This session meeting will examine the groundbreaking work completed over the past five years in the field of religion and ecology by assessing scholarly work and helping to define future directions for The Forum on Religion and Ecology.

At the very basis of this work is both the Harvard University Center for the Study of World Religions (CSWR) conference and book series on World Religions and Ecology.The series of ten conferences held at Harvard University from May 1996 through July 1998 serve as a milestone in the development of the emerging field of religion and ecology. The conferences, sponsored by the Harvard University Center for the Study of World Religions, examined the topic of religion and ecology from the perspective of ten major religious traditions: Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Indigenous traditions, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Shinto, and Daoism. These gatherings generated an eleven volume scholarly series of books on World Religion and Ecology. To date, five volumes from the series have been published: Buddhism and Ecology (1997), Confucianism and Ecology (1998), Christianity and Ecology (2000), Hinduism and Ecology (2000), and Indigenous Traditions and Ecology (2001). Two additional volumes, Daoism and Ecology (forthcoming, fall 2001) and Judaism and Ecology (forthcoming) are nearing the end of the production process, and the final four volumes are in the beginning stages of production. The ambitious scope of each book, exemplified by the 720-page volume on Christianity and Ecology, critically examines the topic of religion and ecology from a scholarly perspective. For the first time in religious history, these books bring together leading specialists who examine contemporary social and environmental problems from a religious perspective. They are a clear step forward in the process of identifying ecologically pertinent resources within each of the traditions, and they decisively advance the field of religion and ecology as an academic discipline.

Mary Evelyn Tucker, Bucknell University (Confucianism), will introduce and preside over the event.

Bron Taylor, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh (religion and social ethics), will serve as respondent.

All presentations will include two central foci:

1. An assessment of published volumes
2. The defining of future goals for the work of the Forum on Religion and Ecology

In assessing the book series, panelists will ask:

1. What are the merits, deficiencies, and areas of omission in these volumes?
2. What has been discovered about each tradition?
3. What has been learned about the field of religion and ecology?
4. Were there any unexpected outcomes?

In order to define future goals for the Forum on Religion and Ecology, the panelists will ask:

1. How can the Forum tap into the creative energy experienced at the conferences?
2. How does religion and ecology relate to and challenge the broader field of religious studies?
3. How can dialogue with other environmentally related disciplines be deepened?

In addition to defining future goals, the Forum recognizes that it may be time to advance the infrastructure of the field of religion and ecology through further publications, continued development and sharing of new courses, outreach to colleagues in religious studies, increased links to other disciplines, and the establishment of full-fledged graduate programs. Therefore, this discussion will also consider the range of scholarly expertise expected from professional members within this field. Two central questions in this regard include:

1. How much emphasis should be placed on explicit training in religion and ecology?
2. For those specializing in religions of Asian origin, how essential is training in “area studies” (usually understood to include competence in canonical languages and firsthand knowledge of Asian culture)?

Panelists will speak approximately ten minutes. Open discussion and questions will follow panel presentations.

Proposed participants are well qualified to address the task at hand. All of the participants in these sessions are concerned with the future of the study of religion and ecology and many of the panelists were involved in the production of at least one of the books in the CSWR World Religions and Ecology series.