Religion Professor Laura Hobgood-Oster is going to New York May 23-26 to participate in Book Expo America, the largest annual book trade fair in the United States. Her 2010 book, The Friends We Keep: Unleashing Christianity’s Compassion for Animals, was Baylor University Press’s best seller last year.

Phil Hopkins, associate professor of philosophy, has a chapter on Empedocles and Anaxagoras and the Greek conception of Kosmos accepted for a forthcoming new Companion to Ancient Philosophy from Northwestern. He also has a chapter titled Mass Moralizing, which deals with the relation of advertising discourse and moral heuristics, accepted for a forthcoming book from Continuum titled Advertising and Reality. 

Molly Jensen, assistant professor of religion, has received a $20,000 grant from the Wabash Center for the Study of Religion. She plans to use the grant to help faculty members in the Department of Religion learn how to better incorporate ecological learning into their classes. The grant also will enable Southwestern to develop its community garden into a learning garden. The grant will enable Jensen to visit to several colleges that have developed effective models of place-based ecological learning such as the Piedmont Project at Emory University, the Southwest Center at the University of Arizona, and the Learning Garden at the University of British Columbia-Okanagan. Jensen and student field assistant Andrea Gannon also will attend an ecological learning workshop at the Occidental College of Arts and Ecology this summer. Jenson hopes faculty members can work new material into their courses by the spring 2012 semester.

Assistant Professor of Religion Molly Jensen received The Organization Advisor Award at the 13th Annual Student Leadership Banquet April 12. The award was for her work with the Community Garden.  

Laura Hobgood-Oster, professor of religion, gave a lecture at Middlebury College March 3 titled “Who Do We Think We Are: Animals and Christianity.”

Laura Hobgood-Oster, professor of religion, is one of four people representing the Humane Society’s faith-based initiative who will meet at the White House Nov. 4 with Joshua Dubois, executive director of the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

The United Methodist Reporter ran an interview with Laura Hobgood-Oster about her new book. Read the interview here. Suzette Martinez Standring from GateHouse News Service also wrote a column about Hobgood Oster’s book that appeared in at least 17 papers across the country. Read the column here. Hobgood-Oster also taped an interview with Interfaith Radio that will air on their 69 stations across the country Oct. 1-7.

Laura Hobgood-Oster, professor of religion, was quoted in a recent NPR story about a church in California where parishioners can bring their dogs to services with them. Read and listen to the story here.

Laura Hobgood–Oster, professor of religion, attended the American Academy of Religion meeting in Montreal, Canada, last week, where she chaired all the panels on animals and religion.

Laura Hobgood-Oster, professor of religion, gave a presentation at Yale University Divinity School this month (October 2009) about animals in Christian liturgy.

KXAN-TV did a story on the First-Year Seminar about dogs taught by Laura Hobgood-Oster and Jimmy Smith. Watch the story here.

Laura Hobgood-Oster, professor of religion and chair of the Environmental Studies Program, has been appointed to the National Council of Churches Ecojustice Working Group. The NCC represents 45 million people and 100,000 congregations and is the largest ecumenical organization in the United States.

Laura Hobgood-Oster, professor of religion and chair of the Environmental Studies Program, was the keynote speaker at a luncheon held at St. Edward’s University Nov. 12. The luncheon was part of a day-long program titled “Religion and Environment – Dominion or Stewardship?”

Laura Hobgood-Oster, professor of religion, is featured in a documentary just released by the Humane Society of the United States titled “Eating Mercifully.” The documentary examines the possible contributions of Christianity to a more humane system of food production in the United States. The DVD is available for free here.