Speakers: Eleanor Johnson (Columbia University) in conversation with Raffaella Taylor-Seymour (Columbia University)

Co-sponsor: Department of Religion

Location: Calder Lounge, Uris Hall (first floor)

IRCPL’s Climate and Religion series is animated by calls to reimagine human relationships with and responsibilities to the environment in an age of planetary crisis. As the impact of climate change is increasingly but unevenly felt, religion is emerging as a site of epistemological doubt, struggle, and possibility. This series will explore the cosmological underpinnings that shape diverse understandings of the environment and examine how religious subjects react to and act upon the ecological upheavals they face, challenging exclusively technocratic or secular responses to the climate crisis.

The series will begin with four events structured around the elements—Earth, Fire, Water, and Air—each of which will take one element as a lens for engaging with specific climate struggles and the religious debates they ignite. In the first talk, Eleanor Johnson will engage with the ever-shifting concept of “waste” from Genesis to the late Middle Ages, showing how land matters to premodern ecosystemic thought in England.  

Free and open to the public

Please Register in advance to reserve your spot