CFP: Special Issue of Environmental Philosophy in Memory of Forrest Clingerman

08 Jul CFP: Special Issue of Environmental Philosophy in Memory of Forrest Clingerman

Environmental Philosophy, the journal of the International Association for Environmental Philosophy, announces a memorial issue (guest editors, David Utsler and Brian Treanor) dedicated to the work of Prof. Forrest Clingerman (1972 –2024). Clingerman was a prolific scholar, notable member of the International Association for Environmental Philosophy, and founding co-editor of Fordham University’s former Groundworks series in environmental thought.

Environmental Philosophy is soliciting papers that either (a) engage Clingerman’s work directly or (b) engage topics related to his work, including environmental hermeneutics, philosophy of religion, philosophies and theologies of place, geoengineering, and environmental aesthetics. Clingerman was a significant figure in environmental hermeneutics, including co-editing Interpreting Nature: The Emerging Field of Environmental Hermeneutics (Fordham, 2014). He deployed hermeneutical resources in his own work by applying them to questions of spirituality and nature, implacement, memory and nostalgia, the aesthetic values in nature, and more. He left unfinished compelling hermeneutical work on “sacrifice zones” in the Anthropocene, a project that was deeply in dialogue with issues of environmental justice.

Representative examples of Clingerman’s work include: “Place and the Hermeneutics of the Anthropocene,” Worldviews: Global Religions, Culture, and Ecology 20, no. 3 (2016): 225-237; “Geoengineering, Theology, and the Meaning of Being Human,” Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science 49, no. 1 (March 2014): 6-21; “Reading the Book of Nature,” Worldviews: Global Religions, Culture, and Ecology 13, no 1 (2009): 72-91; “The Aesthetic Roots of Environmental Amnesia,” Arts, Religion, and the Environment (Leiden: Brill, 2018); “Redeeming the Climate: Investigating a Theological Model of Geoengineering.” Technofutures: God, Society and Earth Ethics (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2015); “Butterflies Dwell Betwixt and Between: Non-Human Animals, Theology, and Dwelling in Place,” Animals as Religious Subjects (New York: T & T Clark/Continuum, 2013); “Interpreting Heaven and Earth: The Theological Construction of Nature, Place, and the Built Environment,” Nature, Space and the Sacred (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2009).

Prospective papers should be maximally 5000-8000 words in length, inclusive of notes; they should be formatted using footnotes, American spellings and punctuation, and following the Chicago Manual of Style. Questions or inquiries regarding this special issue should be sent to David Utsler (dutsler@gmail.com) and Brian Treanor (brian.treanor@lmu.edu). Actual submissions should include a 100-word abstract and must be formatted for blind review, with the author’s identifying information (name, institutional affiliation, paper title, etc.) included separately in the body of an email sent to clingermanepsubmissions@gmail.com.

The deadline for receipt of submissions is February 1, 2025.