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

• Mennonite Quarterly Review
• “Cultural Appropriation in Bioregionalism and the Need for a Decolonial Ethics of Place.” Journal of Religious Ethics
• “Jedediah Purdy’s Environmental Politics.” Conrad Grebel Review
• “Personhood and Place in Wendell Berry's Remembering.” Christianity and Literature
• “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 TravelsLiterature and Theology
• “On the Mennonite-Métis Borderland: Environment, Colonialism, and Settlement in Manitoba.” Journal of Mennonite Studies

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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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View additional publications