Adaptive Scholarship and the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture

This roundtable is a joint proposal with the AAR Religion and Ecology Group and the ISSRNC celebrating the 35th anniversary of the Religion and Ecology Group, and the 20th anniversary of the ISSRNC. Drawing on the theme of the ISSRNC conference CFP, the panelists turn the question of “fluidity” inward, asking not only how religion, nature, and culture are changing, but how the field itself is adapting. Rather than offering a retrospective, the panel maps the field’s current terrain under conditions of ecological crisis, decolonial critique, and shifting institutional structures. It centers a guiding question: What kinds of scholars and scholarship are needed now? Participants reflect on methodological innovation (e.g., land-based and decolonial approaches), evolving institutional contexts, expanding interdisciplinarity, and the growing demand for public engagement. Organized around key tensions—disciplinary versus transdisciplinary work, analytical versus normative approaches, academic versus public-facing scholarship—the discussion foregrounds adaptation rather than resolution. Bringing together diverse scholarly roles, the roundtable models the pluralism and reflexivity increasingly required to sustain and reimagine the study of religion, nature, and culture in a rapidly changing world.