David Carr: Unmaking Eden: Rethinking Domestication

David Carr, a professor of Old Testament at Union Theological Seminary in New York, is an internationally-recognized authority on Genesis and a leader in the field of human-animal studies and the Bible. His most recent book, Unmaking Eden: Genesis and the Domestication of the World, was just published by Cambridge University Press in October 2026.

In this lecture “Unmaking Eden: Rethinking Domestication” Professor Carr draws on recent scholarship in Genesis and animal studies to reexamine human relations with God and other creatures. The stories of Genesis have been used as a script contributing to a domestication logic, one where all earth beings (human and animals alike) find their right to life contingent on conformity to the demands of religious and secular domesticators. Yet these culturally powerful texts also contain overlooked elements that can help us reflect on and move beyond that logic.