Alumna Sarah Fredericks to Speak at George Hall Lecture

Gustavus Adolphus College alumna and current Assistant Professor of Philosophy & Religion Studies at the University of North Texas Sarah E. Fredericks ’01 will speak at the annual George Hall Lecture at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 21, in the St. Peter Banquet Room. Fredericks’ talk is titled “Environmental Guilt” and is free and open to the public.

Fredericks earned her Ph.D. from Boston University in 2008 – the same year she joined the faculty at UNT. Her research falls under three, often overlapping, categories: 1) worldview analysis, or the study of the ways that ethical values, metaphysical and epistemological commitments, and culture inform decision-making and action; 2) environmental ethics, particularly about sustainable energy; and 3) the philosophical implications of the development and use of indicators, methods of measuring progress toward goals such as energy sustainability that encompasses technical and ethical dimensions.

Recently she has been chronicling the ways that environmental justice is assumed in definitions of sustainability, yet left out of most methods of assessing progress toward sustainability, and is working to bridge this gap. In 2012 she wrote a chapter titled “Religion and Technology” for the book Science and Religion: One World, Many Possibilities. Fredericks also has a manuscript in progress titled “Sustainable Energy Ethics: an Ethical Evaluation of Sustainable Energy Development Indicators.”

At UNT, Fredericks teaches courses such as Christianity and Philosophy, Religion and Science, Religion and American Society, Philosophy of Religion, and Ethics in Science.

The George Hall Lecture at Gustavus is named after George F.Hall (1908-2000), who taught in the College’s Christianity Department from 1938 to 1952. Hall left his post at Gustavus when he and his family left the country to serve as missionaries in Tanzania. His wife Lorena was instrumental in founding the College’s Art Department. The George Hall Lecture is sponsored by the Gustavus Religion Department and the Office of Church Relations.