The idea of the S/HE Divine Studies Online Conference was first geminated as a way of supporting the submission of the peer-reviewed S/HE journal in 2023. We thank Dr. Krista Rodin whose commitment to the editorial task of the S/HE journal for the first and the second issue and Dr. Kaalii Cargill who aided in birthing the second issue of the S/HE journal.
Executive Council
Mary Ann Beavis, Ph.D., advisor
Mary Ann Beavis (Ph.D., Cambridge University) is Professor Emerita of Religion and Culture at St. Thomas More College, the University of Saskatchewan (Saskatoon, Canada). Her areas of specialization include Christian Origins, Feminist Biblical Interpretation, and Women and Religion. The courses she teaches include “Goddesses in Myth and History,” and her current research project, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada, is a study of women who blend Goddess Spirituality and Christianity. Her books include Mark’s Audience, Jesus and Utopia, Mark (Paideia Commentaries), and Hebrews (Wisdom Commentaries), and two edited volumes, The Lost Coin: Parables of Women, Work and Wisdom, and Feminist Theology with a Canadian Accent. She is the author of many peer-reviewed articles, five of which reflect her current interest in the Mary Magdalene/Mary of Bethany tradition.
Helen Benigni, Ph.D., co-convener
Helen Benigni (Ph.D. Indiana University of Pennsylvania) is a published author and a Full Professor 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.
Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D., co-convener
Helen Hye-Sook Hwang (Ph.D., Claremont Graduate University), the co-founder of The Mago Work (Mago Academy, Mago Books, 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 co-edited and published the She Rises trilogy series (2015, 2016, and 2019) as well as Celebrating Seasons of the Goddess (Mago Books, 2017). Also authored The Mago Way: Re-discovering Mago, the Great Goddess from East Asia (Mago Books, 2015), Mago Almanac: 13 Month 28 Day Calendar annually since 2018, and The Budoji Workbook series since 2020.
Session Organizers
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.
Lila Moore, Ph.D.
Lila Moore (PhD, Middlesex University) is an artist filmmaker, lecturer and theorist. She is a lecturer and thesis supervisor at the Alef Trust, MSc programme in Spirituality, Consciousness and Transpersonal Psychology, and the BA programme in Mysticism and Spirituality, Zefat Academic College. She is an editorial board member of Consciousness, Spirituality & Transpersonal Psychology Journal. Dr Moore holds a B.Ed in Fine Art and Art History, an MA in film studies from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, and a Postdoc from the Planetary Collegium of Plymouth University. Her articles were published in peer-reviewed academic journals, and she regularly presents papers in international academic conferences as well as in the trailblazing Magickal Women Conference in London. She is a council member of Hortus Conclusus of Karoussos Archives in Greece, and her artworks and films were selected by leading curated exhibitions and archives of digital art. Her areas of research include women filmmakers and artists, feminist thought, ritual, myth, screen-dance, technoetics, spirituality and consciousness studies. Website: https://www.cyberneticinstitute.com
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.
We welcome volunteers for session organizations for the 2024 conference. If you are interested, please email to Dr. Helen Hwang (magoacademy@gmail.com) and/or Dr. Helen Benigni (benignih@dewv.edu).