Happy Friday! Today’s post is an early one because I’m taking a weekend road trip to Monterey and Santa Barbara, partially to support my partner as he plays in the USGA Mid-Am qualifier, but mostly to celebrate the book release. I’m only spending a few more weeks in California, and we’re trying to make every day count! Remember that you can use code Pub_OEE to save 20% off the cost of Old English Ecotheology when you order directly from Amsterdam University Press by October 15th.

Today’s post is an act of gratitude: I’m sharing some of the academic resources that inspired me while I was writing Old English Ecotheology. Some of these texts are quoted heavily in the book; others served as an inspiration for structure and style.

• Megan Cavell, “The Riddle Ages”
  • hands-down the best online resource for study of the Exeter riddle collection
• James H. Cone, “Whose Earth is it Anyway?” Crosscurrents 50 (2000): 36-46.
  • an essential ecotheological text by a leading voice in black liberation theology, which informs my ecotheology.
• Corrine Dale, The Natural World in the Exeter Book Riddles. D.S. Brewer, 2017.
  • an incredible monograph on the Exeter riddle collection, to which my third chapter is deeply indebted.
• Heide Estes, Anglo-Saxon Literary Landscapes: Ecotheory and the Environmental Imagination. Amsterdam UP, 2017.
  • a key example of medieval ecocriticism
• Norman Habel & the Earth Bible Team, Readings from the Perspective of Earth. Sheffield UP, 2000.
  • a useful distillation of modern Christian ecocriticism and one of the foundations of the first chapter
• Jennifer Neville, Representations of the Natural World in Old English Poetry. Cambridge UP, 1999.
  • another essential example of medieval ecocriticism, and a useful conversation partner
• Kari Nixon, Kept from All Contagion. SUNY Press, 2021.
  • my first monograph fairy-godmother
• Mary Rambaran-Olm, “Misnaming the Medieval: Rejecting ‘Anglo-Saxon’ Studies.” History Workshop, November 4, 2019.
  • an essential voice in early Medieval English studies, and the model for my choice not to use the term A-S in the book
• Ilse Schweitzer VanDonkelaar. “Old English Ecologies: Environmental Readings of Anglo-Saxon Texts and Culture.” Ph.D. diss., Western Michigan University, 2013.
  • one of two brilliant dissertations that shaped my thinking for this book, written by the editor who first acquired it!
• Kellyanne Falkenberg Wolfe, “Creation, Crisis, and Comedy: an Ecocritical Reading of the Eden Story, Joel, and Jonah.” Ph.D. diss., Union Theological Seminary, 2011.
  • essential to my understanding of the Eden story (which hopefully will be next project!)

My goal is for Old English Ecotheology to be part one entry in an ongoing conversation about ecotheology in medieval literature; I’m grateful to each of the scholars above for bringing me into the conversation.