Mission Statement
S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies is a web-based, peer-reviewed international scholarly journal committed to the academic exploration, analysis and interpretation, from a range of disciplinary perspectives, of Goddesses and the Female Divine in all religions, traditions, and cultures, to be ancient, historical, or contemporary. The journal is a multi-disciplinary forum for the publication of feminist scholarship in Goddess Studies and for discussion, comparison, and dialogue among scholars of differing feminist perspectives.
Guidelines for Co-editors and Editorial Board Members
Copyright & Permissions for Authors
Subscription & Donation Guidelines
(Search) Academic co-editor for the S/HE peer-reviewed journal (active)
Publisher & People
Publisher: Mago Books (https://www.magobooks.com)
Mailing address: 785 Melody Ln, Lytle Creek, California, USA
Co-founders: Mary Ann Beavis, Ph.D. and Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.
Publishing Representative: Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.
Editorial Advisor: Mary Ann Beavis, Ph.D.
Academic Co-editors: Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D., and Franceca Tronetti, Ph.D.
Copyeditor: Matthew Kim Hagen, M.A.
Executive Board (Editorial Advisor, Co-editors, Co-founders, and Publisher)
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 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.
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.
Book Review Editor
Louis Laganà (Ph.D. Lough)
Prof. Louis Laganà is an Associate Professor of Art who currently lectures part-time on “The Arts for Health and Wellbeing” at the Faculty for Social Wellbeing, University of Malta. He earned his PhD in Art History from Loughborough University, UK, in 2005. Prof. Laganà has extensively lectured on Psychology and the Arts, Psychoanalysis and Art at the Psychology Department, and on the History of Image Making at the Digital Arts Department, University of Malta. He is internationally renowned for his research and publications on the Maltese Goddess and the Temples. Additionally, Prof. Laganà is an art historian, art critic, curator, and practicing artist. His expertise lies in Modern and Contemporary Art History and Jungian Aesthetics. He has contributed numerous articles to academic journals and newspapers. Email: louis.lagana@um.edu.mt, Mob: +356 79265356, http://malta.academia.edu/LouisLagana, scholar.google.com/citations?user=NK-goTMAAAAJ&hl=en
Publishing Editors
Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D. (See above)
Kaalii Cargill, Ph.D.
Kaalii Cargill is a scholar, author, artist, psychotherapist, and educator. Her PhD explored women’s reproductive autonomy through psychology, history, mythology, and anthropology. Kaalii has published seven books and co-edited the Mago Books anthology, She Rises: Why Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality, Vol 1, with Helen Hye-Sook Hwang. Her non-fiction book – Don’t Take It Lying Down: Life According to the Goddess – is based on her PhD research. Her speculative and fantasy fiction weaves themes of mythology and ecofeminism. In the 1980s Kaalii co-developed a psychotherapy modality and has served on management committees, organised conferences, and peer reviewed conference papers in this field. https://kaalii.wixsite.com/soulstory https://www.kairoscentre.com
Editorial Board Members
In memory of Carol P. Christ (1945-2021)
Carol P. Christ is author or editor of eight books in Women and Religion and is one of the Foremothers of the Women’s Spirituality Movement. She leads the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete in Spring and Fall: Early Bird Special until June 15. Follow Carol on Twitter @CarolP.Christ, Facebook Goddess Pilgrimage, and Facebook Carol P. Christ.
A Serpentine Path: Mysteries of the Goddess was published by Far Press in 2016. A journey from despair to the joy of life.
Goddess and God in the World: Conversations in Embodied Theology with Judith Plaskow was published by Fortress Press in 2016. Exploring the connections of theology and autobiography and alternatives to the transcendent, omnipotent male god.
Nane Jordan, Ph.D.
Nané Jordan is a Goddess Studies and Women’s Spirituality scholar and educator, birthkeeper, community worker, ecofeminist artist, and mother, whose scholarship seeks a world of thriving and wellbeing for all. Her lifework interweaves vibrant threads of research, teaching, the arts, and community-based care, with a deep focus on restoring placental, birth-based wisdom. Nané holds a PhD in Education from the University of British Columbia, an MA in Women’s Spirituality from New College of California, and was a Social Science and Humanities Research of Council of Canada Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Paris 8, France, in Women’s and Gender Studies. She was recently a Scholar-in-Residence in the Simone de Beauvoir Institute at Concordia University. Living in the forest, near the beautiful Salish Sea on the West Coast of Canada, Nané is co-founder of the women’s circles and artist collectives Gestare (to carry in the womb), and the Ma Whales. She publishes widely, including the anthologies: Placenta Wit: Mother Stories, Rituals, and Research, and Pagan, Goddess, Mother (Demeter Press).
Kaarina Kailo, Ph.D.
Dr. Kaarina Kailo is Docent/Adj. professor of North American Studies and formerly first Chair and Full professor of Women’s Studies at Oulu University, Finland. She has also worked as senior scholar of the Finnish Academy. Kailo has held women’s studies positions at Simone de Beauvoir Institute, Canada (Interim Principal in l997) and worked at the University of Quebec, Chicoutimi and the University of Toronto. Her main fields are women’s, indigenous, cultural, literary studies and folklore; Her expertise includes ecofeminism, gift economies/imaginaries, gendered violence, Northern women and the Finnish Kalevala, Finno-Ugric mythology, Sami culture and racism, bear-woman ecomythology, neoliberal globalization and finally, Jungian and Freudian theories of creativity. She has published over a hundred articles and many books or co-edited anthologies. Main publications: Wo/men & Bears—the Gifts of Nature, Culture, Gender Revisited (2008), Introduction to Ecopsychology (in Finnish 2006 with Irma Heiskanen), Finnish Goddess Mythology and the Golden Woman, Climate Change, Earth-Based Indigenous Knowledge and the Gift (2019); Motherhood, Gift and Revolution. Honoring Genevieve Vaughan’s Life’s Work (with E. Shadmi, 2020). She is active in Finnish politics, a municipal councillor and self-made textile artist focused on Finno-Ugric deities. She was recently appointed on the Scientific Advisory Circle of Matrix: a Journal for Matricultural Studies (Ottawa). She has received three recognitions for her life work. Her current research focuses on Bear and Mother Worship, the sweatlodge/sauna and bear spirituality and traces of Finno-Ugric matriarchies. Homepage: www.kaarinakailo.info.
Ally Kateusz, Ph.D. (Served from 2021-April 2024)
Dr. Ally Kateusz is a cultural historian specializing in the intersection of women and religion in Early Christian art and texts. She is Research Associate at the Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research, and has published articles in the Journal of Early Christian Studies, the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, The Priscilla Papers, and other venues. Her most recent book is Maria, Mariamne, and Miriam: Rediscovering the Marys (T & T Clark), co-edited with Mary Ann Beavis. Her 2019 illustrated book is Mary and Early Christian Women: Hidden Leadership (Palgrave Macmillan).
Joanna Kujawa, Ph.D.
Dr Joanna Kujawa is a scholar, author and Goddess News blogger. She received her PhD from Monash University and her MA and BHons from the University of Toronto. Joanna is a contributor to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on Mary Magdalene as well as publishes academically on alternative spiritualities and pilgrimages associated with the Divine Feminine. In addition, she has been a Lecturer and Academic Head at Monash University and RMIT and is currently working on a book on Goddesses of Secret Knowledge and Eros and preparing a chapter on Mary Magdalene for an academic book on Sacred Spaces. Her blog can be accessed at https://www.joannakujawa.com/goddess-news/.
Glenys Livingstone, Ph.D.
Glenys Livingstone, Ph.D. (Social Ecology) is the author of PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion which is based on her doctoral research (University of Western Sydney, Social Ecology. 2002). She has been on a Goddess path since 1979, and has contributed to several anthologies, including Goddesses in World Culture (ed. Patricia Monaghan), and Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture (ed. Mary Ann Beavis and Helen Hye-Sook Hwang). She co-edited Re-visioning Medusa: from Monster to Divine Wisdom with Trista Hendren and Pat Daly. Glenys lives in Australia, where she has facilitated Seasonal ceremony for over two decades, and mentored students. She teaches a year long course on-line. Glenys’s website is http://pagaian.org/.
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
Alisha Pomazon, Ph.D.
Dr. Alisha Pomazon is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Religion and Culture at St. Thomas More College at the University of Saskatchewan. Alisha’s research focuses on how groups use sacred texts to answer questions about how to act in the world. In particular, she looks at how interreligious dialogue uses scripture as a point of meeting. She also is interested in how biblical texts are interpreted in popular culture, through movies, TV series, fiction, fantasy, and grassroots movements. She teaches a class called “Monsters and Mischief-Makers” as part of this work, and is currently exploring Anita Diamant’s The Red Tent and the responses to this book by filmmakers in TV and the women’s movement that this book inspired, The Red Tent Temple.
Krista Rodin (Ph.D., University of Salzburg, Austria) is Emerita Professor of Humanities at Northern Arizona University where she taught a variety of interdisciplinary courses relating to ancient cultures and sacred traditions. Her research centers on ancient goddess traditions. She received her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Salzburg, Austria. Dr. Rodin held a number of administrative positions, including Dean and Vice Provost of Continuing Studies and Engagement programs in Maine and Connecticut and Campus Executive Officer for the Yuma campus of NAU prior to returning to full time teaching and research. Dr. Rodin’s extensive travel blog can be accessed at: https://journals.worldnomads.com/krodin. Dr. Rodin now lives in Austria.
Bojana Radovanović, Ph.D.
Dr. Bojana Radovanović was born in Belgrade, Serbia, where she finished her BA studies in Classical Philology, and her MA in Classical Archaeology. She lived in France for some time where she obtained a diploma from the Communication Institute in Strasbourg, followed Indoeuropeistic lectures at Sorbonne, and taught foreign languages (Italian, French, English). After having worked at the Institute for History in Belgrade, she moved to Vienna, Austria, where she finished her doctoral studies and obtained her PhD Diploma in History with the topic of early medieval “language of heresy” in Greek and Latin selected texts. She is currently pursuing her Postdoctoral studies at the Radboud University of Nijmegen (The Netherlands), on medieval dualist heresies. She publishes regularly for international scientific journals and is currently outlining a monograph on some aspects on and links between medieval concepts of heresy, allegorical, biblical and parabiblical depiction of heresies, and the divine feminine, but also on the historical and archaeological quest for the Goddess on the Balkans. Her other research interests include: Late Antiquity and pagan heritage of the medieval philosophical and theological concepts; dualist heresies in the Middle Ages; dualist legends; Slavonic apocrypha; inter-cultural transmission between Byzantium and the Latin West; mysticism and spirituality; analogies between early Christian and medieval heresies, pagan rituals, and contemporary sects. Besides her scholarly work, she writes poems and short stories, cooks and plays music. Some of her literary works have also been published.
Penelop C. Sanz, Ph.D.
Dr. Penelope C. Sanz is the managing editor of the Engaged Scholar Journal: Community-Based Research, Teaching and Learning, and the Journal of Aboriginal Economic Development. She is also a lecturer at the University of Saskatchewan and St. Thomas More College in Saskatchewan Canada, and a part-time faculty at the Ateneo de Davao University, Philippines.
Karen J. Torjesen, Ph.D.
Karen Jo Torjesen is Senior Research and Scholar and Professor Emerita of the School of Arts and Humanities at Claremont Graduate University. She has taught Patristic Theology, at the Georg August University in German, Religion and Women’s Studies at Mary Washington College and founded a doctoral program in Women’s Studies in Religion at Claremont Graduate University. During this time she moved into the area Transnational Feminism, held a Fulbright Fellowship in Kenya at Kenyatta University’s Gender and Development Department, organized research projects on HIV Stigma in Kenya and Gender Based Violence in the DRC and served as an advisor to for the development of a Gender Research Center at the University of Botswana.