Jason Brown

Lecturer in Religious Studies, Ecological Chaplain https://www.sfu.ca/fenv/about/ecological-chaplaincy.html
Global Humanities

Areas of interest

Trees and forests in the ecological humanities, Death Studies, Ecological Theology, Contemplative and Monastic Studies, Phenomenology of Place and Landscape

Actively accepting MA students interested in:
Ecological humanities

Education

  • PhD, Resources, Environment and Sustainability, University of British Columbia
  • MF (Master's of Forestry), Yale University
  • MA, Religion and Ecological Theology, Yale Divinity School
  • BA, Anthropology, with an emphasis in sociocultural. Minor: International Development. Brigham Young University

Biography

Jason M. Brown was born and raised in Southern California and studied anthropology and international development as an undergraduate at Brigham Young University. His master’s work was completed in forestry and theology from Yale. He completed his PhD in 2017 from the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES) at the University of British Columbia where his dissertation explored the sense of place of contemporary Catholic monks in the American West. As a Lecturer at Simon Fraser University, Jason teaches courses in comparative religion and ecological humanities for the department of Global Humanities and occasionally environmental ethics for the School of Resource and Environmental Management.

Courses Taught:

HUM 204: Great Religious Texts (Spring 2025)

HUM 330: Religions in Context
Rough Gods: Death, Disease and Disaster in the Ecological Humanities (Spring 2024)
Lovers of the Place: Monks, Mystics and Hermits (Spring 2025)
Heroes Journeys and Pilgrim Paths: The Spirituality of Walking (Spring 2026)

HUM 360: Special Topics: Great Themes in the Humanistic Tradition (4)
Ecological Grief and Radical Hope (Spring 2024)
Auguries for the Anthropocene: Birds and the Human Imagination (Fall 2024)
Sacred Groves: Trees, Forests, and the Human Imagination (Fall 2025)
Charged with Grandeur: Ecological Ethics, Theology and Spirituality (Fall 2026)