Presenters for the 9th Annual Conference on Current Pagan Studies
Jeffrey Albaugh is a pagan mystic residing between the mountains and the sea on the west coast of Southern California. He actively participated in and practiced various forms of the occultism for over twenty years, including initiations into various branches of the craft, and has studied within the Anderson Feri Tradition for a number of years. Jeffrey taught first through third grade and special education for two decades in California public school, and now works as Lead Case Manager for a Workforce Investment Act Employment Program. Jeffrey holds a BA in Theatre, and is currently working on a MA/PhD in depth psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute.
Marie Cartier is a scholar, visual /performance artist, queer activist, poet and theologian who has been active in many movements for social change. Dr. Cartier teaches at UC Irvine in Film and Media Studies, and California State University Northridge in Gender and Women’s Studies. Her PhD is in Religion from Claremont Graduate University (2010), with a major in Women Studies in Religion, and an emphasis in theology, ethics and culture. She has published several articles regarding the possible sacrality of the butch femme community at the mid-century. Her book, Baby You Are My Religion- the Emergence of Theelogy in Pre-Stonewall Gay Women’s / Butch-Femme Culture and Community will be published by Equinox Press. She has three Masters of Fine Arts Degrees, in Film, Theater, and Art. She exhibits her installation performance project MORGASM, the Museum of Radical Gender and Sex Matrix, which explores female orgasm in a museum context in galleries and on the web.
Kenneth Christensen has had involvement with Left Hand Path esoteric practices when he was younger. He found though that to his knowledge the Left Hand Path ideology and intentions were too centered on individualism and not enough on the collective. Later on he got involved with Theodism (a modern Germanic re-constructionist movement in the strictest sense) to go back to his English and Danish heritage. He was a member of the Sahsisk Thiod in Newport News VA, and elected to the Witan as an adviser to the alderman an his Thiod. He liked the emphasis on a collective community that the left hand path or Asatru did not offer. However he started having disagreements about trying to be a tribe when the people of the group are living so apart from one another. He also had disagreements with the hierarchy. He then left the group in 2007 and did much soul searching. He found Tripura Tantra and also started researching alchemy. He found it easy to apply runic concepts to both. He now has come to conclusion that he is a non-theist, who does spiritual practices but does not want to adhere to religion. He is in the process of building his own esoteric non-theistic tradition with its origins in Theodism, but since it is non-theistic and not polytheistic, is not even Germanic Heathen.
Joan DeArtemis is an Initiated Priestess of Artemis and Consecrated Priestess in the Western Mystery Tradition, who has been practicing the Craft for over 30 years. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Religion & Society from Syracuse University, and is currently working on a Master of Divinity degree at Claremont School of Theology with the intent of becoming ordained as a Unitarian Universalist Minister. She is active in both CUUPS and the Dianic Tradition, on the Board of the Journal for Interreligous Dialogue, and teaches and reads Tarot, which she sees as the Spiritual Care of our community.
Joseph Futerman has a PhD in clinical psychology with an emphasis is Jungian Depth Psychology a Masters Degree in clinical psychology with an emphasis in Family Therapy and a Bachelor’s Degree in Media Criticism and as well, is licensed by the State of California as Marriage and Family Therapist. He is also a certified Neuro Linguistic Programming practitioner and Hypnotherapist. He is the associate chair of the Marriage and Family Therapy Department at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology. He is also an adept of the Golden Dawn Tradition, a founding member of the Fellowship of the Gods, and the Kaotic Order of Adventurers, Seekers and Sorcerers his the leader of the Magus Project. And currently working on a book titled Descartes’ Depression and the Rise of Rationalism. He lives with his daughter and wife on a hillside overlooking Pasadena Ca.
Amber D. Gray is a former graduate student from CSUSB. Amber graduated with a MA in Interdisciplinary Studies focusing on Religion, Culture and Family Dynamics in 2009. She graduated magna cum laude and is a member of CSUSB’s International Honour Society. After graduation, Amber continued to work in the field of Behavioral Health as a Case Manager and Part-Time Counselor. Later, Amber has been pursuing other career goals, including publishing a book and is currently in the process of starting a business. Amber is a Hellenic Pagan Polytheist and founder of a Online Hellenic Pagan Community. Email: Artifactfinder13@yahoo.com
Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, PhD (Korea and USA), is a scholar, teacher, and activist for Goddess Feminism and World Peace. Hwang earned an MA and a PhD degree in Women’s Studies in Religion (Claremont Graduate University, CA) and currently completing her second MA degree in East Asian Studies at UCLA. She has reconstructed Magoism, a pan-East Asian gynocentric cultural matrix that venerates Mago, the Great Goddess of East Asia. Hwang advocates Magoism as a historical framework in which women of the world can realize alliances across differences. Previously, she was a member of Maryknoll Sisters in Korea, New York, and the Philippines. Encountering Mary Daly’s Radical Feminism, she pursued her graduate studies. Hwang has published many articles in English and Korean and gives lectures, while teaching religions and feminisms at the university level. Hwang is going to lead the first Mago Pilgrimage to Korea, June 6-20, 2013. (For details, please see here. http://magoism.wordpress.com/mago-academy/2013-mago-pilgrim-tour-to-korea/.) She is the creator and co-editor of the blog, Return to Mago: Magoism, the Way of S/HE [http://magoism.wordpress.com/].
Francesca Howell is a Religious Studies and Deep Ecology scholar, as well as a Priestess of Gaia. Her most recent doctoral studies took place in Italy, where she participated in a variety of festivals, documenting how they renewed and sometimes created bonds with community and place. She also had the pleasure of working with the newly expanding Neo-Pagan community in Italy and across Europe. As faculty and former staff of Naropa University, the work of Naropa’s Environmental Studies department and the philosophies of Buddhism have been influential in her work. She is currently employed by the University of Colorado.
Zayn Kassam is the John Knox McLean Professor of Religious Studies at Pomona College in Claremont, CA. The winner of two Wig Awards for Distinguished Teaching, she has also won the National American Academy of Religion award for Excellence in Teaching. She teaches courses on women in Islam, Islamic mysticism, Islamic thought, as well as contemporary Muslim literature. More recently, she has also been teaching courses on religion and the environment. Dr. Kassam has lectured widely on gender issues in Muslim societies, and has authored a volume on Islam and edited a book on Women and Islam. Her current research investigates contemporary challenges facing Muslim women. Dr. Kassam is also a board member for the highly acclaimed Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, as well as the Journal of Religion, Conflict, and Peace.
Kimberly Kirner, PhD, is a cultural anthropologist at California State University Northridge specializing in applied cognitive anthropology, medical anthropology, and environmental anthropology. She is interested in understanding interrelationships between cognition, emotion, and decision-making; the construction of identity and community; landscape and worldview; and the way cultural systems of knowledge interact with policy and large-scale systems to impact human behavior. Her research has focused on the political ecology of the American West rangelands; cultural modeling of health care-seeking behavior; and the Pagan Studies.
Kathryn LaFevers Evans—Three Eagles, Chickasaw Nation—is a lifelong writer of nature and devotional poetry, has performed in 13 cities, and practices shamanic techniques and rituals. At Pacifica Graduate Institute, Evans teaches a course centered on C. G. Jung’s The Red Book, ‘HMC 200: Active Imagination, Dreams, & Psychic Creativity.’ Evans’ work—integrating New Mythos theory and practice in an interdisciplinary paradigm—engages the imaginal, mythopoetic cosmologies of Renaissance Neoplatonism & natural magic with depth & archetypal psychology.
MA Literature & Writing Studies; BA Comparative Literature & Research in Consciousness kathryn-e@sbcglobal.net
http://www.pacifica.edu/humanities-program-faculty.aspx
http://pacifica.academia.edu/KathrynLaFeversEvans/About
http://www.esswe.org/#members/171/index.html
Elizabeth “Flame” Malamed is a psychotherapist in private practice in Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley. She is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and a Certified Integrative Body Psychotherapist. She is also a priestess and teacher in the Reclaiming Tradition, is a certified yoga instructor and has studied in the Anderson Feri Tradition.
Armando D. Marini/Murtagh A. anDoile is an independent scholar and researcher. He is the Director for the Pagan History Project. He has a degree in Anthropology and has worked as an archaeologist for Brown University. Tagh has been involved in the Pagan movement since 1968, and is a Drui and elder of the Tuatha De Danann Tradition (NECTW) and the group, Nemed na Morrigna. Through talks given in the early 80’s, he is one of the progenitors of the Celtic Reconstructionist movement. He was interviewed in Keepers of the Flame: Interviews with Elders of Traditional Witchcraft in America. Contact: tagh@att.net.
Tony Mierzwicki is the author of “Graeco-Egyptian Magick: Everyday Empowerment” and a forthcoming primer reconstructing Classical Greek religion. He has contributed to various anthologies and magazines. He has presented workshops recreating ancient magickal practices in the United States and the east coast of Australia since 2001, drawing on his practice of ceremonial magick which he began in 1990. Tony completed three degrees at the University of Sydney – MA, BE and BSc. For more information, see his website:
http://www.hermeticmagick.com/
Joseph Merlin Nichter is a Wiccan Priest, co-founder of Mill Creek Seminary and the National Pagan Correctional Chaplains Association. As the first state-recognized Minority Faith Chaplain, Joseph provides religious services and assists with religious accommodations of minority faiths for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation; he has also served as a religious program instructor for the California Department of Mental Health. Joseph lives in Central California with his wife and four children, where he continues to actively serve his community.
Aline O’Brien/M. Macha NightMare. P&W, is an internationally published author (Witchcraft and the Web, and Pagan Pride: Honoring the Craft and Culture of Earth and Goddess, and, with Starhawk, The Pagan Book of Living and Dying), ritualist and all- round Pagan webweaver. A member of the American Academy of Religion, the Marin Interfaith Council, the Nature Religion Scholars Network, the Covenant of the Goddess (CoG), and the Advisory Council of the Sacred Dying Foundation, Macha speaks on behalf of Paganism to news media and academic researchers, and presents at colleges, universities and seminaries, and teaches on the broomstick circuit. She currently sits the Board of Directors of CHERRY HILL SEMINARY, the first and only seminary serving the Neopagan community. www.machanightmare.com
Anne Z. Parker, PhD, is a Geographer and Professor of Environmental Studies at Naropa University, teaching in the BA in Environmental Studies and MA in Environmental Leadership. She is passionate about renewing our connection to and deep reverence for the Earth. Anne integrates her work and research with traditional cultures in central Australia, Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan and the Himalayan region, her study and practice in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, and her active practice in the European earth-based traditions within innovative approaches to transformative education.
Lauren Raine is an interdisciplinary artist. She studied mask traditions in Bali, and in 1999 made 25 ceremonial masks for The Spiral Dance in San Francisco. The Masks of the Goddess traveled throughout the U.S. for 10 years. She was awarded an Alden Dow Fellowship for her work based on the native American Creatrix myth of “Spider Woman” in 2007, and was resident artist at Henry Luce Center for the Arts at Wesley Theological in Washington, D.C. in 2009. Currently she is working on a series of “Numina” masks. Her work can be seen at: www.rainewalker.com.
Elizabeth Rose is a Master’s level social worker at the Veteran’s administration, currently completing her hours for licensure. She is the Director of the Association for Pagan (and Pagan-Friendly) Therapists (APT). Her research paper and documentary ‘A Wider Path: LGBT Elders and Spirituality’ was recently published by the HPPAE Journal ‘Generativity’ and can be viewed on YouTube. She has been a practicing Pagan since 1985.
Jennifer Rycenga is Professor of Comparative Religious Studies at San Jose State University. Her areas of interest include American religious history, religion and music, feminist analyses of religion, lesbian history, religion and politics, and feminist analyses of music. She is co-editor of two books, “Frontline Feminisms” (with Margie Waller) and “Queering the Popular Pitch” (with Sheila Whiteley). Currently she is working on a biography of Prudence Crandall, a white Abolitionist teacher, and editing a reader of Mary Daly’s work. She is an avid bird-watcher who communes with the sacred by following the original Tweets.
Alfred Surenyan,DMA is a composer and ethnomusicologist. He has studied in the field of classical music and folk music of Eastern Europe and the Middle East. In the past 10 years he has also done research and work in Pagan Music. As both a practicing Pagan and Musician he has brought the two together both in practice and academic work. Currently Dr. Surenyan is composing several chamber pieces and also has plans this year on several electronic music. He currently is an Adjunct Faculty at the Art Institute of CA, Inland Empire.
Charlotte Turvey is a candidate for a Masters of Arts in anthropology at California State University Northridge. Her research interests include unchurched spirituality, altered states of consciousness, health and well-being. Her graduate research has been focused on Neo-Pagans who are in Twelve Step programs.
Dorothea Kahena Viale, PhD is the creator and organizer of the Conference on Current Pagan Studies. She is currently teaching at CalPoly Pomona where she enjoys the opportunity to introduce her students to experiential activities like being born into their new lives through mask making, dancing as well as guiding them to be critical thinkers. Kahena is an ardent fan of embodied knowledge and acquires hers through raqs al-sharqi, referred to in the United States as belly dance. She shares this knowledge through her classes and sacred dance dramas. Dr. K is currently writing on lived religions as shared by women as well as the validity of religion not based on revelation.
Sam Webster, M. Div., Mage, has taught magick publicly since 1984. He graduated from Starr King School for the Ministry in Berkeley in 1993. He is now a PhD candidate at the University of Bristol, UK, studying Pagan history under Prof. Ronald Hutton. He is an Adept of the Golden Dawn, and an initiate of Wiccan, Druidic, Buddhist, Hindu and Masonic traditions, publisher at Concrescent Press, author of “Tantric Thelema” and the blogs “Arkadian Anvil” and “Pagan Restoration”. He founded the Open Source Order of the Golden Dawn in 2001 (www.OSOGD.org), and serves the Pagan community principally as a priest of Hermes. samwebster11@gmail.com