

In the modern Western world, the link between beauty and sustainability remains underappreciated. If the dominant preoccupation of our culture has been science, our most marginal concern may be aesthetics — so much so that we often think of the two as antithetical. Science has embraced the idea that reality is value-neutral. It has cultivated an epistemological method of detached knowing. Aesthetics, by contrast, is a minefield of value. It demands engagement, subjectivity, and personality.

Ilya Merlin, University of North Carolina, Charlotte

*The title of this article is taken from a clause in Patrick French’s article on Bataille, Blanchot, and friendship. As Bataille stands as an important theorist of religion, I offer this article as an alternative insight into my scholastic and political interests.

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