Religion, Nature, Environmentalism, Culture and Ecology
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    • Academic study of humans, ecology, environment, culture, technology and religion

    The Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature & Culture

    "What are the relationships among human beings and what are variously understood by the terms religion, nature, and culture? And, What constitutes ethically appropriate relationships between our own species and the places, including the entire biosphere, which we inhabit?"
    These are the sorts of questions that gave rise to the Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture, which began publishing in March 2007.
    If these questions drive your curiosity, Equinox Press, the editors of the JSRNC (the Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture) and members of the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, which has affiliated with the JSRNC, invite you to this inquiry.
    For more on the vision for the journal see “Exploring Religion, Nature and Culture” by Editor-in-Chief Bron Taylor. A quick way to see the interdisciplinary range and diverse subject matter of the journal is to view the archives of previously published issues.
    The Journal is indexed in SciVerse Scopus Abstract and Citation Database; Index to the Study of Religions Online; ATLA Religion DatabaseŽ; EBSCO's Academic Search Premier and Religion and Philosophy Collection; Religious and Theological Abstracts; and the Bibliography of Humanities and Social Sciences Literature.

    Journal History

    The idea for this journal began in the late 1990s during the process of creating the interdisciplinary Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature, which was edited by Bron Taylor of the University of Florida, and to which 520 scholars from diverse academic fields contributed 1000 entries. The more interesting the encyclopedia became, the more obvious it was that it was only the beginning in what would likely be a longstanding and fertile academic field
    This recognition led to a number of conversations, also beginning in the late 1990s, about scholarly publications currently available exploring the religion/nature/culture nexus. It seemed that there was no journal providing a venue for research with the same kind disciplinary range as had characterized the encyclopedia project.
    Janet Joyce, of Equinox Publishing, immediately saw the potential for a journal with such a vision, and after conversations with Taylor and Celia Deane-Drummond, editor of Ecotheology (between 1996-2006), in 2004, it was agreed that the journal would expand its scope. The vision for the reconfigured and renamed journal is explained in its précis, and in the editorial introduction to the journal, “Exploring Religion, Nature and Culture” by Editor-in-Chief Bron Taylor.
    In 2005, an initiative to create an International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture (ISSRNC) gained momentum in both the United States and Europe as scholars met to consider such a possibility. A planning meeting with representatives from both Europe and America was held in September 2005. Seeing the obvious synergies, its planners endorsed a proposal to make the Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture its first, official scholarly publication. The society was officially formed through elections held a year later, in September 2006.
    Please feel free to write to the editors with your ideas for this exciting journal.