Public Research Talk: Emancipating Ecology: The Emerson-Thoreau Fault Line and Why It Matters for the Climate Crisis — Russell C. Powell

Common Room, CSWR
42 Francis Ave., Cambridge, MA
Tue., Sep. 8, 2026, 12 – 1:30 p.m.



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Thoreau is a hero of environmental politics. Why isn't Emerson?
As ecological thought has increasingly emphasized particular places, histories, and forms of life, Thoreau has come to embody an ethic of attention to what resists universal abstraction. Yet climate change confronts us with injustices that extend beyond local contexts, making the abandonment of universality—and the emancipation it promises—a political liability.
Revisiting Emerson as a thinker of universality, this talk asks how environmental politics might meet the demands of justice while remaining faithful to particular places and concerns. Though Thoreau and Emerson represent different strands of the Transcendentalist legacy, both are essential to an environmental politics that is adequate to our historical moment.

Russell C. Powell is Research Affiliate for the Transcendentalism Initiative at the Center for the Study of World Religions. Formerly the Center's Postdoctoral Fellow in Philosophy of Religion, his research examines the religious, ethical, and political dimensions of environmental thought. He is currently completing a book on Ralph Waldo Emerson's relevance to contemporary ecological thought.

Programming Series: Transcendentalism
Gazette Classification: Environmental Sciences, Religion
Sponsor: Center for the Study of World Religions
Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator, [email protected]
More info: cswr.hds.harvard.edu…