Re-Soil/ing the New Jerusalem: Dream-Reading Revelation (22:2) and Women’s Speculative Fiction for Futures that Feed Us
Rev. Dr. Nancy Victorin-Vangerud
On campus and via Zoom
Ecofeminist Catherine Keller invites us to “dream-read” the biblical book of Revelation as a “dis/closive” strategy for reimagining planetary futures from “edges” of possibility, counter to religious and secular “endings.” This eco-eschatology lecture begins with a visage from the Lake Street Bridge, reflecting on the place of “City, Tree, Water,” then flows through apocalyptic images of the New Jerusalem and its Tree of Life, whose “leaves are for the healing of the nations” (22:2). Further inspiration from arboreal researchers, regenerative land-poets, and women’s speculative fiction writers illumine relations of kinship between trees, leaves, soil and humans. As spiritual communities seek alternatives to extractive and exploitative economies, eco-eschatology reimagines and dreams how we may engage together for edible, fertile, generous and humble futures.
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About the Speaker
Rev. Dr. Nancy Victorin-Vangerud is a retired clergy member of the MN Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, and she is currently serving as an adjunct professor at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities. She brings experience in higher education as a professor of Christian theology at Murdoch University in Perth, Western Australia, as well as Hamline University, where she served as Chaplain and Director of the Wesley Center for Spirituality, Service and Social Justice. Nancy has also served in leadership as a youth minister, retreat center director, director of Christian education, lead pastor, and teaching elder. Nancy received an MDiv and PhD in Religion from Vanderbilt University, and an MA in Christian Education from Scarritt College. She is author of The Raging Hearth: Spirit in the Household of God (Chalice, 2000), as well as multiple articles and book chapters on ecotheology, feminist theology, and ecospirituality. She and her family live in south Minneapolis, where she is passionate about urban gardening and food sustainability.