Person

Mary Evelyn Tucker

Also known as: Mary Evelyn Tucker (and John Grim)

American religious-studies scholar (b. 1949) — co-founder with her husband **John Grim** of the **Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale**, and the principal academic-institutional successor to Thomas Berry in the spiritual-ecology field. Trained as a scholar of Confucianism (PhD, Columbia, 1985, dissertation on the 18th-c. Japanese Confucian Kaibara Ekken); senior research scholar and senior lecturer at Yale's School of the Environment and Divinity School. Together with John Grim, she has co-directed the Yale Forum since 1998, organized the foundational *Religions of the World and Ecology* conference series at Harvard (1996–98) and the resulting ten-volume Harvard book series (1997–2003), produced the *Journey of the Universe* film (2011, with Brian Swimme) and the eponymous Yale Coursera courses (now with substantial enrollment globally), and written or edited substantial books across the field. Her scholarly work integrates Asian religious traditions (especially Confucianism) with the broader spiritual-ecology project Thomas Berry inaugurated.

Mary Evelyn Tucker was born in 1949 and pursued her education in religious studies, completing a PhD at Columbia University in 1985 with a dissertation on Kaibara Ekken (1630–1714), a major Japanese Tokugawa-era Confucian scholar whose ecological-philosophical writing prefigured many of the concerns of contemporary [[spiritual-ecology|spiritual ecology]]. Through her doctoral work she met John Grim (b. 1946), a Religious Studies scholar of indigenous traditions whose dissertation (Fordham, 1980) was on the shamanic traditions of the Crow and Ojibwa. They married and have collaborated continuously since.

Both studied with [[thomas-berry|Thomas Berry]] in the late 1970s and 1980s — Berry’s Riverdale Center being a substantial site of intellectual community for those interested in the integration of religious-cultural studies with ecological commitment. Tucker has been Berry’s principal academic-scholarly successor.

The major projects

Across a long career, several principal projects:

The Religions of the World and Ecology conference series and book series. Organized at Harvard’s Center for the Study of World Religions in 1996–98 — ten conferences, each focused on one religious tradition (Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Daoism, Hinduism, Indigenous traditions, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Shinto), each producing a substantial scholarly volume in the resulting Harvard series. The series is the foundational scholarly mapping of the spiritual-ecology field and has been continuously cited since.
The Forum on [[spiritual-ecology|Religion and Ecology]] at Yale. Founded 1998; Tucker and Grim co-directors. The principal academic-institutional anchor of the field. Activities include: continuing publications, an extensive online resource center (substantial bibliographies, syllabi, course materials, lectures), the bi-annual conferences, Yale courses, and various international partnerships.
The Journey of the Universe project (2011 onward). The film (Emmy-winning, with [[brian-swimme|Brian Swimme]]), the book (with Swimme), the Coursera courses (which have enrolled hundreds of thousands of students globally), the educational curricula, and the continuing Journey of the Universe Conversations lecture series.
Yale teaching. Tucker is Senior Lecturer and Senior Research Scholar at Yale’s School of the Environment and the Yale Divinity School (joint appointment). She and Grim have taught together a substantial cohort of graduate students who have gone on to faculty and institutional positions across the field.
Edited volumes and writing. Substantial scholarly bibliography including Worldly Wonder: Religions Enter Their Ecological Phase (2003), The Philosophy of Qi: The Record of Great Doubts (2007, translation of Kaibara Ekken), and (with Andrew Angyal and John Grim) [[thomas-berry|Thomas Berry]]: A Biography (2019, the authorized biography).

What this gives the platform

Three contributions:

An academic anchor. [[0mn1one|The platform]]‘s commitment to spiritual-ecology questions has substantial academic-scholarly resource in the work Tucker (and Grim) have built.
A model of institutional building. The Forum on [[spiritual-ecology|Religion and Ecology]], the Harvard series, the Journey of the Universe materials together represent what sustained institutional building in this field looks like across decades.
A continuing teaching about Asian traditions and ecology. Tucker’s distinctive Confucian focus has substantially shaped the field’s engagement with East Asian traditions; [[0mn1one|the platform]]‘s existing engagement with Confucianism, Daoism, and the broader East Asian tradition finds substantial resource in her work.

Sources

Mary Evelyn Tucker. Worldly Wonder: Religions Enter Their Ecological Phase. Open Court, 2003. Source class: book / primary.
Mary Evelyn Tucker & John Grim (gen. eds.). Religions of the World and Ecology (10 vols.). Harvard CSWR, 1997–2003. Source class: book series / co-edited.
Mary Evelyn Tucker, John Grim, & Andrew Angyal. [[thomas-berry|Thomas Berry]]: A Biography. Columbia, 2019. Source class: book / co-authored.
[[brian-swimme|Brian Swimme]] & Mary Evelyn Tucker. Journey of the Universe. Yale, 2011. Source class: book / co-authored.
The Forum on [[spiritual-ecology|Religion and Ecology]] at Yale. https://fore.yale.edu. Source class: institutional.

Lenses still to grow

John Grim as a figure in his own right — his work on indigenous traditions deserves separate treatment.
The Religions of the World and Ecology series in detail — each volume a substantial scholarly contribution.
Kaibara Ekken and the broader 18th-c. Japanese Confucian-ecological tradition.
The Journey of the Universe Coursera courses as a piece of contemporary global religious education.

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