Joseph Wiebe, PhD

About

M.T.S Duke Divinity School

Ph.D McMaster University

I am an Associate 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.

Research

• "Eating for a Human Economy: Food Politics and Pleasures in Wendell Berry's Fiction," Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment (2023)
• "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 (2023) https://doi.org/10.1177/00084298231165443
  
• “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.

Teaching

Introduction to Religion

Religion and Ecology

Christianity and Climate Change

Bioethics, Suffering, and the Soul

AUENV 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 AUENV 345 and AUREL 345.

AUREL 100 - Introduction to Religion

An introduction to the study of religion, focusing on major religions of the world. The course briefly examines the histories of these religions and various social and cultural phenomena associated with them, and also introduces students to the contemporary discipline of religious studies and the theories and methods associated with it.

AUREL 259 - Bioethics, Suffering and the Soul

This course surveys the varied approaches to healing and experiences of sickness in modern life. It does so by investigating health, healing, and religion philosophically (in the way we think about ourselves), culturally (in the way we live), and existentially (in the way we experience our lives). Much of our discussion focuses on medicine, identity, and ethics primarily because a central factor that orients discussions about each is suffering. How we relieve, come to terms with, and act out our suffering have become the predominant features of modern life in western culture. Specific themes covered are the interconnections among dependence, suffering and identity; and the significance of religion for therapy and palliative care.

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.

Browse more courses taught by Joseph Wiebe

Joseph R. Wiebe and Sydney Thackeray

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