Anna M. Gade 

Dr. Anna M. Gade is Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of Environmental Studies in the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin—Madison. She is Chair of the Undergraduate Committee for the Environmental Studies major and affiliated certificate programs, which oversees curriculum for well over five hundred students' degrees. At UW-Madison, she teaches  courses in Environmental Humanities, Islamic Studies, Asian Studies in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, and the academic study of religion and ethics in the Religious Studies Program.

She holds M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from The University of Chicago with a doctorate in  the History of Religions, specializing in Islam. Her B.A. is in Mathematics from Swarthmore College. She has held academic positions at Cornell University (Near Eastern Studies), Princeton University (Music/Religion), Oberlin College (Religion), Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand (Religious Studies), and Universitas Gadjah Mada in Indonesia.   

Dr. Gade's most recent book, Muslim Environmentalisms: Religious and Social Foundations (320 pp.), was published by Columbia University Press in August, 2019. Listen to a podcast interview about it on New Books Network here

Professor Gade's previous published work emphasizes theory and method in the academic study of religion and the study of Islam.  Her research since 2007 explains global cultural, historical and religious responses to environmental change, specializing in history, knowledge and practices of Southeast Asia. This project and ones before it have been based on extensive fieldwork in Indonesia and elsewhere in in the region, such as Cambodia and Malaysia.  She has recently published on topics including the burning of tropical forests; cross-cultural expressions of environmental sentiment; Islamic environmental justice, law and ethics; Rights of Nature in the Asia-Pacific region; and, religious environmental art, architecture and material culture.  Her current projects relate to infrastructure and urban futures, and environmental ethics on the basis of the field of interdisciplinary environmental studies.

At UW-Madison, Professor Gade is a faculty affiliate of the Center for Culture, History and Environment (CHE); the Center for Southeast Asian Studies (CSEAS); the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures (ALC); and, Religious Studies. She has served as Co-Chair of the Qur'an Group of the American Academy of Religion, and has authored two books dedicated to understanding the Arabic Qur'an with respect to diverse Muslim perspectives worldwide. 

Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies
Science Hall
550 North Park Street
Madison, WI 53706

Email: amgade@wisc.edu