Eric D. Mortensen, the John A. Von Weissenfluh Professor of Religious Studies at Guilford College, will present a paper in late April at the “Ecological Spiritualities” conference hosted by Harvard Divinity School’s Program for the Evolution of Spirituality.
Download the flier about the upcoming conference.
Eric’s paper is titled, “The Resurgence of Nature-Based Folk Religion in Light of Ecological Trauma in the Lingering Buddhist Vacuum of Tibetan Communities in Gyalthang.” Following the destruction of Ganden Sumtseling monastery in 1967, Tibetans of the villages of Geza and Nagara in the region of Gyalthang (Yunnan, P. R. China) have engaged in a revivification of previously sublimated local (non-Buddhist or pre-Buddhist) “folk religion” (Tib: mi chos).
Based on more than three years of religious folklore fieldwork in Gyalthang, Eric’s project examines the resurgence of local nature-based beliefs and practices, an augmentation of spiritual relationships with an animated landscape that lacks normative institutional sanction. This hyper-local, place-based ecological spirituality is accompanied by new valences of anxiety brought about by destruction of the local landscape.
Eric teaches courses on: East Asian religions; Tibetan and Himalayan religions; ecology, humanities, and social justice; and comparative religion. His research on monster stories, divination practices, and the roles of animals in religion is based primarily on fieldwork conducted in Tibet over the past three decades.