Contact information
Tel: 352-273-2936
Email: annap@ufl.edu
Office: 105 Anderson Hall
Mailbox: 107 Anderson Hall
Fall 2024 office hours:Tues and Thurs. 4th period (10:40-11:30) and by appointment
Introduction
As a social ethicist, I explore the ways that moral claims are expressed and embodied in everyday life. My graduate training is in Ethics and Society (PhD, University of Chicago Divinity School) and my undergraduate degree is in Religious Studies (from U.C. Berkeley). I have conducted extensive fieldwork among religious communities and social movements in the U.S. and Latin America.
My main research and teaching areas are social ethics, environmental ethics, religion and social change, animal studies, and religion and politics in Latin America. At UF, I am affiliated with several interdisciplinary programs: the Center for Latin American Studies, the School of Natural Resources and the Environment, the Program in Tropical Conservation and Development, and the Center for Gender, Sexualities, and Women’s Studies Research.
Ethics and the Public Sphere
For the past few years, I have been co-coordinating a collaborative, interdisciplinary project on Ethics in the Public Sphere. With support from UF’s Center for the Humanities in the Public Sphere, our group is examining contemporary ethical issues that dominate conversations in the public arena, such as police violence, gun control, climate change, freedom of speech and hate speech, and sexual violence, among others. As part of the Center’s Intersections program supported by the Mellon Foundation, we created a first-year humanities (Quest 1) course for students to learn ethical thinking and reflect on moral challenges and also a Quest 2 class on religion and social movements. We also sponsor related programs, both on and off campus, to support and encourage critical, informed discussions about the moral dimensions of contentious public issues. I am excited about this way to link my academic work to my commitment to contributing to the common good and to collaborate with talented, dedicated colleagues from around UF.
We also created a certificate program in Ethics and Society, which is open to students in all majors. The certificate trains students in the ethical analysis of problems in public life and the professions. Learn about major theories and issues in ethics as a scholarly field and have the opportunity to gain specialized knowledge in areas such as medical, engineering, business, or environmental ethics. The certificate is jointly sponsored by the Departments of Philosophy and Religion and is administered by Religion.
Recent books and current research
I am presently co-editing the De Gruyter Handbook of Religion and Social Change, a large and exciting project which will be the first handbook on this topic. I am also beginning a new single authored book on doing ethics in the public sphere. In addition, I am participating in a collaborative project on science ethics and advocacy, along with colleagues from across UF.
My newest book, published in September 2024, is With God on Our Side: Religion, Social Movements, and Social Change. This is the first full length study of religion’s role in movements for social change. Using a wide range of case studies, it shows that religion plays a pervasive, complex, and sometimes ambivalent role in social movements.
My book Works Righteousness: Material Practice in Ethical Theory was published in fall 2020. It analyzes the treatment of practice in secular and religious ethical theories and then looks at the significance of practice in evaluating several contemporary moral problems, including free speech and hate speech, euthanasia, and climate change.
My co-authored book Cats and Conservationists: The Debate over Who Owns the Outdoors, written with wildlife ecologist Dara Wald, was published in spring 2020. We examine the social, ecological, and ethical dimensions of the debates about community/feral cats, arguing for an approach to policy that takes seriously both good science and diverse community voices.
Other books (for a full list, please see my CV)
Religion and Ecological Crisis: The “Lynn White Thesis” at Fifty. Co-edited with Todd LeVasseur. New York: Routledge, 2016.
Being Animal: Beasts and Boundaries in Nature Ethics. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013.
Working Toward Sustainability: Ethical Decision Making in a Technological World. With Charles Kibert, Martha Monroe, Richard Plate, and Leslie Paul Thiele. Hoboken: John Wiley, 2011.
Everyday Ethics and Social Change: The Education of Desire. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009.
Articles and Chapters
For links to many articles, chapters, and reviews, please visit my Academia.edu page.
