Call for expressions of interest – Global perspectives on Christianity, music, ecology, and climate (edited collection)

[Mark Porter]

Call for expressions of interest – Global perspectives on Christianity, music, ecology, and climate (edited collection)

Recent years have seen an increasing number of Christian communities begin to grapple with the implications of a period of ecological crisis for their faith and theology, for their communal life together, for their rituals, and for their engagement with the communities by which they are surrounded. While music is rarely the primary location of this engagement, it plays an important role in the shaping of communal narratives, emotions, and imaginations, in speaking to a wider public, and in the broader negotiation of a variety of different relationships.

Individuals have begun to write new songs and adapt old ones; communities have begun to explore the possibilities and limits of outdoor worship alongside attempts to learn from other religious/spiritual traditions; music is used in faith-based activism; requiems have emerged in a wide variety of forms; and music finds its way into a range of different ecological projects and communication strategies. At the same time, Christian imaginations and musical practices spill over in a variety of different ways to the broader social/cultural/musical world of which the music of congregations and communities is just one part. The availability of Christianity as part of an established cultural repertoire means that Christian expressions form a point of departure or critique for musical expressions in a wider range of popular, classical, or activist projects that engage with ecology.

Engagement between ecology and Christian musicking is nothing new, and much longer traditions of environmental hymnody and imaginations of cosmic musical harmony can be traced through many centuries of different Christian traditions. An awareness of the potential for something new to emerge sits alongside an awareness that existing practices might, in a variety of different ways, either serve as a resource, or be unsuitable to negotiating the world as it is right now – as they have been bound up with practices/imaginations of extractivism and empire; as they have reinforced human/nature distinctions and hierarchies; as they reinforce problematic political and economic practices; as they guide worshippers engagement away from the materiality of the present world around them; or as they fail to cultivate just and ethical relationships with a range of human and non-human others. A period of ecological crisis provokes reflection on existing practices, on the range of contemporary practices that are emerging or might emerge, and on the wider context in which all this is taking place.

This edited collection seeks to bring together a variety of global perspectives on the relationship between Christianity, musical activity, and questions of climate and ecology, drawing together chapters on newly emerging practices with critical perspectives on longer histories and entanglements. It aims to draw together voices from different disciplines, locations, and subject positions, both scholars and scholar-practitioners, faith-based and faith-critical in chapters that bring the insights of eco-criticism, eco-theology, eco-musicology, and the environmental humanities to bear on existing and emerging phenomena. In particular, it hopes to draw together a diverse range of global voices that speak from a variety of different subject positions in relation to the current ecological crisis.

Proposals are welcome on any topic that sits at the intersection of Christianity, music/musical practice, and ecology/climate. Please submit either a title/abstract (300–500 words), or an informal expression of interest to Dr Mark Porter (University of Erfurt) m...@markporter.co.uk by 15th July 2026. A preliminary interest in the publication has been discussed with an editor at Bloomsbury, and the intention is to submit a formal proposal there before the end of the year.