Education

PhD Religious Ethics, University of Virginia

Research Interests

Religious ethics; environmental ethics; religion and ecology; environmental humanities; Christian ethics.

I study interactions of moral imagination with environmental change along several lines of inquiry. I explore how religion (variously understood) may matter for understanding environmental challenges. I have written two books on shifts in Christian thought in response to ecological issues and continue to follow developments in that tradition. I read and write about climate justice and ethics amidst extinction. In recent years my research has arisen from projects integrating arts and humanities into multidisciplinary environmental change research, especially the Coastal Futures Conservatory, which I co-direct with Matthew Burtner (Music) and Karen McGlathery (Environmental Sciences).

I am currently working on a book tentatively entitled After Humanity, on post-humanist approaches to the study of religion, ethics, and environment.

Teaching

• RELG 2210 Religion, Ethics, & Environment
• RELG 3820 Climate Ethics
• RELG/LAW 5870 Climate Law, Climate Ethics

Awards

• 2008 Templeton Award for Theological Promise (for Ecologies of Grace: Christian Theology and Environmental Ethics)
• 2014 American Academy of Religion Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion (for The Future of Ethics: Sustainability, Social Justice, and Religious Creativity)

Selected Publications

• “Loving Swarms: Religious Ethics & Mass Extinctions,” in Religion and Extinction (2024, ed.s Stefan Skrimshire & Jeremy Kidwell)
• “Ethics after Humanity,” Journal of Religious Ethics (2023)
• “Religion and Climate Change: The Emerging Research Agenda,” in Climate Change and Religious Lifeworlds (2021 ed. David Haberman)
• "Coastal Futures Conservatory: Listening as a Model for Integrating Arts and Humanities into Environmental Change Research,” Environmental Humanities (2021)
• "Values-Based Scenarios of Water Security” Bioscience (2021)
• "Sacred Places and Planetary Stresses: Sanctuaries as Laboratories of Religious and Ecological Change,” Religions (2020).
• “Religion and Climate Change” (2018) Annual Review of Environment and Resourcs
• “The Mysterious Silence of Mother Earth in Laudato Si” (2018) Journal of Religious Ethics
• Routledge Handbook of Religion and Ecology (2017, co-edited with Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim)
• “The Turn to Virtue in Climate Ethics” (2016) Environmental Ethics

Many publications available at https://virginia.academia.edu/WillisJenkins