Call for Papers 2022

The schools of Divinity and Environment at Yale University invite you to the sixth annual Graduate Conference in Religion and Ecology.

The theme of this year’s conference inspires participants to think about the value of acknowledging and establishing roots in our communities—in our religious communities, local ecologies, and national governance. Our understanding of healing, restoration, and hope will shape our response to environmental crises for present and future generations.

We encourage applications from graduate students and other rising voices in the fields of Religious Studies, Law & Policy, Philosophy, History, Environmental Studies, Gender and Race Studies, Art History and from other fields whose work orbits this year’s conference topic. In addition to traditional conference papers, we also invite creative projects and presentations to constitute this year’s program. We especially encourage applicants from historically underrepresented backgrounds to apply, and encourage interdisciplinary work across these topics to reflect the aims of this conference.

Possible topics of interest include:

1. Inter-religious practices that reconsider the time and location of rest
2. Spiritual engagement with environmental restoration (i.e. relational philosophies that define restoration through the lens of social justice, Indigenous knowledge, and/or Afro-futurisms)
3. Slow and deliberate approaches to environmental solutions in light of urgent policy-making (i.e. innovations in regenerative agriculture, re-wilding, and access to green spaces)
4. Local and global leadership to promote communal, ecological, and religious hope
5. Community relations bridging science and religion to inspire healing (physical, psychological, and ecological)