Eco-Feminism, New Materialism and Ecological Theology

Eco-feminism and New Materialism offer two intersecting theoretical and activist movements addressing our current planetary crisis as it is marked by climate change, rapid degradations of eco-system, and ecological injustices. Both movements construct alternatives to western philosophical hierarchical dualisms such as mind and body, theory and practice, or the value of transcendence or mind/spirit over immanence and body/earth by revaluing the agency of other-than-human matter. New materialism is a relatively new movement and seeks to displace human privilege by attending to the agency of matter itself, especially other-than-human matter. Discoveries in quantum physics, the advances in complexity, chaos, emergence, and systems theories, as well as crucial environmental concerns like climate change have impressed upon scholars a profound sense that the material world is not dead, passive, or inert, but vital, animated, and even agential. This course studies these important movements in conversation with ecofeminist theology and ecological theology. The attention to ecofeminist thought is key because in analyzing the ways western thinkers have shaped a sense of matter as feminized, passive, or inert, New Materialism and (feminist) theological responses to our planetary emergency (most notably climate change) are relying on ecofeminist methodologies and analyses.