Philadelphia-area native Amy Weigand divides much of her time between the Religion Department and her four-year-old son. Having completed her undergraduate work in philosophy and theology at the University of Scranton, Ms. Weigand eventually earned a law degree at Penn, and worked for several years as a Philadelphia public defender. After leaving the practice of law, she spent three years as a teacher and school minister at Mercy Vocational High School in North Philadelphia. Her enthusiasm for teaching led her to Temple, where, as a graduate student, she has taught courses in Asian religions and Death and Dying.

Ms. Weigand’s scholarly work centers on the complex set of relationships humans maintain with (other) animals and the contemporary discourse on the ethics of those relations. She seeks ways in which insights from such diverse sources as Daoism, neo-Confucianism, feminist, queer, and post-colonial theories, and postmodern critiques of ethics can facilitate an ethical analysis which is more responsive than the dominant model to the 21 st century U.S. cultural context. Currently, she is exploring the “spiritual” and cosmological dimensions of companion animal welfare integrated into the literature of the most prominent national organization promoting “no-kill” strategies for homeless animals.