European Forum for the Study

of Religion and the Environment

Annual Conference

May 17^th–19^th, 2024

Bildungsforum

Potsdam, Germany

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Quick Guide to the Conference

Program:

 

Rooms: Every hour of sessions is divided into individual panels, usually consisting of two presentations at a time, in one of the four conference rooms, and are always listed in that order: Süring, Volmer, Gundling, or the Potsdam Lab.

 

Headings: To give the sessions thematic coherence, each session has been categorized based both on temporality––past, present, future––and the elements they involve or resemble––earth, air, water, and fire.

Fire, Water, Earth, Air – four elements that dialogue with each other to create the natural world that we think everyone here is interested in protecting.

We wanted to add a further nuance to these groupings, by bringing in temporality – past, present, and future.

 The idea is to have dialogue across faiths, and yet have some sort of thematic focus. We want to spark off conversations and dismantle silos. We hope we will succeed and most importantly, that you will have fun with what we did.

 

Saturday Evening: after the conference panels there will be a break before the evening events, including an art exhibition and performances, which will take place at the Orangerie at the Biosphäre Potsdam. A map has been provided to the location.

 

Abstracts and Speaker Affiliations will be available on the website and will be available for download and printing.

 

 

 

 

FRIDAY

 

 

EFSRE Business Meeting: Potsdam Lab

 

 

Break: Schwarzschild

 

 

Past Fire: Süring

Hubert Meisinger (Director for Environmental Affairs, Protestant Church in Hesse and Nassau): Sustainability, Climate Change and the Integrity of Creation – A New Testament Approach

Kate Rigby (University of Cologne): Restor(y)ing Creation: Decolonising the Biblical Narrative

 

Past Air: Volmer

Noel Boulting (chairperson, NOBOSS): Is Myth, Given its Associations with the Archaic, a Fitting Genre for Today?

 

Masoud Shavarani (International University of Islamic Denominations): Transferring a Zoroastrian Myth to Islam and Its Destructive Function in Destroying Nature

 

Panel: Potsdam Lab

Do We Have to Shift our Focus from the Paradigm of Doing to the Realm of Being?

Helmut J. Wagner (Board of Directors of the State Capital, Munich), Carolin Fraude (Helmholtz-Zentrum Potsdam), Jonathan Schorsch (Universität Potsdam), Thorsten Ludwig

 

Online Session Present Air: Gundling

Peter Jones (NHS Professionals & Independent Researcher): Making Sense of Myth, Ritual, Practice, Theory and Reality      

 

Morufu Omigbule (Obafemi Awolowo University): Altering the Dangerous Ecological Trend: Lessons from the Yoruba Mythic and Ritual Ecological Principles

 

 

Break: Schwarzschild

 

 

Past Earth: Süring

Guelfo Carbone (Roma Tre University): Political Theory of Myth

 

Eli Ashkenazi (Oranim College and Beit Berl College): Bedouins' Sacred Trees in the Negev Desert, Southern Israel, prior 1948

 

Future Air: Volmer

Helmut J. Wagner: Homo Empathicus – A Model for the Human-Ecological Reorganization of a Sustainable Society

 

Matthew Eaton (Georgetown Univeristy): On the Cruciform God and Other Ecological Divinities: Christian Polytheism in an Age of Ecological Catastrophe

 

Book(s) launch: Potsdam Lab

Panel discussion for the volume from previous EFSRE conference, Religion, Materialism and Religion, and Kate Rigby’s Meditations on Creation in an Era of Extinction. Panel: Peter Scott (University of Manchester) and Kate Rigby (University of Cologne)sh

 

Online Session Past Air: Gundling

Daniel Nii Aboagye Aryeh: Invoking the Divine and Ecological Protection in Africa: Socio-Cultural Criticism of Luke 4:1-13

Deborah De Koning and Frank Bosman: Ecological Mourning in the Climate Crisis: Intertextuality and the Relevance of Religion in Dutch Climate Discourse

 

 

Welcome, Buffet Dinner

 

Keynote 1: Potsdam Lab

 

Charlotte Du Cann (Activist and Author): The Ceilidh and the Kiva

SATURDAY

 

 

Meditation: Potsdam Lab

 

 

Panel: Süring

The Challenge of Climate Change in the Nordic Countries from Religious and Theological Perspectives Lovisa Mienna Sjöberg (Sámi allaskuvla), Michael Nausner (University College Stockholm)

 

Present Earth: Volmer

Tom Tomren (VID Specialized University, Stavanger): An Ecocritical Analysis of Decisions and Statements of the Sami Church Council in Norway

 

Jessica Gansonkeng (Wageningen University): Governance of Sacred Forests in Cameroon: Prospects for Sustainable Management in the Western Region

 

Present Earth: Potsdam Lab (1)

Cecil Konijnendijk (Director, Nature Based Solutions Institute): Re connecting People and Place through the Spiritual Values of Urban Forests

 

Andrea Hiott (Heidelberg Universität): Soul Meets Body: Walking as Joint Presence

 

Past Air: Panel Discussion: Potsdam Lab (2)

Religion, Disenchantment, and our Place(s) in the World: German Writers and Theologians on Religion, Environments, and the Practices of Modern Life

Sophie Duvernoy (Yale University), Michael Lesley (Harvard Divinity School)

 

Online Session Present Air: Gundling

Manisha Sheth (founder, eCoexist): Punaravartan: The Reestablishment of Circularity through a Change in Ritual Form in the Festival of Ganesh Chaturthi

 

Thaddée Chantry-Gellens (Chinese University of Hong Kong (香港中文大學)): The Zhuangzi, Myth, and Our Relationship with Nature

 

Break: Schwarzschild

 

Present Earth: Süring

Andrew Blosser (Marquette University): Property-Rights, Ecology, and Sabbath: John Locke Meets Abraham Joshua Heschel in the Anthropocene

 

Bas Verschuuren: Faith and Conservation 2.0

 

Present Air: Volmer

Ömer Gürlesin (Tilburg University): Unraveling Biocentric Themes in Anatolian Sufism: Implications for Environmental Education in the Age of the Anthropocene

 

Samuel Shearn (University of Mainz): The Consolation of Dark Ecology. Theological Motifs in the Writings of Timothy Morton

 

Future Earth: Panel Discussion: Potsdam Lab

Ash, Bone, Oak and Stone: Rewilding Cinderella Ritual

Joanna Gilar (Wildstory Commons), Gauri Raje, Fleur Shorthouse Hemmings (Wildstory Commons), Sophie Gibson (Wildstory commons)

 

Online Session Future Air: Gundling

Masoud Hassany, Shina Sad Berenji, and Salma Talebi Amiri: Creating a Process of Equilibrium and Revitalization in Natural Environmental Resources by the Implementation of the Rules and Teachings of Faith and Ethics

 

Aura Elena Schussler (Babeș-Bolyai University): A Posthumanist Approach Towards a Symbiotic Recomposition of Mytho-ecologies in the Current Ecological Crisis

 

 

Break Schwarzschild

 

Book Panel: Süring

Todd LeVasseur (Yale NUS): Panel discussion about his book, “Climate Change, Religion, and Our Bodily Future”

Future Earth: Thinking about Pedagogy: Volmer

Jeane Peracullo (De La Salle University, Manila): Reimagining Participatory Action Research as Engaged Pedagogy for the Precarious Times

 

Victor Manuel Morales (Am Waldhof Gymnasium): Ecological Metanarratives and Green Pedagogy

 

Future Water: Potsdam Lab (1)

Manuel May Castillo (Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich) Indigenous Water Rituals

 

Anastasia Badder (University of Cambridge): Negotiating ‘Value’: Water, Waste, and Collaborative Futures in a Research-Practice Partnership

 

Present Water: Potsdam Lab (2)

Seoyoung Kim (University of Manchester): Water and Baptism, an Ecofeminist Approach

 

Brooke Grasberger (Boston College): Ship, Sea, Work: The Faith of Sailors

 

Book Panel: Gundling

Religion and Nature Conservation: Global Case Studies 

Radhika Borde (University of Leeds), Jonathan Schorsch (Universität Potsdam), Bas Verschuuren (Wageningen University)

 

 

Lunch Schwarzschild

 

 

Future Water: Süring

Mina Yi (Graduate Theological Union): Engaging with the World of Material: through Phyllida Barlow’s Eleven Columns

 

Giridhar Raghunathan: Sacred and the Sewage: the Many Facets of the Ganges as Depicted in the Classical Indian Dance Ballet Namamey Gange

 

Future Air: Volmer

Timothy Stacey (Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development): Unlikely Allies: Unleashing Gaian Repertoires in the Centres of Western Science and Policy

 

Norah Zuniga Shaw (Livable Futures): Livable Futures: Transmedia Performance Rituals

Future Earth: Potsdam Lab

Annette Homann (Architect): The Poetic A-Priori of Space: Sanctuaries in the Face of Collapse

 

Grace Johnson (Waterford Institute of Technology): Could Post-Humanist Theory in Architecture Exist to Transform the Age of Ecological Catastrophe?

 

Online Session: Present Earth: Gundling

Ritu Dhingra: Hindu Ethics and Environmental Conservation

 

Hanna Ylikangas: The Possibilities of Ecofeminist Christian Theology to an Anthropocene in Crisis

 

Irene Wolfstone (Educator): Critical Ecopedagogy and Radical Literacy for Designing Local Climate Change Adaptations in the Pluriverse

 

 

Break Schwarzschild

 

 

Future Fire: Süring

Russell C. Powell (Center for the Study of World Religions): Back to the Future: Climate Change, Apocalypticism, and Hope

 

Joshua Bergamin (Universität Wien): Around One Fire: Building Community through Seasonal Ritual

 

Panel Discussion: Volmer

Earthly Things: Immanence, New Materialism and Planetary Thinking

Whitney Bauman (Florida International University), Christopher Key Chapple (Loyola Marymount University), Kevin Minister (Shenandoah University)

 

Future Earth: Panel Discussion: Potsdam Lab

Layered Places: Three Creative Approaches to Reimagine Storied Landscape in the Age of the Anthropocene

Tracy Fahey (Technological University of the Shannon), Ciara Healy (Technological University of the Shannon), Stefano Odorico (Technological University of the Shannon)

 

Future Earth: Gundling

Aksel Johan Lund (VID Specialized University, Stavanger): That We Can Have Hope and a Future on Earth: An Ecocritical Reading of “Green” Collects from the Church of Norway

 

Annika Benz: Between Scripture and (Anti-)Capitalism: Spiritualizing a German Climate Movement

 

 

Break

Biosphäre Potsdam: Art Exhibition and Evening Programming

Doors open at 18.00, program begins at 19.00

 

Echoes of the Future, Artistic intervention at Biosphäre

Jenny Alten, Patricia Detmering, Swaantje Güntzel, Udo Koloska, Käthe Wenzel, Cécile Wesolowski

 

Classical Indian Dance

Giridhar Raghunathan (University of Roehampton)

 

Vinotok

Banishing the Grump ~ Marrying the Earth: A Wild and Wonderful Passion Play of Artful Action Against Extractive Mining ~ from High in the Colorado Rocky Mountains

Marcie Telander (Vinotok Festival Founder), Mark Schwiesow, K.T. Folz (Vinotok Festivarian Arts Activist), Jo Corbin Ellipsis (Vinotok Festivarian Arts Activist), Eric DiMarco (Vinotok Festivarian Arts Activist), Isabel Russell (University of Colorado Boulder, Vinotok Festivarian Arts Activist), Heather Clark (Vinotok Festivarian Arts Activist), Chad Reich

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SUNDAY

 

 

Meditation: Potsdam Lab

 

 

Keynote Address 2: Potsdam Lab

Alastair McIntosh (Activist and Author): Calling Back the Flow of Life to the Community

 

 

Break: Schwarzschild

 

 

Present Earth: Süring

David Krantz (College of Global Futures, Arizona State University): The Legacy of the Myth of the Unnatural Jew: Anti-Semitism in and Exclusion from the American Environmental Movement

 

Diana Lunkwitz (Independent researcher): Queering Imperialist Nature Myths in Christian Mission History

 

Future Earth: Volmer

Paul Spencer Sochaczewski (Former Director of Creative Services, WWF International): Eco-Sisyphus: Getting Out of Our Heads and into Our Hearts. Can Better Communications Improve Our Optimism Factor?

 

Ana Honnacker (Hochschule für Philosophie München) and Asmus Trautsch (Independent scholar): How to Cultivate Rebellious Eco-emotions

 

Future Earth: Potsdam Lab

Erik Assadourian (The Gaian Way): Following the Gaian Way: On the Development of an Ecospiritual Path to Navigate the Polycrisis

 

Arthur Obst (Princeton University): Gaia, Place, and the Peril of the Planetary Abstract