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August 18, 2016

China: Landscapes, Cultures, Ecologies, Religions

By: James Miller

James Miller Prepublication draft from Routledge Handbook of Religion and Ecology edited by Willis Jenkins, Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim, New York: Routledge 2016, 181-189 As the third largest country in the world, China has a vast geographic diversity: arid deserts and snow-capped mountains of Xinjiang in the far West; the unique landscape of the Qinghai–Tibetan plateau, […]

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December 26, 2014

turning students into citizens, religious studies edition

By: James Miller

The following article was first published in Religion Dispatches on December 15, 2014. In last week’s column here on Religion Dispatches, Ivan Strenski argued strongly against American Academy of Religion President Laurie Zoloth’s call for religious studies to be “interrupted” by a focus on climate change, writing that “asking a religious studies professor to do something about climate change is […]

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turning students into citizens, religious studies edition

By: James Miller

The following article was first published in Religion Dispatches on December 15, 2014. In last week’s column here on Religion Dispatches, Ivan Strenski argued strongly against American Academy of Religion President Laurie Zoloth’s call for religious studies to be “interrupted” by a focus on climate change, writing that “asking a religious studies professor to do something about climate change is […]

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Will Canada Ever End its Demonization of China?

By: James Miller

The demonization of China – as shown by refusal to accept Confucius Institutes – is a toxic flaw that runs deep in Canadian history and culture.   As Premier Kathleen Wynne returns from China and as Prime Minister Stephen Harper visits Beijing for the APEC summit, the partnership and goodwill between China and Canada that brought […]

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October 1, 2013

Is Green the New Red? The Role of Religion in Creating a Sustainable China

By: James Miller

James Miller. 2013. “Is Green the New Red? The Role of Religion in Creating a Sustainable China.” Nature and Culture 8.3: 249-264.  http://dx.doi.org/10.3167/nc.2013.080302 Abstract The Chinese Daoist Association has embarked upon an ambitious agenda to promote Daoism as China’s “green religion”. This new construction of a “green Daoism” differs, however, from both traditional Chinese and modern Western interpretations of the affinity […]

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August 12, 2013

Authenticity, Sincerity and Spontaneity

By: James Miller

James Miller. 2013. “Authenticity, Sincerity and Spontaneity: The Mutual Implication of Nature and Religion in China and the West.” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 25: 283-307 Abstract Fundamental approaches to ethics and morality in both China and the West are bound up not only with conceptions of religion and ultimate truth, but also with […]

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August 10, 2013

Religion and Ecological Sustainability in China

By: James Miller

James Miller, Dan Smyer Yu and Peter van der Veer, eds. 2014. Religion and Ecological Sustainability in China. New York: Routledge. This book sheds light on the social imagination of nature and environment in contemporary China. It demonstrates how the urgent debate on how to create an ecologically sustainable future for the world’s most populous country is […]

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June 26, 2012

green spirituality and the limits to modernity

By: James Miller

In an online report on Religious Innovation for Sustainable Future (no longer available), Nina Witoszek (Oslo University) surveys a “pastoral renaissance” taking place across the globe. This renaissance, she declares, is “not just a tide of projects and conferences, but a new-old mindset which aspires to reclaiming nature, culture and spirituality, influencing green architecture and […]

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