News

ASWM Conference May 5-6, Syracuse NY

2023 ASWM Schedule

Registration Links and Conference information here

4:15-5:45 Friday May 5 (schedule subject to change)

Panel 7: Currents of Mystery: Shapeshifting, Bears, and the Crane Maiden

• Mahealani Ahia, “Kihawahine: Shapeshifting Lives of Hawaiiʻs Reptilian Water Deity”
• Carla Ionescu, “Water, Bears and Rites of Passage – A Walk Through the Forgotten Temple of Artemis at Brauron”
• Brenda Peterson, “The Crane Maiden: A Love Story”

PRESENTERS

Māhealani Ahia (she/we/ʻo ia) is a Kanaka ʻŌiwi artist, scholar, activist, songcatcher, and storykeeper. Her theatre arts, writing, and performance from U.C. Berkeley, U.C. Irvine, and University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa as well as her Masters Degree in Mythological Studies from Pacifica Graduate Institute empower her Indigenous feminist decolonial creations, and as editor for Hawaiʻi Review, ʻŌiwi: A Native Hawaiian Journal, and Mauna Kea Syllabus Project.

Dr. Carla Ionescu focuses her work on the worship and ritual of the goddess Artemis, both in the Greek world and the Near East. She spends most of her time teaching in the field of Ancient History and Mythology and developing The Artemis Research Centre. She travels regularly to Europe and the United States as a guest lecturer, and also leads workshops and retreats in the field of Ancient Mythology and World Religions.

Brenda Peterson  Through her work as a novelist and nature writer, Brenda’s curiosity about and respect for nature radiates through her 23 books.  Her book “Crane Maiden,” illustrated by Ed Young, was created during pandemic isolation. “As Ed was playing with shadows in his collage art of paper and feathers, my crane dreams returned to haunt my midnights. We found solace in these sacred cranes and hope this story comforts all ages, keeps memories alive of those we have lost, but may find again in another world—even another form. With wings.”

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 11: Seas of inspiration: Myths and Sacred Stories for Young People

• María Suárez Toro, ”Literary Creation of a Matriarchal Ancestral Character to Tell Stories”
• Rebecca Migdal Kilicaslan, “Improvisational Puppet Theater as a Space for Alchemical Transformation of Myth”
• Sarah Chandler, “Ancient Cisterns and Nabaten Irrigation: Water Injustice in Israel/Palestine as a Channel for Modern Jewish Spirituality”
  

PRESENTERS

María Suárez Toro is a PHD in Pedagogical Mediation of Holistic Paradigms, currently, a community underwater archaeology graduate, a feminist journalist, a human rights activist, an educator, a fisherwoman and scuba diver, and writer. She was born in Puerto Rico and has been a resident of San José, Costa Rica for close to 50 years. She is coordinator of a youth community diving center Ambassadors of the Sea in Costa Rica’s Southern Caribbean. She was a co-director of the Feminist International Radio Endeavor (FIRE) from 1991 to 2011, of which she is a co-founder.

Rebecca Migdal Kilicaslan, MA, MFA is an artist, performer and author working with dreams and myths. A co-founder of Book & Puppet Co., a bookstore and puppet theater in Easton, Pennsylvania, she studied Dream Tending with Steve Aizenstat, and is a doctoral candidate in Jungian Psychology and Archetypes at Pacifica Graduate Institute. Rebecca teaches visual art at East Stroudsburg University.

Sarah Chandler aka Kohenet (Hebrew Priestess) Shamirah teaches, writes and consults on a national level on issues related to Judaism, earth-based spiritual practice, the environment, mindfulness, and farming. Sarah is the founder and lead trainer of “Soft as a Rock: Public Speaking for Sensitive Souls.”

 

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.