Sarah McFarland Taylor
Encyclopedia
Sarah McFarland Taylor is an American academic and author. She is currently Associate Professor of Religion in the Department of Religious Studies at Northwestern University
, where she also teaches in the Environmental Policy and Culture Program. Areas of focus include women's studies in religion, religion and ecology, and religion and American culture.
Taylor has held numerous fellowships, including the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
Postdoctoral Fellowship, a Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation
Career Enhancement Fellowship, a Rockefeller Foundation
Humanities Fellowship, a Wabash Center Fellowship, and a Louisville Institute Fellowship. For the 2008-2009 school year, she held the Senior Research Fellowship at the Martin Marty Center for the Advanced Study of Religion at the University of Chicago Divinity School
.
Her 2007 book Green Sisters: A Spiritual Ecology
won two awards from the Catholic Press Association
for Best Book on Gender Issues as well as Best Book on Social Concerns. Published by the Harvard University
press, Green Sisters highlights Roman Catholic religious sisters who have taken up environmental activism, including the Dominican Sisters' Genesis Farm, the Green Mountain Monastery, White Violet Center for Eco-Justice
of the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods
, and the Sisters of the Presentation straw-bale welcome center.
In "What If Religions Had Ecologies?: The Case for Reinhabiting Religious Studies" (Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture, Summer 2007), Taylor argues that meaningful connections need to be forged between the literary realm of ecocriticism
and religious studies, and more attention needs to be paid to the natural history of the physical environments that religious communities inhabit and to how those communities shape and are in turn shaped by those environments. When physical environments are considered as integral parts of academic religious inquiry and no longer rendered invisible or relegated to mere ‘backdrops’ for the larger human drama, contends Taylor, scholars will be able to provide a more nuanced sense of religion as it is truly lived in context. Taylor continues to theorize the concept of "spiritual ecology
" in her work.
The author currently has two books in process: Eternally Green: American Religion and the Ecology of Death, which looks at the green burial movement, and Eco-Prophecy: Religious Responses to Global Climate Change.
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
, where she also teaches in the Environmental Policy and Culture Program. Areas of focus include women's studies in religion, religion and ecology, and religion and American culture.
Taylor has held numerous fellowships, including the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation of New York City and Princeton, New Jersey in the United States, is a private foundation with five core areas of interest, endowed with wealth accumulated by the late Andrew W. Mellon of the Mellon family of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is the product of the 1969...
Postdoctoral Fellowship, a Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation
Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation
The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation is a private non-profit foundation based in Princeton, New Jersey. It administers programs that support leadership development and build organizational capacity in education. Its current signature program is the...
Career Enhancement Fellowship, a Rockefeller Foundation
Rockefeller Foundation
The Rockefeller Foundation is a prominent philanthropic organization and private foundation based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The preeminent institution established by the six-generation Rockefeller family, it was founded by John D. Rockefeller , along with his son John D. Rockefeller, Jr...
Humanities Fellowship, a Wabash Center Fellowship, and a Louisville Institute Fellowship. For the 2008-2009 school year, she held the Senior Research Fellowship at the Martin Marty Center for the Advanced Study of Religion at the University of Chicago Divinity School
University of Chicago Divinity School
The University of Chicago Divinity School is a graduate institution at the University of Chicago dedicated to the training of academics and clergy across religious boundaries...
.
Her 2007 book Green Sisters: A Spiritual Ecology
Spiritual ecology
Spiritual ecology is a recent term that refers to the intersection between religion and spirituality and environment . Practitioners of spiritual ecology fall into three categories: the scientific and academic, spiritual or religious environmentalism, and religious or spiritual individuals who...
won two awards from the Catholic Press Association
Catholic Press Association
The Catholic Press Association of the United States and Canada is an association of newspaper and media specialists specialized on reporting on the Roman Catholic Church. Founded in 1911, it has over 600 member organizations...
for Best Book on Gender Issues as well as Best Book on Social Concerns. Published by the Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
press, Green Sisters highlights Roman Catholic religious sisters who have taken up environmental activism, including the Dominican Sisters' Genesis Farm, the Green Mountain Monastery, White Violet Center for Eco-Justice
White Violet Center for Eco-Justice
White Violet Center for Eco-Justice is a non-profit eco-justice education center focusing on organic agriculture, spiritual ecology and social advocacy. Founded in 1996 by Sister of Providence Ann Sullivan, the center is a ministry of the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana...
of the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods
Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods
The Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods are an apostolic congregation of Catholic women founded by Saint Theodora Guerin at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana, in 1840...
, and the Sisters of the Presentation straw-bale welcome center.
In "What If Religions Had Ecologies?: The Case for Reinhabiting Religious Studies" (Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture, Summer 2007), Taylor argues that meaningful connections need to be forged between the literary realm of ecocriticism
Ecocriticism
Ecocriticism is the study of literature and environment from an interdisciplinary point of view where all sciences come together to analyze the environment and brainstorm possible solutions for the correction of the contemporary environmental situation...
and religious studies, and more attention needs to be paid to the natural history of the physical environments that religious communities inhabit and to how those communities shape and are in turn shaped by those environments. When physical environments are considered as integral parts of academic religious inquiry and no longer rendered invisible or relegated to mere ‘backdrops’ for the larger human drama, contends Taylor, scholars will be able to provide a more nuanced sense of religion as it is truly lived in context. Taylor continues to theorize the concept of "spiritual ecology
Spiritual ecology
Spiritual ecology is a recent term that refers to the intersection between religion and spirituality and environment . Practitioners of spiritual ecology fall into three categories: the scientific and academic, spiritual or religious environmentalism, and religious or spiritual individuals who...
" in her work.
The author currently has two books in process: Eternally Green: American Religion and the Ecology of Death, which looks at the green burial movement, and Eco-Prophecy: Religious Responses to Global Climate Change.