Joseph Wiebe, PhD

Area of Study / Keywords

Social Transformations Energy and Environment Agriculture and Food Program: Ethics and Global Studies

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About

M.T.S Duke Divinity School

Ph.D McMaster University

I am a Professor of Religion and Ecology in the Ethics and Global Studies at University of Alberta, Augustana. My Book The Place of Imagination: Wendell Berry and the Poetics of Community, Affection, and Identity has received academic praise in Reading Religion, ISLE, Anglican Theological Review, Christianity and Literature, Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, and Christian Century. It is a critical reading of Berry's fiction that emphasizes the role of imagination in community and environmental ethics. My current project is researching the influence of settler colonialism on Mennonite environmental imagination and eco-theology.

As a close friend once said, "I don't have hobbies; I have friends." When I'm not building Lego or playing Switch with my family, I'm having a pint, rolling d20s, breaking down the Winnipeg Jets' myriad problems, or talking about books I haven't read with my kindred spirits.

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Research

Book

The Place of Imagination: Wendell Berry and the Poetics of Community, Affection, and Identity. Baylor University Press, 2017.

Co-edited Volume

Messianic Imagination: Politics, Theology, and Literature Co-edited with Paul G. Doerksen, Maxwell Kennel, and Grant Poettcker. Cascade Books, 2025.

Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Co-authored with Greg Wiebe, “Mediating Divine Love in the Messianic Imagination” in Messianic Imagination: Ethics, Literature, and Theology. Edited by Joseph R. Wiebe, Paul G. Doerksen, Maxwell Kennell, and Grant Poettcker, pp. 9-25. Cascade Books, 2025.

“Eating for a Human Economy: Food Politics and Pleasures in Wendell Berry’s Fiction,” Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment Vol 32.3 (Fall 2025): 834–854.

Co-authored with Sydney Thackeray “The Mennonite case for counter-sovereignty through Indigenous assimilation: Settler colonialism, self-determination and relation to place in religious identity.” Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses Vol 53.1 (2024): 113-133.

“Reassessing Mennonite Environmentalism through Settler-Colonialism: Addressing Political Deficiencies, Historical Omissions, and Indigenous Responses.” Mennonite Quarterly Review 96.3 (2022): 355-380.

“Cultural Appropriation in Bioregionalism and the Need for a Decolonial Ethics of Place.” Journal of Religious Ethics 49.1 (2021): 138-158.

“Jedediah Purdy’s Environmental Politics.” Conrad Grebel Review 38.3 (2020): 209-221.

“Personhood and Place in Wendell Berry's Remembering.” Christianity and Literature 69.2 (2020): 197-218.

“Race, Religion, and Land in The God’s of Indian Country.” Anabaptist Witness. 7.2 (2020): 177-181.

“Race, Place, and Radical Remembering in Wendell Berry’s Andy Catlett: Early Travels.” Literature and Theology 32.3 (2018): 340-356.

“On the Mennonite-Métis Borderland: Environment, Colonialism, and Settlement in Manitoba.” Journal of Mennonite Studies 35 (2017): 111-126.

“‘It Don’t Matter That Some Fool Say He Different’: The Pretense of Frank Sobotka’s Self-Sacrifice,” In Corners in the City of God: The Wire and Theology. Edited by Jonathan Tran and Myles Werntz, pp. 230-248.  Cascade Books, 2013.

“‘To Serve the Dead’: Fidelity and Resistance in Antigone.” In The Church Made Strange for the Nations, edited by Paul Doerksen and Karl Koop, pp. 100-111. Pickwick Publications, 2011.

Editorial Work

Symposium on Christiana Zenner’s Just Water. Syndicate 9.7 (2022)

Two special issues on Jedediah Purdy's Environmental Politics Conrad Grebel Review 38.3 (2020) and 39.1(2021)

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Teaching

Introduction to Religion

Religion and Ecology

Christianity and Climate Change

Bioethics, Suffering, and the Soul

AUIDS 101 - First Year Seminar

Selected topics that highlight the interdisciplinary nature of the Liberal Arts and Sciences. This seminar-style class is the first course in Augustana's Core. The focus and content of each course are determined by faculty interests, and vary from year to year.

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AUREL 345 - Religion and Ecology

This course examines the complexities and tensions in formulating religious responses to environmental problems. It looks at how eco justice, stewardship, ecological spirituality, and ecofeminism integrate Christian traditions with environmental responsibility. It also devotes substantial time to outlining the ways place-based identities address issues related to colonialism, environmental racism, technology and community. Note: Credit may be obtained for only one of AUREL 345 and AUENV 345.

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Browse more courses taught by Joseph Wiebe

Joseph R Wiebe

ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment. 2023 December; 10.1093/isle/isad079

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Joseph R. Wiebe and Sydney Thackeray

Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses. 2023 May; 10.1177/00084298231165443

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