Globalization and climate weirding are two of the leading phenomena that challenge and change the way we need to think and act within the planetary community. Modern Western understandings of human beings, animals, and the rest of the natural world and the subsequent technologies built on those understandings have thrown us into an array of social and ecological crises with planetary implications. Earthly Things: Immanence, New Materialisms, and Planetary Thinking, argues that more immanent or planetary ways of thinking and acting have great potential for re-thinking human-technology-animal-Earth relationships and for addressing problems of global climate weirding and other forms of ecological degradation. Older and often-marginalized forms of thought from animisms, shamanisms, and other religious traditions are joined by more recent forms of thinking with immanence such as the universe story, process thought, emergence theory, the new materialisms (NM's), object-oriented ontologies (OOO's), affect theory, and queer theory. This book maps out some of the connections and differences between immanent frameworks to provide some eco-intellectual commons for thinking within the planetary community, with a particular emphasis on making connections between more recent theories and older ideas of immanence found in many of the world's religious traditions. The authors in this volume met and worked together over five years, so the resulting volume reveals sustained and multifaceted perspectives on "thinking and acting with the planet."
Karen Bray (Edited By) Karen Bray is Associate Professor of Religion, Philosophy, and Social Change and Director of the Honors Program at Wesleyan College. Her recent publications include Grave Attending: A Political Theology for the Unredeemed and the co-edited volume Religion, Emotion, Sensation: Affect Theories and Theologies. Heather Eaton (Edited By) Heather Eaton is Full Professor at St. Paul University in Ottawa, Canada. She is the author of Introducing Ecofeminist Theologies, co-editor, with Lauren Levesque, of Advancing Nonviolence and Social Transformation, and editor of The Intellectual Journey of Thomas Berry: Imagining the Earth Community. Whitney Bauman (Edited By) Whitney Bauman is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Florida International University in Miami, Florida. He is also co-founder and co-director of Counterpoint: Navigating Knowledge, a nonprofit based in Berlin, Germany. His publications include Religion and Ecology: Developing a Planetary Ethic andEnvironmental Ethics and Uncertainty: Tackling Wicked Problems (co-written with Kevin O'Brien).
Introduction Karen Bray, Heather Eaton, and Whitney Bauman 1 Confucianism as a Form of Immanental Naturalism Mary Evelyn Tucker 15 Immanence in Hinduism and Jainism: New Planetary Thinking? Christopher Key Chapple 31 Mountains Preach the Dharma: Immanence in Maha?ya?na Buddhism Christopher Ives 49 Africana Sacred Matters: Religious Materialities in Africa, the Caribbean, and the Americas Elana Jefferson-Tatum 60 We have always been animists . . . Graham Harvey 74 Indigenous Cosmovisions and a Humanist Perspective on Materialism John Grim 88 Amorous Entanglements: The Matter of Christian Panentheism Catherine Keller 99 On the Matter of Hope: Weaving Threads of Jewish Wisdom for the Sake of the Planetary O'neil Van Horn 111 Oily Animations: On Protestantism and Petroleum Terra Schwerin Rowe 123 Interreligious Approaches to Sustainability Without a Future: Two New Materialist Proposals for Religion and Ecology Kevin Minister 136 Which Materialism, Whose Planetary Thinking? Joerg Rieger 148 Rewilding Religion for a Primeval Future Sarah M. Pike 161 Planetary Thinking, Agency, and Relationality: Religious Naturalism's Plea Carol Wayne White 173 Dancing Immanence: A Philosophy of Bodily Becoming Kimerer L. LaMothe 186 The Animist, Almost Feminist, Quite Nearly Pantheist Old Materialism of Giordano Bruno Mary-Jane Rubenstein 198 Emergence Theory and the New Materialisms Kevin Schilbrack 210 New Materialisms and Planetary Persistence, Purpose, and Politics Heather Eaton 222 Gut Theology: The Peril and Promise of Political Affect Karen Bray 234 The Entangled Relations of Our Ecological Crisis: Religion, Capitalism's Logics, and New Forms of Planetary Thinking Matthew R. Hartman 248 Solidarity with Nonhumans: Being Ecological with Object-Oriented Ontology Sam Mickey 260 Developing a Critical Romantic Religiosity for a Planetary Community Whitney A. Bauman 274 Matter Values: Ethics and Politics for a Planet in Crisis Philip Clayton 289 Acknowledgments 303 Bibliography 305 List of Contributors 335 Index 341
Earthly Things is brimming with fruitful insights, generative extensions, and stimulating rapprochements. I hope it finds curious and open-minded audiences invested in religious studies, science and technology studies, philosophy, and the environmental humanities.-- "H-Net Reviews"
