Journey Conversations: Understanding Universe and Earth

Mary Evelyn Tucker is a Senior Lecturer and Research Scholar at Yale in the School of the Environment, the Divinity School, and the Department of Religious Studies. She teaches in the MA program in religion and ecology and directs the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology with her husband, John Grim. She received her Ph.D. from Columbia University in Asian Religions, especially Japanese Confucianism. Since 1997 she has been a Research Associate at the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard. Her concern for the growing environmental crisis, especially in Asia, led her to organize with Grim a series of 10 conferences on World Religions and Ecology at the Harvard Center for the Study of World Religions (1995-1998). Together they are series editors for the ten volumes from the conferences. She co-edited "Buddhism and Ecology" (Harvard, 1997), "Confucianism and Ecology" (Harvard, 1998), and "Hinduism and Ecology" (Harvard, 2000). After these conferences she and Grim founded the Forum on Religion and Ecology, now based at Yale. They wrote "Ecology and Religion" (Island Press, 2014) and with Willis Jenkins they co-edited the "Routledge Handbook on Religion and Ecology" (2016). Tucker and Grim studied with Thomas Berry and worked closely with him for 30 years. Tucker edited Berry's books: "The Great Work", "Evening Thoughts", "The Sacred Universe", and with Grim, "The Christian Future and the Fate of Earth" and "Thomas Berry: Selected Writings on the Earth Community". Tucker and Grim also wrote "Thomas Berry: A Biography" with Andrew Angyal (Columbia 2019). With Brian Thomas Swimme, Tucker created a multi-media project called "Journey of the Universe" which includes an Emmy award winning film, a book from Yale (2011), Journey Conversations, a newsletter, and massive online classes. Tucker served on the International Earth Charter Drafting Committee and was a member of the Earth Charter International Council. She received an Inspiring Yale Teaching Award in April 2015. In June 2019 she and John Grim received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Society for Religion, Nature, and Culture.