Fields of Study —

Religion and Nature - Graduate Curriculum

In addition to the general program requirements for the Ph.D. in Religion, the Religion and Nature emphasis requires four, three-credit Religion core courses, and four, three-credit Religion electives that have been specified as RN electives. Additionally, one course from the natural sciences must be taken as determined and approved in consultation with advising faculty, unless this requirement has been met by previous course work or work experience and has been formally waived by advising faculty.

The rest of the required credits may be drawn from additional religion courses or courses offered by from other UF programs that explore religion, nature, and the environmental sciences.

Core Requirements

1) Religion and Nature (Core Seminar)

2) Religion and Environmental Ethics

3) One course (minimum) from the following list of courses exploring Religion and Nature in the Western World:

a. Religion and Nature in North America
b. Religion and Nature in Latin America
c. Judaism and Nature
d. Christianity and Nature
e. Islam and Nature
f. Radical Environmentalism

4) One course (minimum) from the following list of courses exploring Religion and Nature in Asia

a. Religion and Nature in Asia
b. Hinduism and Nature*
c. Buddhism and Nature*

Religion and Nature Electives

• Religion and Animals
• Globalizing the Sacred
• Ethics, Utopias, and Dystopias
• Indigenous Religions and Nature*
• Doing Fieldwork in Religious Studies

*Envisioned and important but not confirmed with faculty committed to offering the course.

Note: the above requirements may be modified by petitioning religion and nature faculty and by a majority vote approving the requested modification.

Electives offered by other programs at the University of Florida

The University of Florida has a rich array of environment-related courses that take seriously the religious dimensions of culture-nature interactions. These include concentrations in "Ecological Anthropology," the "History of Science," and "Tropical Conservation and Development." Graduate students may wish to develop an expertise in one or more of these areas, or to develop their own concentrations (for example, in ecology or conservation biology, or in environmental philosophy, sociology, or political science, or in qualitative and/or quantitative research methods), to complement the religion and nature courses offered by the religion department