Program Director
New Visions of Nature, Science, and Religion is administered by Prof. Jim Proctor. Dr. Proctor, formerly of the Department of Geography at UC Santa Barbara is now Director of the Environmental Studies Program at Lewis & Clark College; his research has focused on concepts of nature, and he has served as program director for UCSB’s successful Templeton Research Lectures series, entitled Science, Religion, and the Human Experience. Prof. Proctor holds an undergraduate degree in religious studies, a graduate degree in environmental science and engineering, and a Ph.D. in geography. Given his background in the social sciences, physical/life sciences, and humanities, his overarching desire as an academic is to promote intellectual progress through collaboration among a wide range of disciplines. Dr. Proctor is an accomplished musician and vocalist, and has been active for many years as a member and lay speaker in the Unitarian Universalist Association, combining these interests in his former capacity as music director for a local Santa Barbara congregation.
Prof. Proctor has received a number of research grants from the National Science Foundation. His most recent NSF award has supported empirical and philosophical analysis of the relative influence of science and religion in recent American popular environmental concern, and the ways that science, religion, nature, and the state serve as interrelated domains of epistemic and moral authority in American society. Upcoming research plans involve cross-national empirical studies of these questions via the International Social Survey Programme. Related publications and scholarly presentations are listed below.
Proctor, James D., ed. 2005. Science, religion, and the
human experience. New York: Oxford University
Press.
____ , and Evan Berry. 2004. Religion and environmental concern: The
challenge for social science. To appear in Encyclopedia of religion
and nature,
edited by B.
Taylor. New York: Continuum.
____ . May 2003. In ____ We Trust: Science, Religion, and Authority. Templeton
Research Lectures Series: Science, Religion, and the Human Experience, Santa
Barbara.
____ . November 2002. American Environmentalism: Science or Religion? American
Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, Toronto, Canada.
____ . November 2002. Expanding the Bounds of Religion. Society
for the Scientific Study of Religion Annual Meeting, Salt Lake City, Utah.
____ . 2001. Solid rock and shifting sands: The moral paradox of saving a socially-constructed
nature. In Social nature: Theory, practice and politics, edited by N. Castree
and B. Braun, 225-239. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.
____ . 2001. Concepts of nature, environmental/ecological. In International
encyclopedia of the social and behavioral sciences, edited by N. J. Smelser
and P. B. Bates,
10400-406. Oxford: Elsevier.
____ . 1999. A moral earth: Facts and values in global environmental change.
In Geography and ethics: Journeys in a moral terrain, edited by J. D. Proctor
and D. M. Smith,
149-162. London: Routledge Press.
____ . 1998. Geography, paradox, & environmental ethics. Progress in
Human Geography 22 (2):234-255.
____ . 1998. The social construction of nature: Relativist accusations, pragmatist
and critical realist responses. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 88 (3):352-376.