Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JSRNC
<p><em>The Journal of Religion, Nature and Culture, </em>which has been published quarterly since 2007<em>,</em> explores through the social and natural sciences the complex relationships among human beings, their diverse 'religions' (broadly and diversely defined) and the earth's living systems, while providing a venue for analysis and debate over what constitutes an ethically appropriate relationship between our own species and the environments we inhabit. <a href="https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JSRNC/about">Read more.</a></p>
Equinox Publishing Ltd.
en
Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture
1749-4907
<p>© Equinox Publishing Ltd.</p> <p>For information regarding our Open Access policy, <a title="Open access policy." href="Full%20details of our conditions related to copyright can be found by clicking here.">click here</a>.</p>
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On Mother Earth
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JSRNC/article/view/28090
<p>Introduction to a special issue</p>
Special Issue - Sam Gill Forum
mother earth
religion
nature
culture
nature
culture
religious studies
Bron Taylor
Copyright (c) 2024 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2024-03-13
2024-03-13
155
161
10.1558/jsrnc.28090
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‘Mother Earth’ is an Ancient Meme in the Global North
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JSRNC/article/view/27462
<p>In this response to Sam Gill, I contend that European colonizers were not the first to combine and synthesize the goddesses of Eurasia and North America. I suggest that Athabaskan-speaking Native Americans share one identifiable Mother Earth concept with Yeniseian linguistic cousins in post-neolithic Siberia. Further, I regard this concept as congenitally related to a particular Mother Earth deity common to late ancient north Europe, via the multiethnic cultural continuum of the grassland steppe corridor connecting ancient central Europe to Siberia.</p>
Special Issue - Sam Gill Forum
Sam Gill
Mother Earth
religion
religion
Joseph A P Wilson
Copyright (c) 2024 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2024-03-13
2024-03-13
204
216
10.1558/jsrnc.27462
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Comments on Responses to ‘What is Mother Earth?’
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JSRNC/article/view/27454
<p>Sam Gill responds to his interlocutors concerning the concept of Mother Earth and its employment in indigenous studies and beyond. </p>
Special Issue - Sam Gill Forum
Mother Earth
religion
indigenous studies
Sam Gill
Copyright (c) 2024 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2024-03-13
2024-03-13
237
253
10.1558/jsrnc.27454
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Jon Mathieu, Mount Sacred. A Brief Global History of Holy Mountains Since 1500
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JSRNC/article/view/27451
<p>Jon Mathieu, Mount Sacred. A Brief Global History of Holy Mountains Since 1500 (Winwick, UK: The White Horse Press, 2023), 170 pp., £30.00 (pbk), ISBN: 978-1-9121867-71-6.</p>
Book Reviews
book review
Book Review
Book review
Edwin Bernbaum
Copyright (c) 2024 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2024-03-07
2024-03-07
1
2
10.1558/jsrnc.27451
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Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, Alexa Weik von Mossner, W. P. Malecki, and Frank Hakemulder (eds.), Empirical Ecocriticism: Environmental Narratives for Social Change
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JSRNC/article/view/27302
<p>Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, Alexa Weik von Mossner, W. P. Malecki, and Frank Hakemulder (eds.), Empirical Ecocriticism: Environmental Narratives for Social Change (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2023), 368 pp., $30 (pbk), ISBN: 9781517915353.</p>
Book Reviews
empiricla ecocriticism
empirical ecocriticism
environmental humanities
Inas S Abolfotoh
Copyright (c) 2024 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2024-03-07
2024-03-07
1
3
10.1558/jsrnc.27302
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Cherice Bock and Christy Randazzo, Quakers, Ecology, and the Light, Series: Brill Research Perspectives in Quaker Studies
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JSRNC/article/view/27193
<p>Cherice Bock and Christy Randazzo, Quakers, Ecology, and the Light, Series: Brill Research Perspectives in Quaker Studies (Boston: Brill, 2023), 96pp., $84 (pbk), ISBN: 9789004535916.</p>
Book Reviews
book review
Book Review
book review
Sarah Werner
Copyright (c) 2024 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2024-03-07
2024-03-07
1
2
10.1558/jsrnc.27193
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Marjorie Swann, Environment, Society, and The Compleat Angler
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JSRNC/article/view/27241
<p>Marjorie Swann, Environment, Society, and The Compleat Angler (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2023), 270 pp., $124.95 (cloth), ISBN: 978-0-271-09519-6.</p>
Book Reviews
Fishing
conservation
christian environmental ethics
sport
Book Review
Academic study of religion
English Literature
Envirnomental Studies
leisure studies
conservation
Religion and Nature
Kenneth H. Lokensgard
Copyright (c) 2024 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2024-03-07
2024-03-07
1
3
10.1558/jsrnc.27241
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Brianne Donaldson and Ana Bajželj, Insistent Life: Principles for Bioethics in the Jain Tradition
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JSRNC/article/view/27090
<p>Brianne Donaldson and Ana Bajželj, Insistent Life: Principles for Bioethics in the Jain Tradition (Oakland: University of California Press, 2021), 294 pp., $34.99 (pbk), ISBN: 9780520380561.</p>
Book Reviews
Jainism, bioethics, end of life
Jainism, bioethics, end of life
religious studies, philosophy, Jain studies, bioethics
Christopher Chapple
Copyright (c) 2024 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2024-03-07
2024-03-07
1
2
10.1558/jsrnc.27090
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Joel E. Correia, Disrupting the Patrón: Indigenous Land Rights and the Fight for Environmental Justice in Paraguay’s Chaco
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JSRNC/article/view/27018
<p>Joel E. Correia, Disrupting the Patrón: Indigenous Land Rights and the Fight for Environmental Justice in Paraguay’s Chaco (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2023), 236 pp., 34. (pbk), ISBN: 978052039103.</p>
Book Reviews
Book Review
Book Review
Religious studies
environmental humanities
Indigenous studies
Dana Lloyd
Copyright (c) 2024 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2024-03-07
2024-03-07
1
3
10.1558/jsrnc.27018
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Ursula Goodenough, The Sacred Depths of Nature: How Life Has Emerged and Evolved
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JSRNC/article/view/26877
<p>Ursula Goodenough, The Sacred Depths of Nature: How Life Has Emerged and Evolved (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, 2023), 288pp., $29.95 (hardcover), ISBN: 9780197662069.</p>
Book Reviews
religion
journey of the universe
biology
evolution
ecomorality
Religion
science
Religion
Science
Religious studies
environmental studies
Mark CE Peterson
Copyright (c) 2024 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2024-03-07
2024-03-07
1
3
10.1558/jsrnc.26877
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Evan Berry (ed.) Climate Politics and the Power of Religion
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JSRNC/article/view/26874
<p>Evan Berry (ed.) <em>Climate Politics and the Power of Religion</em> (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2022), 289pp., $40 (pbk), ISBN: 9780253059062.</p>
Book Reviews
book review
book review
book review
F Garrett Boudinot
Copyright (c) 2023 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2023-12-21
2023-12-21
1
3
10.1558/jsrnc.26874
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Todd LeVasseur, Climate Change, Religion, and Our Bodily Future
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JSRNC/article/view/23681
<p>Todd LeVasseur, <em>Climate Change, Religion, and Our Bodily Future</em> (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2021), xxxii + 181 pp., $95.00 (cloth), ISBN: 9781498534550.</p>
Book Reviews
book review
book review
book review
Matthew R Hartman
Copyright (c) 2023 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2023-08-09
2023-08-09
1
3
10.1558/jsrnc.23681
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Neall W. Pogue, The Nature of the Religious Right: The Struggle Between Conservative Evangelicals and the Environmental Movement
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JSRNC/article/view/23753
<p>Neall W. Pogue, <em>The Nature of the Religious Right: The Struggle Between Conservative Evangelicals and the Environmental Movement</em> (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2022), 264 pp., $42.95 (hbk), ISBN: 9781501762000.</p>
Book Reviews
Religion and environment
Conservative evangelicals
Book Review
Religion and environment
Conservative evangelicals
Religious Studies
Ryan Juskus
Copyright (c) 2023 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2023-08-09
2023-08-09
1
3
10.1558/jsrnc.23753
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Edwin Bernbaum, Sacred Mountains of the World
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JSRNC/article/view/23909
<p>Edwin Bernbaum,<em> Sacred Mountains of the World</em> (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2nd ed, 2022), 411 pp., $29.99 (pbk), ISBN:9781108-8334742.</p>
Book Reviews
book review
book review
book review
Fausto O Sarmiento
Copyright (c) 2023 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2023-08-09
2023-08-09
1
3
10.1558/jsrnc.23909
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Bejamin Grant Purzycki and Richard Sosis, Religion Evolving: Cultural, Cognitive, and Ecological Dynamics
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JSRNC/article/view/23911
<p>Bejamin Grant Purzycki and Richard Sosis,<em> Religion Evolving: Cultural, Cognitive, and Ecological Dynamics</em> (Sheffield, UK: Equinox, 2022), xviii + 247 pp., £75 (pbk), ISBN: 9781800500525.</p>
Book Reviews
book review
book review
book review
Jed Forman
Copyright (c) 2023 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2023-08-09
2023-08-09
1
4
10.1558/jsrnc.23911
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A New God for a New Paganism
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JSRNC/article/view/20036
<p>Modern Pagan religions are past-oriented, seeking inspiration and legitimation from the pre-Christian religions that once existed in and around Europe. This has led modern Pagan groups to adopt various ideas about pre-Christian religions and their survival that stem from late nineteenth and early twentieth-century scholarship – including the notion of the Green Man. The belief that the foliate heads of medieval ecclesiastical architecture demonstrated evidence for a pre-Christian religion surviving into the High and Late Middle Ages, as articulated in its most complete form by Lady Raglan in 1939, appealed to early Wiccans such as Gerald Gardner and Doreen Valiente, who interpreted these heads as depictions of the Wiccan Horned God. By the 1990s, the Green Man had become a<br />recurring image in the modern Pagan milieu who was increasingly incorporated into ritual, while the 2000s witnessed the growth of modern Pagan literature devoted to this new sylvan god.</p>
Articles
Wicca
Paganism
Neo-Paganism
Green Man
Esotericism
Medievalism
Foliate Head
Paganism
Green Man
Esotericism
Medievalism
History of religion
Religious studies
Cultural history
Ethan Doyle White
Copyright (c) 2022 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2023-07-13
2023-07-13
201
227
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The Foliate Head in Medieval Norway
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JSRNC/article/view/23944
<p>The foliate head is a common motif in the architectural decoration of Norwegian stave churches. It is commonly used in doorways, where beast’s heads are disgorging foliage or are spewing stems with vine. The artistic style of wooden church decoration in Norway from the eleventh and twelfth centuries clearly shows inspiration from Viking art. This legacy has led to the belief that Christianity inherited the foliate head from a heathen past. This understanding is mainly due to a need for more convincing explanations for this motif. However, it is also due to the high status of trees in Old Norse society, especially Yggdrasill, the great tree that in Norse mythology constituted the center of the world. The article traces the sources for the motif in Norwegian architectural sculpture and the notion of the Green Man in the scholarly tradition in Norway. The Green Man was absent in Viking art, and the motif first appeared<br />in Scandinavia in Romanesque architectural stone sculpture in the early twelfth century.</p>
Articles
Old Norse
viking
Romanesque
medieval art
iconography
architectural sculpture
beasts
foliate heads
stave churches
wooden architecture
meaning in architecture
the Green Man
Green Man
Religion
Nature
Culture
Religious Studies
architecture
Kjartan Hauglid
Copyright (c) 2022 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2023-07-13
2023-07-13
268
296
10.1558/jsrnc.23944
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The Green Man
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JSRNC/article/view/24138
<p>The Green Man, a figure usually taken as representing the vivifying and fertilising power of the natural world, and especially of vegetation, has become one of the icons of modern ecology and environmental spirituality. He is often represented visually by a foliate head, gushing leaves from mouth and nose, of the kind found carved in medieval churches, and associated also with the foliate Jack-in-the-Green character in May Day festivities and with dying and returning fertility gods in ancient mythologies. This essay is intended to chart the development of the figure, which gains much of its emotive and creative power from being a twentieth-century construction, drawing on a range of disparate older images. It provides an important case study of the relationship between professional and independent scholarship in the creation of modern ideas, and the manner in which new and powerful iconic motifs can be evolved within modern spirituality.</p>
Articles
Green Man
Paganism
James Frazer
The Golden Bough
Julia Somerset (Lady Raglan)
Religion
Nature
Culture
Religion
Nature
Culture
Ronald Hutton
Copyright (c) 2022 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2023-07-13
2023-07-13
168
200
10.1558/jsrnc.24138
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In Search of Green Men
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JSRNC/article/view/25765
<p>In Explore Green Men (Heart of Albion Press, 2008) the British scholar Mercia MacDermott provided one of the most important and serious works on foliate-human iconography, which has become widely known in common parlance as the Green Man. She graciously agreed to let us reprint the chapter ‘Triple Hares and the Green Men: The Indian Connection’ along with a significantly shortened version of her introductory chapter, ‘In Search of Green Men’. Her introduction provides an important background for understanding Green Man research. The reprinted chapter suggests that Green Man iconography originated in India and subsequently journeyed to Europe with the Vikings. Because two of the articles in this issue of the JSRNC focus on such iconography in Norway, MacDermott’s proposal provides an essential baseline for exploring whether the Green Man was originally a cultural export that journeyed to Europe on a Viking ship. MacDermott’s niece, Dr. Gwen Adshead, assisted us with the editing of the article republished here; she can be contacted at Gwen.Adshead@westlondon.nhs.uk.</p>
Articles
green man
disgorging foliate heads
leaf-masks
foliate-masks
human-foliate iconography
kirttimukha
makara
triple hares
Romanesque foliate heads
Romanesque Churches
vikings
religion
nature
culture
green man
vikings
religion
religious studies
Mercia MacDermott
Copyright (c) 2022 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2023-07-13
2023-07-13
253
267
10.1558/jsrnc.25765
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Searching for the Green Man
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JSRNC/article/view/25977
<p>.</p>
Articles
green man
religion
nature
culture
religion
nature
culture
environmental history
religious studies
environmental studies
Karen V Lykke
Bron Taylor
Copyright (c) 2022 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2023-07-13
2023-07-13
157
167
10.1558/jsrnc.25977
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‘We’ll All Dance each Springtime with Jack-in-the-Green’
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JSRNC/article/view/20463
<p>The Green Man is a familiar image in British popular culture who is celebrated in a variety of ways, not least in an ever-growing number of festive processions in towns, villages, and cities, particularly around Beltane (May Day). Combining two scholarly voices, this article offers a survey of the Green Man image and related ritual phenomena in what we refer to as the ‘Green Man complex’. Here we address the Green Man’s role in what could be the mobilization of responses to the current ecological crisis, as well as his relationship to growing trends in dark green religion. Last, we turn our attention to the theoretical innovations that current Green Man phenomena invites: more than ‘symbolic’ or ‘representational’, the Green Man is a source for contemporary Pagan ritual religious creativity that is being used in animistic, embodied, territorializing, and reciprocal fashions to direct human attention toward the other-than-human vegetable kingdom.</p>
Articles
Green Man
Jack-in-the-Green
Paganism
Animism
ritual
costuming
procession
magic
territorializing
Green Man
Ritual
Paganism
Animism
Procession
magic
Folklore
Study of Religion
Religious Studies
Anthropology of Religion
Environmental Anthroplogy
Ritual Studies
Amy Whitehead
Andy Letcher
Copyright (c) 2022 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2023-07-14
2023-07-14
228
252
10.1558/jsrnc.20463
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The Foliate Mask in Vernacular Material Culture from Medieval to Modern Norway
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JSRNC/article/view/24300
<p>In this article, we explore the contexts and appearances of what we argue is a Norwegian version of the Green Man – the Glibb – in vernacular settings. We also discuss the figure’s possible meanings in Norwegian secular culture. Most of the objects are part of the digital artifact collection called DigitaltMuseum (Digital Museum), which is a common database for Norwegian and Swedish museums and collections. Our collection and analysis of this material provides an initial step toward documenting the figure’s appearances and uses beyond the ecclesial material culture; however, it does not represent an exhaustive list of sources. We investigate the appearance of this particular ‘Green Man’ figure, discussing its material form and iconographical features and analysing its placement and occurrence. We argue that the Glibb’s ambiguous and flexible imagery is also a flexible symbol. Over the centuries, such symbols can enter into new constellations and interpretations of meaning with is new generation that continues to use their material forms.</p>
Articles
Glibb
Green Man
Norway/Norwegian
material culture
liminal
symbolism
cultural history
culture and beliefs
Cultural history
culture studies
Karen V Lykke
Ane Ohrvik
Copyright (c) 2022 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2023-07-17
2023-07-17
297
316
10.1558/jsrnc.24300
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Joshua S. Duclos, Wilderness, Morality, and Value
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JSRNC/article/view/24447
<p>Joshua S. Duclos, Wilderness, Morality, and Value (New York: Lexington Books, 2022), 141 pp. $95.00 (cloth), ISBN: 9781666901368.</p>
Book Reviews
Kevin J O'Brien
Copyright (c) 2023 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2023-08-01
2023-08-01
1
3
10.1558/jsrnc.24447
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Sam Gill, The Proper Study of Religion: Building on Jonathan Z. Smith
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JSRNC/article/view/24905
Book Reviews
Book Review
Book Review
Religious Studies
Jacob Barrett
Copyright (c) 2023 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2023-08-01
2023-08-01
1
2
10.1558/jsrnc.24905
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Matthew Hall, The Imagination of Plants: A Book of Botanical Mythology
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JSRNC/article/view/24921
<p>Matthew Hall, The Imagination of Plants: A Book of Botanical Mythology (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2019), 298 pp., $33.95 (pbk), ISBN: 9781438474380.</p>
Book Reviews
book review
book review
book review
Gavin Van Horn
Copyright (c) 2023 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2023-08-01
2023-08-01
1
3
10.1558/jsrnc.24921
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Siv Ellen Kraft, Indigenous Religion(s) in Sápmi: Reclaiming Sacred Grounds
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JSRNC/article/view/25173
<p>Siv Ellen Kraft, Indigenous Religion(s) in Sápmi: Reclaiming Sacred Grounds (New York: Routledge, 2022), 203 pp., $120 (hbk) ISBN: 9871032019239.</p>
Book Reviews
Sámi religion
Indigenous religions
History of Religions
Sámi religion
Indigenous religions
History of Religions
Religious Studies
Anthropology of Religion
Olle Sundström
Copyright (c) 2023 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2023-08-01
2023-08-01
1
3
10.1558/jsrnc.25173
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Richard J. Bernstein, The Vicissitudes of Nature: From Spinoza to Freud
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JSRNC/article/view/26781
<p>Richard J. Bernstein, <em>The Vicissitudes of Nature: From Spinoza to Freud</em> (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2023), 278 pp., $26.95 (pbk), ISBN: 9781509555208.</p>
Book Reviews
Book Review
Book Review
Book Review
Zoe Anthony
Copyright (c) 2023 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2023-12-21
2023-12-21
1
2
10.1558/jsrnc.26781
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Introduction to the Special Issue on Contemporary Pagan Ecospiritualities
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JSRNC/article/view/26757
<p>.</p>
CLOSED--Special Issue - Pagan Ecospiritualities
paganism
ecospiritualities
religion
paganism
religion
nature
religious studies
Helen A Berger
Caroline Tully
Copyright (c) 2023 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2023-10-19
2023-10-19
412
413
10.1558/jsrnc.26757
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Bénédicte Meillon, Ecopoetics of Reenchantment: Liminal Realism and Poetic Echoes of the Earth
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JSRNC/article/view/26747
<p>Bénédicte Meillon,<em> Ecopoetics of Reenchantment: Liminal Realism and Poetic Echoes of the Earth </em>(Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2023), 386pp., $125 (hbk), ISBN: 9781666910421.</p>
Book Reviews
book review
book review
book review
Bron Taylor
Copyright (c) 2023 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2023-12-21
2023-12-21
1
2
10.1558/jsrnc.26747
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Book Review of Courtney Catherine Barajas's Old English Ecotheology: The Exeter Book
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JSRNC/article/view/22491
Book Reviews
Exeter Book
Ælfric of Eynsham
Wulfstan of York
environment
ecotheology
ecotheology
Old English
Medieval Studies
Old English Studies
Environmental Humanities
Donna Beth Ellard
Copyright (c) 2023 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2023-07-11
2023-07-11
1
2
10.1558/jsrnc.22491