Words of Invitation
We are happy to announce the Call for Papers and Workshops. We invite proposals of your paper concerning the topics suggested below. We also welcome the proposal of a panel with 2-4 papers with a moderator and a respondent. If you are interested in volunteering as a panel organizer under a specific topic, please let us know your topics of interest. We will send you Instructions for panel and section organizers separately. Papers selected and presented in the conference are given priority to be considered for publication in the peer-reviewed S/HE journal (https://sheijgs.space). For the proposal for Workshops, please continue to read to find it.
By “the S/HE Divine,” we mean the world-wide manifestations of the female/mother/matriversal divine (Goddesses, Motherhood, and the Creatrix) from the ancient to this day. In response to the call of our time, we intend to develop a collective consciousness to overcome and redefine the compartmentalized categories of women, mothers, nature, animals, the cosmos, and men as part of the whole. The S/HE Divine Studies refuses to remain isolated within mono-disciplinary confinements but actively seek to connect women/humans, matriarchies, motherhood, civilizations, and the Creatrix (Cosmic Mother). It is not enough to say, “Personal is political.” Personal is Political and Cosmic.
We welcome volunteers for panel organizations for the 2025 conference. If you are interested, please email to Dr. Helen Hwang (magoacademy@gmail.com) and/or Dr. Helen Benigni (benignih@dewv.edu).
Theme: Motherhood, Matriarchy, and Matriverse Re-deemed in the Cosmic Mother
Dates: June 12-15, 2024 (Thursday to Sunday) PDT
Venue: Online Zoom meetings
Hosting Bodies: Mago Academy (https://magoacademy.org), Mago Books (https://magobooks.com), and S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies (https://sheijgs.space)
Session Time: 90 minutes
Call for Papers & Panels
Topics but not limited to:
– Powerful Voices of or about Mother
– Mother as the Matriversal Symbol
– Matriarchy
– Maternal Gift Economy
– Creatrix/Cosmic Mother
– Matriversal Soteriology
– Myth, History, and Culture of the Female Divine
– Matricentric Cosmology and Thealogy
– Women, Goddess, and Nature
– Critique of Patriarchy
– Goddess Feminist Activist Spirituality
– Matricentric Calendars
– Goddess and Religion
– Matri-Shamanic Traditions
– Women and Female Divine
– S/HE Divine in Art, Poetry, or Literature
– Decolonizing/Indigenous Matricentric Spirituality
– Comparative approaches to one or more of the above topics
– Matriversal Union of ALL (including inorganic beings)
Call for Workshops (Limited Openings)
Topics and mediums but not limited to:
– Aids to Feminist Spiritual Activism
– Healing or Mourning in the Cosmic Mother
– Matricentric Advocacy- Healing or Mourning in the Cosmic Mother
– Personal Growth to the vision of Matriversal Union of ALL
Submission Guidelines for Paper and Panel Proposals
For individual papers, the proposal should include a title, an abstract (up to 150 words), 5-7 keywords, a short bio (no more than 100 words) including your name and your affiliation (a name of institution or an independent scholar status).
For a panel: The proposal should include a panel title, an overall panel abstract (up to 150 words), 5-7 keywords, titles of papers, names and emails of presenters, moderator, and respondent as well as an abstract (about 100 words) and a short bio for each presenter and moderator/respondent including their affiliations (a name of institution or an independent scholar status, about 100 words).
All presenters are required to submit a longer version of their papers (300-600 words) by April 15. We will need them for your respondent to read and respond in advance and will include them in the program booklet.
Submission Guidelines for Workshop Proposals
The workshop proposal should include a title, a description (up to 150 words) that states what your event is about and why it needs publicity, your name as coordinator or organizer, names and affiliations of your presenters, their affiliations, and the description of a medium or a format.
For a workshop: If you wish to organize a workshop, it requires a minimum of 2 presenters with a moderator. All other submission requirements follow the panel proposal in general (respondent is not required). Please email Dr. Hwang for other details.
Submission Email
Primary Deadline: January 1, 2025. Your proposal must be emailed with “Proposal for S/HE Conference” in the subject line to Dr. Helen Hwang (magoacademy@gmail.com) and/or Dr. Helen Benigni (benignih@dewv.edu).
Meet the 2025 Planning & Convening Board Members
Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D., Executive Director
Helen Hye-Sook Hwang (Ph.D., Claremont Graduate University), the co-founder of The Mago Work (Mago Academy, Mago Books, S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies, and Return to Mago E-Magazine), is a scholar, activist, and advocate of Magoism, the Way of the Great Mother. She earned her MA and Ph.D. in Religion with emphasis on Feminist Studies from Claremont Graduate University, CA. She also studied toward an MA degree in East Asian Studies at UCLA, CA. Hwang has taught for universities in California and Missouri, U.S.A. She authored, co-edited, and published Reader: Toward Magoist Cetaceanism (2024), the academic peer-reviewed journal, S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies, the She Rises trilogy series (2015, 2016, and 2019) as well as Celebrating the Goddess series (2017 and 2023). Her books include The Mago Way: Re-discovering Mago, the Great Goddess from East Asia (2015), Mago Almanac: 13 Month 28 Day Calendar annually since 2018, and The Budoji Workbook series since 2020.
Helen Benigni, Ph.D.
Helen Benigni (Ph.D. Indiana University of Pennsylvania) is a published author and a Professor Emerita in English at Davis and Elkins College in Elkins, West Virginia. For several decades, Helen has been teaching classes in Comparative Mythology with an emphasis on Goddess studies. Her books, The Myth of the Year (University Press of America, 2003), The Goddess and the Bull (University Press of America, 2007), and The Mythology of Venus (University Press of America, 2013) incorporate the research findings of archeoastronomers to determine the myths associated with the cycles found on the ancient calendars of the Greeks and the Celts. Identifying the goddesses of the matri-local cultures of the ancients with the seasons represented by the lunar, solar and stellar bodies has been a major endeavor in the study of archetypes, with an emphasis on the feminine archetypes of the celestial realms. Helen’s research with the Hellenic Studies Center in Washington D.C., her many trips to ancient sites, and her collaborative efforts with scholars in mythology, astronomy, archeology, and art have led to her discovery of the presence of the Goddess in the night sky and the continued renewal of the Goddess in contemporary times.
Francesca Tronetti, Ph.D.
Francesca Tronetti is the volunteer curator and educator for the Lake Shore Railway Museum in North East, PA. A published poet and author, she writes articles for Return to Mago E-Magazine on ancient Goddess cultures and contemporary American Paganism. She is developing a graduate-level course on American Folk Magic Traditions of Appalachia and the Pennsylvania Dutch. Eternally busy she is focusing on turning her dissertation into an ethnographic study of a monastic pagan church. An educator at heart, she is continually discovering something new and is eager to share her knowledge with others.
Meet the 2025 Directing and Consulting Board Members
Nane Jordan, Ph.D.
(Interested in section topics: Motherhood and Thealogy; Women, Goddess, and Nature)
Nané Jordan is a Goddess scholar, birth-keeper, artist-researcher, and community worker—dedicated to an artful, relational, spirited scholarly pathway for human thriving and wellbeing. She completed her PhD in Education (University of British Columbia), an MA in Women’s Spirituality (New College of California), and was a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Paris 8, France, in Gender and Women’s Studies. Nané’s research focuses on women’s lives, feminist spirituality, goddessing, artistic practices and pedagogies, mothering, birth-giving, Mother Earth wisdom, and the maternal gift economy. She co-founded the women’s art collective Gestare (to carry in the womb), and publishes widely, including the anthologies: Placenta Wit: Mother Stories, Rituals, and Research, and Pagan, Goddess, Mother (Demeter Press). Nané lives on the West Coast of Canada with her husband and daughters.
Go to previous S/HE Divine Studies Online Conferences.
Meet the 2024 Executive Council of S/HE Divine Studies Conference