Hollingsworth Professor of Ethics and Chair of Religious Studies
I study intersections of ethics, religion, and ecological change. Author of two award-winning books, Ecologies of Grace (Oxford 2008) and The Future of Ethics (Georgetown 2013), and co-editor of several volumes, including the Routledge Handbook of Religion and Ecology, my writing generally explores moral imagination of rapid environmental change from approaches in religious studies and environmental humanities. In recent essays I have focused on religion and climate change, about which I have advised UNFCC reports and have collaborated with a transnational network of scholars; on climate ethics, including about shifting conceptions of virtue in the Anthropocene, shifting conceptions of dominion in the Vatican, and shifting conceptions of justice from pipeline protests; and I have written on religious value formation amidst mass extinctions, about which I have advised the IPBES.
Current research often emerges from efforts to develop transdisciplinary collaborations of sciences and humanities to better investigate environmental change. One example of that is the Coastal Futures Conservatory, which I co-direct with Matthew Burtner (Music) and Karen McGlathery (Environmental Sciences). Since 2017 the Conservatory has worked to integrate arts and humanities into the NSF-funded Virginia Coast Reserve Long-Term Ecological Research, as featured in this Mellon Foundation video. I have written about "Listening as a Model for Integrating Arts and Humanities into Environmental Change Research” (Environmental Humanities 2021). Our most recent joint venture is the 2023 album Soundscapes of Restoration, produced with VCR scientists, award-winning international artists, and prose reflections from me. The Conservatory is a resource partner for the community-led Eastern Shore Climate Equity Project, with whom I'm listening for next research steps.
Previously, I co-led a water justice project with hydrologist Paolo D’Odorico (UC-Berkeley), working with a research team from law, environmental science, and engineering to integrate a wider range of cultural values into water security assessments. That led to the article "Values-Based Scenarios of Water Security” Bioscience (2021), also discussed in this podcast.
Integrating questions and ideas from those various projects is a book titled After Humanity, on the work of religious ethics amidst Anthropocene ideas.
