Baker Postdoctoral Fellow of Contemporary Asian Religion
Dr. Colin H. Simonds is the Baker Postdoctoral Fellow of Contemporary Asian Religion for the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 academic years. His research focuses on Tibetan Buddhist philosophy and contemplative practice and their relevance 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 advanced the interpretation of Buddhist ethics as a moral phenomenology by arguing that the Tibetan framework of lta sgom spyod gsum, or view, meditation, action, presents an effective praxis for implementing moral phenomenological ethics. It then applied this theory and praxis to our contemporary environmental situation and articulated a uniquely phenomenological approach to animal and environmental ethics from a Tibetan Buddhist perspective. Outside of his doctoral work, Dr. Simonds is interested in broader questions of animal ethics, environmental ethics, contemplative studies, yoga studies, and Buddhist studies writ large and has published work on these topics in journals such as the Journal of Buddhist Ethics, Journal of Animal Ethics, and Worldviews: Global Religions, Cultural, and Ecology. During his tenure as the Baker Postdoctoral Fellow of Contemporary Asian Religion, Dr. Simonds plans to continue publishing on these subjects and produce his first manuscript based on his doctoral research.
Contact: 11cs77@queensu.ca