Lisa H. Sideris

I am interested in the value and ethical significance of natural processes. My areas of research include environmental ethics, and the science-religion interface. Much of my research focuses on conflict and compatibility between scientific and religious interpretations of nature and natural processes. My first book Environmental Ethics, Ecological Theology, and Natural Selection (Columbia, 2003) critiques the tendency of Christian environmental ethics, or “ecological theology,” to misconstrue or ignore Darwinian theory, and examines the problems this creates for developing a realistic ethic toward nature and animals.
More recent research has focused on Rachel Carson, whose book Silent Spring (1962) arguably marks the beginning of the environmental movement in America and abroad. I co-edited (with philosopher and nature writer Kathleen Dean Moore) a volume of interdisciplinary essays on Carson's life and work, titled Rachel Carson: Legacy and Challenge (SUNY, 2008).
My current research centers on the role of wonder and enchantment in (and with) science, nature, and religion, and the variety of ways in which scientific narratives, particularly those involving evolution and the Anthropocene, are being "re-enchanted" and recast as mythopoeic stories with moral content. My most recent book, Consecrating Science: Wonder, Knowledge, and the Natural World (2017) is the product of that research. I also write about the spiritual and ethical dimensions of emerging technologies of the Anthropocene, like de-extinction and other high-tech interventions in nature.
I currently serve as President of the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture (ISSRNC).