Mago Academy offers Creatrix and Mothers: Thealogies of Birth, as an elective course of the Creatrix Studies Programs (CSP). You may take it as 0.5 credit course toward your M.A. or Ph.D. in Creatrix Studies program or audit it for non-degree track education.
Creatrix and Mothers: Thealogies of Birth (0.5 Credit)
Course no: 403
Instructor: Nané Jordan, Ph.D.
Time: 10 AM-12 Noon PT March 30-April 20 (2 hour-long 4 weekly sessions)
Description: Thealogies of birth explores the birthing-potentiality of the divine female/feminine and Great Mother as interwoven with women’s birth-giving powers. Reflecting on thea-logy, as in study of Goddess, through an embodied, eco-spiritual feminist lens that holds birth, those who give it, and all being born as sacred, we inquire into matricentric (mother-centred) understandings of birth and qualities of experience. Weaving meaning with Earth-honouring thea-perspectives, we explore the interconnecting threads of Goddesses and mothers—writ large and small—at the centre of birthing agency, care, and spirituality, to develop birth-based consciousness for human thriving. (Continue to read for course summary.)
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Mago Academy accepts registration for Spring 2026 Courses. For the list of Spring 2026 courses, see here.
If you want to register courses as your graduate degree program, go to Coursework Application Guides.
Fill out the form below and email to Dr. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang (magoacademy@gmail.com) with the payment (Copy and paste the form in the body of your email). For other methods of payment, email Dr. Hwang for instructions. A Zoom link will be provided to registered students 2-3 days prior to the first session of your course.
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Fee for 1 credit course toward M.A. or Ph.D. degree program: $700 (if you register for a 2 unit course, choose 2 in product quantity).
Fee for 0.5 credit course toward M.A. or Ph.D. degree program: $350 (if you register for a total of 1 unit course, choose 2 in product quantity).
Fee for 1 credit course Audit: $100 (if you register for a 2 credit course auditing, choose 2 in product quantity)
Fee for 0.5 credit course Audit: $50 (if you register for a worth of 1.5 credit courses, e.g. one 1 credit course and 0.5 credit course, choose 3 in product quantity).
All inquires should be email to Dr. Hwang (magoacademy@gmail.com).
Course Summary
Rationale: Human beings are gestated and born through and with mothers as life-givers. Yet in a world caught by patriarchal death knells of war, social injustice, colonization and political crises, “birth” has been a suppressed category of inquiry in male-stream philosophy and theology. Revivifying matricentric (mother-centred), eco-spiritual feminist conceptions of birth nourishes deeper understanding of the gifts of life that mothers bring. By reclaiming the birthing creation powers of Great Mothers and Cosmic Mothers, we re-orient towards the centrality and divinity of mothers giving birth and those being born.
Practically speaking, mother-centred birth includes fulsome embodied education about the powerful capacities of physiologically birthing bodies, compassionate, celebratory mother-led community care, and culturally- and spiritually-rooted practices that honour the sacredness of birth for primal holistic wellness. Benefits include mothers’ increased sense of agency and wellbeing, ecstatic birthing potentiality, felt intensities of relief and love, and nested fulfillment of early attachment needs between babies, mothers, families, and whole communities. Despite years of feminist advocacy, alongside global research on the increasing mal-effects of birth trauma in the systemic mistreatment of birth-givers, the field of mother-centred birth has not been practically expanded. By weaving meaning through Earth honouring, thea-perspectives, we explore the warp and weft threads interweaving Goddessing and mothering—writ large and small—at the centre of birthing agency, care, and spirituality, aiming to deepen birth-based consciousness for human thriving.
Objectives:
- Recover meanings of birth, birth-power, and agency through matrices of divine female/feminine imaginaries; explore birth-based, regenerative symbolism in Goddess herstories and iconography;
- Consider literatures of women’s spirituality and Goddess studies to explore birth-giving and the female body/blood mysteries as sacred sites of wisdom;
- Study birth stories, in spectrum from traumatic to ecstatic, considering impacts of the authoritative medicalization of birth, and patriarchal religious control/co-option of birth and birth-givers;
- Link thealogies with birth justice social movements to re-sacralize and de-colonize birth in experience and ritual through mother-led, Earth-based, midwifery-connected cultural practices.
Methodology: This course provides an overview of thealogical studies of birth and mothering as an emergent field of inquiry. Thealogies of birth is a comparative exploration, interweaving facets of Goddess feminism and women’s spirituality, birth-based cultural studies, ecofeminism, and oral herstory of mother-centred birth cultures and care. Sources include: contemporary writing in thealogy and Goddess studies, birth research literatures, philosophies of midwifery and birth justice social movements, and exploration of mother-centred story-telling through online podcasts and blogs.
Students are considered co-inquirers in this subject of study. Each session will begin with a lecture-overview with Dr. Jordan, followed by class discussion and student presentations. Students will each prepare a presentation on readings from our course list, and have the opportunity to document and share at least one birth story, of their own or another person. The class series completes with a birth-themed circle, co-designed with students to weave our learning together.
Instructor: Nané Jordan Ph.D. in Canada
Biography: Dr. Nané Jordan is a Goddess Studies scholar, birth-keeper, interdisciplinary artist and educator, with a background in lay midwifery and community social work. Nané’s eco-birthing scholarship is rooted in maternal wisdom traditions of birth. Her work supporting mother-led, ecstatically-oriented, physiologic birth and the gifting role of placentasadvances new understandings of birth in experience and care as central to human thriving. Nané was a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Paris 8, France. She received her doctorate in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of British Columbia, and an MA in Women’s Spirituality from New College of California. Nané facilitates community women’s circles and co-founded the artist collectives Gestare and Ma Whales. Her many publications include Placenta Wit: Mother Stories, Rituals, and Research.
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