Stories

Sarah Robinson-Bertoni’s scholarship expresses solidarity through religious inclusion, ethnicity, gender, culture, and nature.  This year, her article on Muslim philosopher and theologian Seyyed Hossein Nasr appears in Key Thinkers on the Environment, ed. Joy A. Palmer Cooper and David E. Cooper (New York: Routledge, 2018).  This volume revises a 2001 book, Fifty Key Thinkers on the Environment.  Her invited contribution offers greater inclusion for Islam and Muslims, not present in the earlier volume.  In January, she attended the Society for the Study of Muslim Ethics, benefitting also from the joint meeting with the Societies for Christian Ethics and Jewish Ethics.  In early March, Robinson-Bertoni presented at the third annual Religion and Ecology Summit in San Francisco, reflecting on the value of ecofeminist scholarship to observe, critique, and offer constructive reflection in the #MeToo and climate justice movements at the intersection of gendered, ethnic, religious, and environmental marginalization.  In late March, she completed a three-year term as the Women’s Caucus Liaison to the Board of the American Academy of Religion, Western Region, and will continue as chair of Ecology and Religion.  For the 2018 conference, in addition to hosting two Women’s Caucus-sponsored breakfasts and moderating a panel, she collaborated with United Nations Chief Spanish Senior Production Editor Yuria Celidwen to present a “Writing Workshop: Encountering and Doing Justice to Environments Internal and External, Known and Othered.”  Celidwen also offered a guest lecture to the spring 2018 class Comparative Religion and Environmentalism, highlighting globally relevant issues faced by indigenous peoples, whose cultural heritage and material practices play a key role in protecting biodiversity.  Robinson-Bertoni consistently invites her students to look at where the “rubber meets the road” in expressing beliefs through ethical actions to protect the most vulnerable among us.  She also serves as a lecturer for SCU’s Experiential Learning for Social Justice (ELSJ) program.