Mark Irvy Wallace is an American Professor of Religion at

Swarthmore College Swarthmore College ( , ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1864, with its first classes held in 1869, Swarthmore is one of the e ...

, where he teaches courses on religion, environmental studies, and Interpretation theory. A self-described "Christian Animist", his teaching and research interests focus on the intersections between Christian theology, critical theory, environmental studies, and postmodernism as a part of the field of ecological theology. Through his work he seeks to "bring together biblical faith and the liberal arts."

Education

He obtained his B.A. in Religious Studies with honors from

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Tracing its roots back to 1891 as an ...

(1978). He received his M.Div. from

Princeton Theological Seminary Princeton Theological Seminary (PTSem), officially The Theological Seminary of the Presbyterian Church, is a Private university, private seminary, school of theology in Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Establish ...

in 1982, and his PhD in Theology (advised by

Paul Ricœur Jean Paul Gustave Ricœur (; ; 27 February 1913 – 20 May 2005) was a French philosopher best known for combining phenomenological description with hermeneutics. As such, his thought is within the same tradition as other major hermeneut ...

) from

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

in 1986.

Academic career

Prior to teaching at Swarthmore College, Wallace was an instructor at the Princeton Theological Seminary Summer School, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgia State University, and a lecturer in Religious Studies at Merrimack College. He currently serves on the editorial boards of several academic journals, including HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies; Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture; Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture; Études Ricoeuriennes/Ricoeur Studies; and Worldviews: Global Religions, Culture, and Ecology. At

, Wallace teaches in and oversees the Chester Semester Fellowship, a semester based course that engages students with texts about

Chester Chester is a cathedral city in Cheshire, England, on the River Dee, Wales, River Dee, close to the England–Wales border. With a built-up area population of 92,760 in 2021, it is the most populous settlement in the borough of Cheshire West an ...

and direct community work with various organizations and leaders. The Fellowship's website describes the program's purpose as "to facilitate committed student engagement with visionary leaders in the city of Chester and focuses on critically understanding and helping to ameliorate some of society’s most pressing real-world problems by requiring students to participate in civic volunteer programs throughout the academic year."

Personal life

Mark Wallace grew up in Los Angeles, CA. His interest in theology was piqued after hearing a sermon by Billy Graham. Through working with Paul Ricoeur, Wallace's outlook on Christianity changed from an

anthropocentric Anthropocentrism ( ) is the belief that human beings are the central or most important entity on the planet. The term can be used interchangeably with humanocentrism, and some refer to the concept as human supremacy or human exceptionalism. From a ...

view focused on private salvation to a biocentric view focusing on ecology, the earth, and the cosmos.

Awards and honors

Awards

''When God Was a Bird'' won the 2019 Gold

Nautilus Book Award A nautilus (; ) is any of the various species within the cephalopod family Nautilidae. This is the sole extant family of the superfamily Nautilaceae and the suborder Nautilina. It comprises nine living species in two genera, the type of which ...

in the category of "Religion / Spirituality of Western Thought".

Honors

Selected honors include: Eugene M. Lang Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Periclean Faculty Leadership Fellowship (2020–21); Japan International Christian University Foundation Visiting Scholar (2008); Andrew W. Mellon New Directions for Scholars-Teachers Fellowship (2003-2004); ACLS Contemplative Practice Fellowship (2000); AAR Research Grant (1992); NEH Scholar, Georgia State University Humanities Workshop (October 4, 1988). His research has been supported by the American Council of Learned Societies, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Eugene M. Lang Foundation, the American Academy of Religion, and the National Endowment of the Humanities.

Selected publications

Articles

A select number of his works are freel
available online

Books

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wallace, Mark I. Living people Swarthmore College faculty University of California, Santa Barbara alumni Princeton Theological Seminary alumni University of Chicago Divinity School alumni American theologians Year of birth missing (living people) American animists