Good Trouble: The intersections of religion, microbiology, ecology and race

“First Thursdays at the Farm” is a distinctive dinner series hosted at The Farminary, Princeton Theological Seminary’s 21-acre farm. Featuring a unique line-up of speakers, the intimate dinners are designed to generate meaningful conversation. No big presentations; just big ideas and delicious food in a one-of-a-kind venue.

COST: $125 per person; those who buy 3+ tickets get 15% off the total cost.

Good Trouble: The intersections of religion, microbiology, ecology and race

Dr. Aminah Al-Attas Bradford is an Arab-American scholar of religion and Christian thought currently serving as a postdoctoral research fellow at North Carolina State University. What is she doing in an ecology lab? A unifying inter-religious belief, that humans do not exist without God, is sometimes forgotten—but most religious traditions have scarcely begun to think that humans don’t exist without their microbiome. Christianity is no exception. Given Christian power in the US, this is to the detriment of all. Christian thought is hardly set up to engage humanity’s multi-species, symbiotic reality. What microbes blend together (nature-culture, animal-human, me-you), Christian thinkers typically keep apart.

From the lab, Bradford co-organizes an interdisciplinary, international group of scholars, artists and activists who explore “big ideas” through multiple lenses, including public health, industry, fermentation, human futures and climate change adaptation. She is currently writing a theology of human holobionts to reconfigure religious ways of knowing and reflecting the divine as symbiotic to cultivate ecological empathy and antiracist postures in the Eurowestern Church. Bradford is also the director of the Center for Wellbeing and Contemplative Practice and the College Chaplain at Salem College and partners with the Berggruen Institute where she collaborates to develop non-athropocentric multispecies ways of governing.

Chef: Gabby Aron is the Chef and Founder of Autumn Olive Food Works. Chef Gabby Aron is a first generation Sicilian-Jewish American, born in Bensonhurst Brooklyn, of a food loving family and community. Her love of cooking began at home, and in the diners and pizzerias in her local neighborhoods. Food was the greatest reward and comfort, as a child of hard working parents and relatives, food and music was always the center of celebration and togetherness. Her relatives grew vegetables in their urban backyards, which gave her a taste for unique, quality ingredients. Chef Gabby began her food career as a farmer in 2010 after learning the dangerous social and ecological impacts of industrial farming. Since then she has worked in every aspect of the food industry, as a farm hand, cook, teacher, CSA and farm store coordinator, micro-farm manager, event planner, until founding her business Autumn Olive Food Works in 2016. Autumn Olive Food Works is a hyper local specialty catering, personal chef, and cooking class, and event business highlighting locally grown ingredients, global inspiration, and nostalgic reverence, in order to create meaningful and nourishing food experiences. She has an abundant home garden from which she uses for her business, and has fostered strong relationships with local producers for over a decade.

ABOUT THE FARMINARY

The Farminary is a place where theological education is integrated with small-scale regenerative agriculture to train faith leaders who are conversant in the areas of ecology, sustainability, and food justice. It is designed to train students to challenge society’s 24–7 culture of productivity by following a different rhythm, one that is governed by the seasons and Sabbath. “The project’s main goal is to form leaders by cultivating ecological and agricultural sensibilities within them like paying attention to the seasons, understanding the interconnectedness of life and death, and becoming comfortable with failure,” says Nate Stucky, director of the Farminary Project.