Category: Conferences & Symposia

For the 2027 conference, ASWM has one scholarship available for a graduate student whose proposal is accepted and who is presenting in a field related to Women’s Spirituality.

The Dr. Mara Lynn Keller Graduate Student Conference Participation Scholarship is made possible by a bequest from pioneering scholar, teacher, and visionary, Dr. Mara Lynn Keller, whose life’s work helped shape the field of Women’s Spirituality studies as we know it today. The scholarship includes a fee waiver and $500 to offset costs for attendance, and requires that a longer proposal be submitted for consideration.

Women’s Spirituality is a transdisciplinary field that explores the intersection of feminism, religion, and spirituality, and encompasses three different areas of emphasis: Women and World Religions; Feminist and Ecofeminist Philosophies and Activism; and Women’s Mysteries, Sacred Arts, and Healing.

Applications will be accepted starting on September 1, 2026.

To apply for the scholarship, which includes a fee waiver and $500 to offset costs for attendance for the 2027 ASWM Biennial Conference, please do the following:

1. Submit your 250 word proposal abstract and short (70 word) biography per the information through the ASWM 2027 Call for Proposals announcement: “Wisdom in the Thin Places: Thinking and Talking about the Liminal.” Your paper proposal must be in a field related to Women’s Spirituality.
2. Complete the Graduate Student Participation Scholarship Application  to affirm that you are a graduate student at an accredited institution of higher education in one of the disciplines encompassed by Women’s Spirituality. 
3. Attach an expanded 750 word proposal to the form, further amplifying your proposal, and submit the completed form as instructed.

If your proposal is accepted by the ASWM Program Committee, the Scholarship committee will consider your application. The scholarship awardee will be chosen by late February/early March of 2027.

For more information please contact: scholarship@womenandmyth.org

About Dr. Mara Lynn Keller

Dr. Mara Lynn Keller co-founded the Women’s Spirituality program at the California Institute of Integral Studies 30 years ago with Eleanor Gadon. Dr. Keller is past professor of Philosophy and Religion and Women’s Spirituality, and for 10 years served as Director of the Women’s Spirituality M.A. and Ph.D. programs at CIIS.  Dr. Keller was a scholar-practitioner for whom spirituality was an embodied phenomenon. She was a philosopher and theologian, whose numerous writings include articles about the Goddesses of Crete and Greece, such as “Sacred Arts and Ritual in Crete of the Mother Goddess” and “The Eleusinian Mysteries: Ritual Path of Initiation.” In all aspects of her teaching she put her students first and took great joy in their successes. She passed away on 12/23/23, one day following the Winter Solstice.