Carmody Grey
Carmody grew up in the green hills of Sussex, but spent much of her childhood travelling to wild places around the world through her father's work as a photojournalist. These formative experiences of indigenous cultures, remote landscapes and beautiful creatures, alongside doing the rounds with her grandfather, 'the other vet' in the well-known James Herriot stories of farming life in the Yorkshire Dales, inspired her ongoing involvement in conservation expeditions and land care, as well as her teaching and research in environmental philosophy and ethics. She particularly delights in working outside the academy, supporting and enabling individuals and communities including schools, churches, NGOs, and a range of lay groups and associations. Before starting her PhD she had a wonderful few years as Head of Philosophy, Religion and Ethics at a secondary school in Hampshire.
Carmody is delighted to be on loan to the LSRI as Visiting Research Fellow from her permanent position as Assistant Professor of Catholic Theology in the Department of Theology and Religion at Durham University. She brings an academic background in Eastern as well as Western religious and philosophical traditions, and a keen interest in the philosophy and history of natural sciences, to her work in theology and ethics.
Carmody can all too easily be induced to leave book and screen for hiking, cycling, wild swimming, scuba diving, and looking after plants, kittens, baby birds, and slow worms.
-
EducationPhD, University of Bristol
MA, Systematic and Philosophical Theology, University of Nottingham
PGCert, Biodiversity, Wildlife and Ecosystem Health, University of EdinburghMPhil, Theology and Religious Studies, King's College, University of Cambridge
BA, Theology, Trinity College, Oxford University -
Research InterestsCarmody works in philosophical theology and theological ethics. In philosophical theology, she is interested in how Christianity responds to modernity's account of reason, rationality, and the good. Her doctoral thesis explored the way in which what we call 'natural science' assumes a certain account of 'nature' and how we can know it, and 'life science' a certain account of what it is to be alive and to know life. In ethics, she is interested in debates about human uniqueness, animal ethics, and the nature of value in the nonhuman world, issues which she tries to bring into exchange with Catholic Social Teaching.
-
Selected Publications(2021). ‘Creation, Evil and Suffering’. In The Oxford Handbook of Creation. OUP.
(2020). 'The Only Creature God Willed For Its Own Sake: Anthropocentrism in Laudato Si and Gaudium et Spes.'. Modern Theology 36(4): 865-883.
(2019). Time and Measures of Success: Interpreting and Implementing Laudato Si. New Blackfriars 101(1091): 5-28.
(2018). ‘In Defence of Biodiversity: Biodiversity in Ecology and Theology’. In Theology and Ecology Across the Disciplines: On Care For Our Common Home. T&T Clark.
