Inaugural Conference on "Ecological Spiritualities"

Download 2022 Conference Schedule and Links to Recordings

From April 27-30 2022, Harvard Divinity School’s Program for the Evolution of Spirituality hosted its inaugural conference on “Ecological Spiritualities.”  The conference featured presentations and workshops exploring the evolution of earth-based spiritual traditions and highlighting innovative spiritual practices that are emerging in response to the painful realities of climate change, mass extinction, biodiversity loss, and the disruption of local and global ecosystems.

Speakers joined us from across the globe. They included professors and students from a variety of theoretical, methodological, and disciplinary perspectives. We also welcomed proposals from spiritual leaders, environmental activists, farmers, and others whose work places them at the intersection of spirituality and ecology. Paper topics spanned from interspecies interdependence to textual analysis to Indigenous cosmologies to spiritual appropriation to race and environmentalism to issues in contemporary paganism.  We hope that this broad range of methodological approaches, religious traditions, and geographical regions continues to create space for open discussions and a fruitful opportunity for deep learning among scholars, spiritual leaders, and others who care about the intersection of spirituality and ecology.