A conversation with Colin Simonds, Lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of Alberta. His research focuses on how Tibetan Buddhist philosophy and contemplative practice are relevant to contemporary issues facing the more-than-human world. His doctoral thesis, titled "Moral Phenomenology in a More-Than-Human World: A New Approach to Buddhist Environmental Ethics," offers an interpretation of Buddhist ethics as a moral phenomenology and proposes a phenomenological approach to animal and environmental ethics from a Tibetan Buddhist perspective. Dr. Simonds is also interested in broader questions of animal ethics, environmental ethics, contemplative studies, yoga studies, and Buddhist studies.

In this conversation with Frances Garrett, part of a Footnotes series on posthumanist approaches to the study of Buddhism, Dr. Simonds explores intersections of Buddhism, environmental ethics, and animal ethics. He talks about his work on deep ecology and on the feminist care ethics tradition, emphasizing the importance of relationship, community, and feeling. He also considers expanding traditional Buddhist understandings of sentience to include non-human animals, plants, and even maybe AI.

This episode of Buddhist Studies Footnotes was created, produced and edited by Frances Garrett, with support from the Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation Centre for Buddhist Studies at the University of Toronto. This project aims to make Buddhist Studies research freely accessible to students and the public.