Koch Chair in Catholic Thought & Culture Lectures

Ecowomanism: Resilience, Theology, and Justice in a Time of Climate Change

Document Type

Presentation

Publication Date

9-30-2025

Sponsoring Department(s)

Koch Chair

Abstract

Ecowomanism is an approach to climate change that centers the voices of Black and Indigenous women and communities of color. It highlights the theme of interconnectedness woven throughout many indigenous cultures, African cosmologies and religious systems that draw an intimate connection between  human, spirit and nature. This understanding of the cosmos presents an alternative vision of wholeness with the earth and calls for justice in all creation based on a recognition of an intimate and sacred connection between humans and earth. Ecowomanism notices the significance of what Catholic scholar Chanelle Robinson calls “ancient theological anthropologies” that insist on deeply relational and non-hierarchal frames. It carefully explores Black and Indigenous ways of knowing and earth-honoring religious practices for current approaches to climate justice. In this sense ecowomanism agrees with Pope Francis’ corrective lens in Laudato Si, calling us back to recognize the sacred connection between humans and the earth. Bringing together sacred song, contemplative practice, and intellectual engagement, this lecture will introduce ecowomanist principles and methods of analysis that allow us to touch the beauty of earth by noticing the gift of the sacred in ourselves, in earth, and in each other.

Dr. Melanie L. Harris is Professor of Black Feminist and Womanist Theologies jointly appointed with African American Studies at Wake Forest University. She also serves as the Director of Food, Health and Ecological Well Being at Wake Forest University. A graduate of Spelman College and Harvard University, Dr. Harris is a leading scholar in ecowomanism, a poet, preacher and mother. As an ordained minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Dr. Harris weaves her academic work and scholarship with her artistry as a singer, researcher and writer. She is the author of many scholarly articles and books including Gifts of Virtue: Alice Walker and Womanist Ethics (Palgrave), Ecowomanism: Earth Honoring Faiths (Orbis), Ecowomanism, Religion and Ecology (Brill) and co-editor of Faith, Feminism, and Scholarship: The Next Generation (Palgrave) as well as numerous journal articles and book chapters. Dr. Harris is the founding director of the Ecowomanist Center in Research, Climate Justice, Leadership and the Environment, a non-profit 501c3 dedicated to celebrating the life work, activism and writings of ecowomanist and environmental writers.

Dr. Harris is also a former broadcast journalist who worked as a news producer for ABC, CBS, and NBC affiliates. A community leader whose passion for education is linked to a commitment to social justice, she has also served as an educational consultant with the Ford Foundation, the Forum for Theological Exploration, and the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion, Lilly Endowment Inc. She is on the executive board of the Society for the Study of Black Religion and has served on the Board of Directors of KERA-TV/Radio, the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Christian Ethics. Dr. Harris has been awarded several prestigious awards and academic fellowships including the AddRan College of Liberal Arts Administration Fellowship and GreenFaith Fellowship. Dr. Harris earned her PhD and M.A. degrees from Union Theological Seminary in The City of New York, an M. Div. from Iliff School of Theology.

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