On Earth as It Is: Ethics and the Environment

The 2023 Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar Lecture featuring. Corey D. B. Walker, Ph.D., Professor of the Humanities with a joint appointment in the department of English and the Interdisciplinary Humanities Program at Wake Forest University.

Topic: On Earth as It Is: Ethics and the Environment
We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, 'too late.' Martin Luther King, Jr.'s bracing words from his 1967 "A Time to Break Silence " speech delivered at the Riverside Church in New York underscore the immediate and urgent need to create a just and sustainable world. Today, we face an existential threat to the very future of humanity as a result of human induced climate change. This existential treat to human life on the planet forces us to confront the necessity for deliberate and committed action to create new forms of sustainable human community. This lecture calls for a broad conception of environmental ethics as a critical and necessary response to our contemporary climate crisis. By revisiting King's ideal of "beloved community," the lecture articulates an ethical framework that supports the urgent call to create a transformed and livable world.

Corey D. B. Walker is the Wake Forest Professor of the Humanities with a joint appointment in the department of English and the Interdisciplinary Humanities Program at Wake Forest University. Professor Walker is the Dean of the Wake Forest University School of Divinity, in addition to the inaugural director of the Program in African American Studies. His research, teaching, and public scholarship span the areas of African American philosophy, critical theory, ethics, and religion and American public life. Dr. Walker is author and editor of several books and has published over sixty articles, essays, and book chapters in a wide variety of scholarly journals and publications. He is currently completing his next book, Disciple of Nonviolence: Wyatt Tee Walker and the Struggle for the Soul of Democracy, to be published by the University of Virginia Press. A much sought after speaker, he has appeared on a variety of media programs and has served as a commentator for a number of outlets in the United States and abroad.

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