Category: News & Articles

ASWM Conference May 5-6, Syracuse NY

2023 ASWM Schedule

Registration Links and Conference information here

10:45 – 12:15  Saturday May 6  (schedule subject to change)

Panel 10:  Ethics and Eco-Justice for Land and Water

• Margaret Ann Mendenhall, “Misuse of the Mycelial Network: Our Ecological Shadow Reflected in Star:Trek Discovery”
• Donna Giancola, “A Biophilic Ethic: Ethical Perspectives in the Use of Sacred Stories”
• Dilşa Deniz, “Gola Bûyêr, the myth of Grand Law: Water, eco-philosophy, femininity”

PRESENTERS

Margaret Mendenhall, PhD, resides in Long Beach, California and is a graduate of Pacifica Graduate Institute’s Mythological Studies Program. Her blog, My Daily Soul Trek, analyzes Star Trek episodes and films chronologically from a depth psychological perspective (https://mydailysoultrek.com/). Additionally, she has written, performed and produced two myth based one-woman shows, and produced and hosted the public access television series Myth Is All Around Us.

Donna M. Giancola is an associate professor of Philosophy and director of Religious Studies at Suffolk University in Boston. In addition to her latest book In the Name of the Goddess, she has co-authored, a philosophy textbook, World Ethics, and an eco-feminist novel, Her Underground. She has written numerous articles on comparative religion and philosophy, feminism and eco-feminism, and has lectured in national and international forums.

Dilşa Deniz is a socio-cultural Kurdish anthropologist and presently is visiting scholar at Harvard University Divinity School. She holds Ph.D. in Social Anthropology and published articles, book chapters as well as her monograph. Her research focuses on gender and cultural, political, and religious practices in  Kurdish Alevis. She studies Alevism as an old independent Iranian (land of Arian) religion that cannot  be considered a sect of Islam.  She is presently researching the Shâmaran as the Mother Goddess of Kurdistan, and decolonization of this Kurdish myth.

ASWM Conference May 5-6, Syracuse NY

2023 ASWM Schedule

Registration Links and Conference information here

10:45am  – 12:15 pm Saturday May 6 (schedule subject to change)

Panel 11: Voices of the Rivers: Sacred Traditions 

• Annie Finch, “Opening Hearts with the Meter of Water”
• Laura Shannon, “She Who Brings Rain: Women’s rain dance rituals in the Balkans and beyond” ZOOM
• Liz Andres, “Muses of the Underworld: The Sirens of Ancient Greece”
• Emily Lord-Kambitsch, “A Siren’s Odyssey of Self-Becoming in the Book of Delights”

PRESENTERS

Annie Finch’s books include Spells: New and Selected Poems, A Poet’s Craft, and Among the Goddesses (Sarasvati Award, ASWM). Her poems have appeared onstage at Carnegie Hall and in The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry. As Poetry Witch, Annie collaborates on multimedia performances. She holds a Ph.D from Stanford and offers community, classes, and rituals at PoetryWitch.org.

Laura Shannon has been researching traditional women’s dances for 35 years, learning from village grandmothers in Greece and the Balkans. Founding Director of the Athena Institute for Women’s Dance and Culture, she is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Gloucester. In 2021, Carol P. Christ chose Laura to succeed her as Director of the Ariadne Institute for the Study of Myth and Ritual.

Liz Andres is a museum professional and scholar based in Los Angeles, with an emphasis on museum education and exhibition development. She holds degrees in Art History, Classical Archaeology, and Museum Studies from U.C. Berkeley and the University of Leicester, and is currently pursuing a PhD in mythological studies at Pacifica Graduate Institute. Her current research focuses on hybrid and liminal creatures in ancient Greek art and mythology, and museum taxidermy and representations of death and nature in western art. She is a frequent lecturer and teacher with Morbid Anatomy.

Emily Lord-Kambitsch, PhD (University College London), MSt (University of Oxford) is Co-Chair and Associate Core Faculty of Mythological Studies at Pacifica Graduate Institute. Trained in classical philology and reception studies, she is a lifelong student and celebrant of the process of translating and transforming old stories into houses of meaning that give quarter to the ongoing dilemmas and delights of individual and community identity formation.

ASWM Conference May 5-6, Syracuse NY

2023 ASWM Schedule

Registration Links and Conference information here

 

10:45 – 12:15  Saturday May 6  (schedule subject to change)

Panel 11: Connecting All Waters: Myth, Marsh, and Rivers

• Tahya, “Ancient Egyptian Waters of Life and the Goddess Hathor”
• Frodo Okulam, “Reed-marsh People: Gender-variant priestxes in Sumerian mythology and biblical writings”
• Tanja Thorjussen and Thale Fastvold, “River Sisters: Connecting the Waters of the World”

PRESENTERS

A dancer, drummer, and independent researcher, Tahya is a woman of central European and Irish descent who upon hearing the intoxicating melodies and hypnotic rhythms of Egyptian music found herself swept away on a magic carpet ride. Her enthusiasm for teaching the movements and rhythms of the ancient dance of the Goddess ~ traditionally handed down from one from one generation to the next, grandmother to granddaughter ~ is infectious!

Frodo Okulam, D.Min. teaches feminist spirituality in the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department at Portland State University. Frodo is coordinator of SisterSpirit, a women’s spirituality group in Portland, Oregon, and is active in the local Pagan community. Her writings include The Julian Mystique and many articles. Through ritual and teaching, Frodo seeks to invite people into relationship with the Goddess and the natural world.

Thale Blix Fastvold (b. 1978) is a Norwegian visual artist working primarily with photography, film and performance art. Thematically within the frameworks of eco feminism, inter-species-collaborations and the more-than-human intelligence, her work aims to utilise artistic research as a response to current ecological challenges. She believes collaborations, communication and speculative storytelling is essential to envision new and more sustainable futures.

Tanja Thorjussen (b. 1970) is an artist living in Oslo (NO). Her artistic medium spans between drawing, sculpture, performance and art in public space. Through speculative research her artistic practice revolves around how ancient art can inform the present. Her current artistic focus is on the mystic and spiritual in nature and bodies of water, hydrofeminism, and the science embedded in indigenous knowledge and ancient mythology.

ASWM Conference May 5-6, Syracuse NY

Registration Links and Conference information here

2023 ASWM Schedule

2:15 – 3:45  Saturday May 6  (schedule subject to change)

Panel 14: Daughters of The Sacred Sea: Aphrodite, Sinead, and the Witches of Lapurdi

• Khrystine Kelsey, “Aphrodite Anadyomene: Aphrodite as Water Goddess”
• Idoia Arana-Beobide, “The Sea Loving Witches of Lapurdi Lapurdiko Sorginak – Itzasoakin Maite Induak”
• Martina Cleary, “The Well at the Bottom of The Sea” (via Zoom)

PRESENTERS

Khrystine D. Kelsey is a Ph.D. candidate in the Jungian and Archetypal Studies Program at Pacifica Graduate Institute. She also holds a master’s degree from Pacifica in Engaged Humanities and teaches undergraduate humanities courses in Salt Lake City, Utah. Her dissertation work explores the figure of Aphrodite through myth, depth psychology, and the humanities.

Idoia Arana-Beobide is a Euskalduna (Basque) dedicated to researching Indigenous belief systems specializing in Basque ancient mythology and its effects on contemporary social and national identity. She holds studies in Museology, a degree in Maedieval History, and a master’s in Religion and Public Life. She is presently conducting her doctoral thesis at the University of Ottawa on the effects of Indigenous Animism on the Basque psyche and cultural instinct.

Dr. Martina Cleary is an artist, researcher and academic lecturing in the Dept of Fine Art & Education at TUS in Ireland. She attended NCAD, Crawford College of Art & Design, the Finnish Academy of Fine Art, Aalto University and the European Centre for Photographic Research e(CPR). Her research areas include; Photography & Memory, Jungian Depth Psychology, Feminist Critical Theory, Technological Innovation in Fine Art and Socially Engaged Practices.

 

 

ASWM Conference May 5-6, Syracuse NY

2023 ASWM Schedule

Registration Links and Conference information here

Panel 5: Liminal Spirits: Avalon, Mermaids, Yemanjá, and the Lovers’ Leap

2:30- 4:00 PM Friday May 5  

• April Heaslip, “Wayfinding While at Sea: Synchronistic Goddess Orienteering from Yemanjá to Polynesia, from Grief to Regeneration”
• Katinka Soetens, “Lady of the Lake: mythical methodology of consciousness as activism within the Avalonian mystery tradition”
• Kirsten Johnsen, “Liminal Women and the Lover’s Leap”
• Erika Nelson, “Undine in Red Corals: Rewriting the Inheritance of Romantic Mermaid Myths in Judith Hermann’s Summerhouse, Later“

PRESENTERS

April Heaslip, PhD, is a mythologist, educator, and artist with a doctorate in Mythological Studies (Pacifica Graduate Institute), master’s in Ecofeminism & Social Ecology (Goddard College) and bachelor’s in Psychology & Women’s Studies (West Chester University). She teaches Interdisciplinary Studies with SNHU. Her forthcoming book Regenerating the Feminine: Chronicling the Rise in Psyche, Culture & Nature (UP Mississippi, 2024) considers this monumental resurgence as healing agent across individual, collective, and environmental realms.

Katinka Soetens is a Ceremonialist of the Goddess, creator of the Path of Love Mystery School and the fully accredited Priestess of Rhiannon training, author, teacher and co-organiser of The Goddess Conference at Glastonbury, and a Director of the new pagan Temple of Avalon.She is a Sacred Sexual Priestess of Rhiannon, tantric practitioner, doula, and a Priestess of Avalon. Katinka works as an internationally renowned holder of ceremonies, workshops, Goddess tours and trainings.

Kirsten Ellen Johnsen, PhD. is a storyteller, spinster and weaver living on Northern Pomo land in Mendocino County, California. Her 2021 dissertation features primary research on the significance of the Lover’s Leap in early American settler culture and women’s history. She is the chief curator of the Morning Glory Goddess Collection, a private collection of over 300 votive images of female sacrality stewarded by Isis Oasis Sanctuary in Geyserville, California.

Erika M. Nelson is Associate Professor of German Studies and Director of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies at Union College in Schenectady, New York, where she teaches German language, literature, culture, and film, as well as Narrative Medicine and GSWS courses. Her research has focused on Rainer Maria Rilke’s poetry, retellings of the Orpheus myth, transnational literature and film, systemic constellation work, and Doris Dörrie’s work on creative writing, and Buddhism.