Friday March 28, 2025, Westward Look Inn, Tucson AZ
Getting It Off the Back Burner with Donna Giancola
This workshop is an open forum for participants to come together and discuss projects that have not yet come to fruition. Projects get stalled for many reasons and sometimes a new perspective can help an idea take form. By bringing together like minded individuals from a multiplicity of backgrounds participants can provide interdisciplinary approaches, insights and feedback, and enable each other to reconnect with their projects through a broadening of perspectives. Because of the free-flowing nature of this panel participants will not be required to submit presentations in advance. Participants will be expected to explain the what, why and how of their projects and to seek collaboration from the group in developing a vision for moving forward. Questions and comments can center around refining a thesis, changing mediums, doing outreach, re-defining parameters and utilizing alternative methods, etc. Topics can range from anything under the sun related to our shared endeavors and will cover a wide variety of genres including papers, poetry, art, multimedia, and spiritual activist projects, etc.
The purpose of this panel is to empower each other in our approaches to our creative work. The benefit of an open forum is that it does not rely on work that is already done, but rather engages all of us in what we can do in the future. While each of our individual work is unique, by sharing our ideas and experiences we can work and support each other as a community and validate the interconnections that brought us together.
Women and Magick is the title of a paper I have delivered at several conferences and would like to expand on it into a book proposal. My problem is that there is so much glamour surrounding this topic. I believe a fresh approach to an ancient practice is necessary. Discussing it with a group of engaged like minded women could spark a creative perspective for teasing out the substance and presenting material in a fresh way. As moderator for this panel I hope this discussion could set the tone for others to contribute their work and where they would like to go with it.
There are no formal presenters for this panel.It is my intention that participants will join as part of an on-going dialogue during the conference without the need for preparation. My goal is to promote spontaneous discussions of our work in an informal setting (perhaps while having tea). Conferences can be overwhelmingly structured and this informal format can provide an opportunity to anyone wishing to simply share their ideas.
Dr. Donna M. Giancola is an associate professor of Philosophy and director of Religious Studies at Suffolk University in Boston. Her latest book, In the Name of the Goddess: A Biophilic Ethic, is an ecofeminist call for conscious action and revolutionary thinking. She has written numerous articles on comparative religion and philosophy, feminism and eco-feminism, and has lectured extensively in national and international forums from Boston and Hawaii to Oxford, England New Delhi, India, and Bangkok, Thailand. She has also co-authored, a philosophy textbook, World Ethics,(Wadsworth) and an eco-feminist novel, Her Underground, (Solstice Publishers). Currently, she divides her time between teaching Philosophy in Boston and conjuring and writing in St. Augustine Beach FL.
In spite of her sunny disposition and attempts at being inspirational, she has been known to have an irreverent word or two to say. Lately, she has gotten her days and nights confused, insists that there is no path to hell, and that the Earth is already in Heaven. Her old English sheepdog is strangely happy. Other projects she is crafting include in a Goddess Ritual book, and a new novel.
Read all about the ASWM Conference and register here.