Return to the Roots: How We Move Forward

2026 Conference Presenters & Artists

Artists

We're thrilled to feature the work of 13 artists in our 2026 conference gallery

Learn more about our artists here

Annie M Russell

"The People"

Braxton Tanner

"marked landscapes"

Cayla Bleoaja

"Archaeology," "Anatomies," and "How to Cut a Root"

George Alford

"After the Chestnut Tree"

Hollis Cato

"TRASHKIN"

Michelle Cicillini

"Fruition: a mulberry devotional"

Pablo V. Cazares

"Chrysalis" and "Hole In The Wall"

Peter D. VanderBloomer

"Savanna Déjà Vu," "The Wild Bath" and "Catfish"

Peter Fulweiler

"Do we need to bring our backpacks tomorrow"

Regan Stacey

"Uprooted"

Stephanie Ruth Roston

"It Takes Time"

Stephanie Van Riet

"Portal” and "How a common sea snail explains the universe"

Varsha Manglam

"The Mud Beneath Our Feet: Decolonizing New Materialism Through Dabu-Resist Printmaking"

Presenters

This year we were able to welcome 37 students as our 2026 conference presenters

Click on the image of any presenter to read their biography and paper abstract.

Visit our Conference Schedule tab to view the time & location of each presentation.

Adedeji Joseph

"The Land Remembers What People Have Forgotten: African Theological Wisdom and the Economics of Place"

A'Dorian Murray-Thomas

"Soul Food Theologies: Womanist Waymaking in Food Justice"

Albert Elias Robertson

"Can Tradition Liberate? Towards a Regenerative Vision of Progress"

Allison LoPrete

"Roots of Reverence: Land Stewardship, Craft, and the Spiritual Ecology of Medieval Monasticism"

Azis Nurdin Ngadenan

“From Ancestral Roots to Islamic Faith: A Reflective Essay on Conversion and the Changing Ecological Ethos of the Baduy Indigenous Community in Banten, Indonesia.”

Benedict Reilly

"Real Presence: the Theological Role of Stones in the Prose and Poetry of Eli Clare"

Blake Long

"When Serpents Handle Us: Pentecostal Snake-handling as a Model for Ecological Relationality"

Braden Dyreson

"Refuge for the Homeless: Theodor Adorno's Critique of Rootedness"

Carlos Julio Chacón Preciado

"Against the Religious Roots of Our Ecological Crisis: Gaudí’s Chthonic Modernist Architecture and the Writing of a Biocentric Theology in Joan Maraga"

Cayla Bleoaja

"The Ecology of Rootedness: Simone Weil, Mycelial Networks, and the Religious Ecology of Resilience"

David Rice

"Coventry Cathedral: Roots, Resurrection, Reconciliation"

Diptangshu Dutta Gupta

"Fierce but Compassionate Guardianship: Vajrapāṇi and Yamāntaka as Ethical Models for Confronting Environmental and Societal Crisis"

Estrella Helena Gonzales

"A Cosmology of the Below: Rooted Intelligence, Ecological Futurity, and Decolonial Imagination"

Fellipe dos Anjos Pereira

"When Roots Become Flows: The Rhizomatic Force of Ancestry"

Frédérique Ndatirwa

"Un/settling the Demonic Ground: Theologizing Decolonial Ecology through Africville"

Freya Taylor

"Beyond the (En): Feminist Theology and Mary J. Rubenstein’s Plural Pantheism"

Gabriel M. Colombo

"City as Wilderness: The Monastic Tradition and Dark Ecology"

Hollis Cato

"TRASHKIN"

Isaac Carroo

"Volta ao Mundo: More-Than-Human Alliances in Capoeira"

Jess Navarette

"Nature as Divine Model: Hindu-Christian Perspectives on Ecology, Sustainability, and Spirituality"

Joyada Gultom

"Mulajadi na Bolon and the Sacred Earth: Indigenous Batak Cosmology and the Reimagining of Christian Ecotheology"

Juan Martínez Benavides

"Roots of Convergence: Pentecostal Land Defense, Ecofeminist Resistance, and Unlikely Alliances in Postwar El Salvador"

Juanita Woodson

"Trauma-Informed Pastoral Ecology: Lament, Liberation, and Congregational Climate Action"

Jules Morris

"Hippie Archaeology and the Back to the Land Movement of the 1960’s"

Julia Edwards, Ellen Zhu, Cole Quist

"The Cost of Roots: The Labor of Confluence "

Leda Zakarison

"Roots Across Borders: African Pentecostal Ecologies of Healing and Ancestral Memory in Korea"

Minkyu Lee

"Roots Across Borders: African Pentecostal Ecologies of Healing and Ancestral Memory in Korea"

Okuchukwu Akpe

"Roots in the Land: Sacred Geography, Ọsọndu, and Ecological Disruption in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart"

Prince Acquah

"Grieving with the Earth: An African Politics of Grievability and Place-Based Return"

Samuel Harrelson

"Roots of Cruciform Consciousness: Returning to the Ground of Ecological Intentionality"

Solomon Kwaghko

"Rooting in Relational Wisdom: Reimagining Tiv Greetings for Relational Accountability and Ecological Restoration"

Thea-Lena Schröder

"Global boiling, melting landscapes and solastalgia: an emotional theology of place"

Tosin Success Abolaji

"Ọ̀ṣun as a Primordial Divinity: Gender Roles in African Yoruba Eco-Spirituality in Ọ̀ṣun-Òṣogbo Grove in Nigeria"

Varsha Manglam

"The Mud Beneath Our Feet: Decolonizing New Materialism Through Dabu-Resist Printmaking"

William Eckley

"Embodied Belonging: Religion, Ecology, and the Work of Recovery"