Dr Alda Balthrop-Lewis
Senior Research Fellow
Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry
Areas of expertise: religion and ecology; environmental justice; religious ethics; political theology; environmental ethics; religion and democracy; religion and literature; ethnography
Email: alda.balthrop-lewis@acu.edu.au
Location: ACU Melbourne Campus
ORCID ID: 0000-0001-9017-2655
My research focuses on religious environmental ethics and the circulation of ideas among theological, artistic, and popular idioms. I have particular interests in environmental justice and in the way that the concepts of 'religion' and 'politics' are related to theological histories of gender, race, nature, and nation. I welcome PhD students working on related topics, especially those with a keen eye on the political and ethical implications of their research.
I serve as the book reviews editor for the Journal for the Academic Study of Religion, which is the publication of the Australian Association for the Study of Religion. I am also co-editor with Jonathan Tran of the American Academy of Religion book series Reflection and Theory in the Study of Religion, published by Oxford University Press. In 2023, I was the Denis Edwards Fellow at the Laudato Si Research Institute in Campion Hall, Oxford University.
Before coming to ACU I completed a BA in Religious Studies at Stanford University, a Masters degree in Religion from The University of Chicago, and a PhD at Princeton University in Religion, Ethics, and Politics. I have taught in the Religious Studies department at Brown University, and I have worked as a research assistant for the Peabody Award-winning audio program On Being, produced in the United States.
Select publications
Books
Journal articles
- (2023) “Religious Ethics as a Social Practice,” The Journal of Religious Ethics 51.3.
- (2020) Alimi, Toni, Elizabeth L. Antus, Alda Balthrop-Lewis, James F. Childress, Shannon Dunn, Ronald M. Green, Eric Gregory, et al. "COVID-19 and Religious Ethics." Journal of Religious Ethics 48.3, 349-87.
- (2020) "Response to Ted Smith." Modern Theology 36.1, 74-75.
- (2019) "Active and Contemplative Lives in a Changing Climate: The Emersonian Roots of Thoreau's Political Asceticism." Journal of the American Academy of Religion 87.2, 311-32.
- (2019) "Exemplarist Environmental Ethics: Thoreau's Political Asceticism against Solution Thinking." The Journal of Religious Ethics 47.3, 525-50.
- (2018) "Prophecy, Ethical Constraints, and Unjust Silence." Journal of Religious Ethics 46.1, 157-66.
Book chapters
- (2021) "Nature and Environment." In The Oxford Handbook to Reinhold Niebuhr, Robin Lovin and Joshua Mauldin (eds), (Oxford University Press).
- (2018) "Thoreau's Woodchopper, Wordsworth's Leech-Gatherer, and the Representation of 'Humble and Rustic Life.'" In Theology and Ecology Across the Disciplines: On Care for Our Common Home, Celia Deane-Drummond and Rebecca Artinian-Kaiser (eds), (Bloomsbury: T&T Clark).
Accolades
- Finalist, Top 5 Humanities, Australian Broadcasting Corporation
- ACU Vice-Chancellor's Staff Excellence Award for Excellence in Community Engagement (2022)
- Shannon Fellowship, International Thomas Merton Society (2022)
- Finalist, Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship, The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation (2016)
- Department of Religion Teaching Award, Princeton University (2012-2013)
- Fellow, The Fund for Theological Education (2009-2010)
- Garfield Prize in Religious Studies, Stanford University (2006)
Appointments
- Denis Edwards Fellow, Laudato Si Research Institute, Campion Hall, University of Oxford (2023)
- Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry (2023-)
- Research Fellow, Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry (2017-2022)
- Visiting Instructor, Brown University (2017)
Editorial roles
- Book series co-editor, Reflection and Theory in the Study of Religion, Oxford University Press, American Academy of Religion (2022-)
- Book reviews editor, Journal for the Academic Study of Religion, Australian Association for the Study of Religion (2021-)
Public engagement activities
- “A flourishing ecology and a healthy economy? Henry David Thoreau thought you couldn’t have one without the other,” The Conversation, Books + Ideas, May 2022.
- “Multispecies Walden Woods: Reevaluating Thoreau’s Religion.” Environment & Society Portal, Arcadia (Spring 2022), no. 7. Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society.
- “Purification and the Moral Life: The Ethics of Hunger and Eating,” The Minefield, April 2022.
- “‘Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity’: Henry David Thoreau and the politics of solitude,” ABC Religion and Ethics, March 2021, abc.net.au.
- “Thoreau’s Ethics of Delight,” Sightings, University of Chicago Divinity School, March 2021.
- "How’s Your Soul? A Look Back at 2021,” Radio National, Soul Search, December 2021
- Guest on Meredith Lake’s Soul Search, ABC Radio National, (broadcast Sunday 14 March 2021).
- "The Right Every Man Should Have,” The Cooperative blog, February 2021.
- Podcast interview, The Study, January 2021
- Guest on Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens’s The Minefield, “What If Covid Doesn’t Go Away?” ABC Radio National (broadcast Wednesday 19 August 2020).
- “What Baking Sourdough Can Teach Us about the Moral Life,” ABC Religion and Ethics blog, August 2020.
- “Emotions of Isolation,” an online forum for the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, August 2020.
- “Thoreau’s Asceticism as Obedience to a Higher Law,” Political Theology Network blog, April 2020.
- “Henry David Thoreau: Saint of the Environmental Movement?” review of Expect Great Things: The Life and Search of Henry David Thoreau by Kevin Dann and Henry David Thoreau: A Life by Laura Dassow Walls, The Revealer, February 2019.
- “Thoreau’s Ferocious Critique of Philanthropy Does Not Make Him ‘Selfish,’”Religion Dispatches, October 22, 2015.
