Creatrix Studies Program Faculty
founder
Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.
Dr. Hwang is the founder of Mago Academy and the field of Creatrix Studies. She is a born poet, student, and advocate for Life of ALL and has encountered Ceto-Magoism (the Whale-guided Way of the Creatrix) through her doctoral research on Mago, the Cosmic Mother/Creatrix. Dr. Hwang received an M.A. and a Ph.D. degrees in Religion with the emphasis on Women’s Studies. To support her research on Magoism (the Way of the Creatrix), she enrolled in an M.A. program in East Asian Studies and specialized in Korean Buddhism at UCLA. Authored, edited, and published many books and essays by Mago Books and the peer-reviewed academic journal, S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies, and Return to Mago E-Magazine.
founding faculty
Judy Grahn, Ph.D.
Judy Grahn, Ph.D., is an internationally known poet, writer, and cultural theorist. An early LGBT activist, she is also a foremother of women’s spirituality, and a professor who co-directed MA programs at two colleges in the Bay Area. She has published seventeen books and received many awards, including a Fred Cody Lifetime Achievement Award for literature and social activism, a Pen Oakland award for excellence in literary criticism, two American Book awards, and two awards from the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology. An award in her name, “The Judy Grahn Nonfiction Award,” was established in 1996 by Triangle Publishers.
founding Faculty
Helen Benigni, Ph.D.
Helen Benigni (Ph.D. Indiana University of Pennsylvania) is a published author and 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 are 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). 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.
Founding faculty
Nane Jordan, Ph.D.
Dr. Nané Jordan is a Creatrix 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, where her work on mother-led, ecstatically-oriented, physiologic birth and the maternally 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 publications include Placenta Wit: Mother Stories, Rituals, and Research.
founding Faculty
Kaarina Kailo, Ph.D.
Dr. Kaarina Kailo is a cosmopolitan activist, politician, self-made artist and researcher. She has worked as professor of Women’s Studies at Oulu University, Finland, at the Finnish Academy, and has held women’s studies positions at Concordia University, Simone de Beauvoir Institute, Canada. She has published hundreds of articles on the gift economy/imaginary, Bear and Great Mother Worship/mythology, the woman who married the bear, sauna and sweat lodge healing, Finno-Ugric ecomythology, modern matriarchal studies, healing from gendered violence, Jungian philosophy, on the gender impact of neoliberal austerity politics, ecofeminism, goddess mythology, Finno-Ugric mythology, gender and Kalevala, Indigenous worldview/theory, Northern women’s culture and literature, societies of peace (matricultures), Jungian and Freudian theories of creativity, anti-racist theory and practices, gender and future studies.
Faculty
Francesca Tronetti, Ph.D.
Dr. Francesca Tronetti is an adjunct at Cherry Hill Seminary. She is a co-editor for S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies and has been part of the journal since it’s founding, serving on the editorial boards. She writes articles on ancient Goddess cultures and contemporary American Paganism for Return to Mago E-magazine. She is interested in American Folk Magic Traditions of Appalachia and the Pennsylvania Dutch and studies American mythological creatures and legends. She is a published poet and fiber artist.
Faculty
Danica Anderson, Ph.D.
Danica Anderson, Ph.D., BCFT, FAAETS, DAAETS, is a forensic traumatologist, social scientist, and founder of The Kolo: Women’s Cross-Cultural Collaboration. Her fieldwork across Afghanistan, Bosnia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Sri Lanka centers the forensic study of women’s war trauma, social epigenetics, and the transmission of embodied memory. A UNESCO Scientific & Education Council and former expert with the International Criminal Court, Dr. Anderson examines how female bodies archive collective trauma across generations. Her work interrogates dominant scientific narratives and reclaims somatic knowledge systems rooted in archaeology, gender-based justice, and intercultural interpretation of trauma.
Faculty
Tami Blumenfield, Ph.D., MLIS
Tami Blumenfield, PhD, MLIS, is a sociocultural anthropologist, heritage expert, educator, and media producer. Her work foregrounds inclusive practices, with a particular focus on gender, heritage, ethnic identity, and information ethics. She has curated museum exhibits, library collections, and film festivals in China and the United States. Publication topics include cultural heritage politics, tourism, resilience, community transformation, changing family forms, poverty alleviation, and gender-balanced communities, particularly the Mosuo of southwest China. Her work
has been featured on NBC’s The Today Show and aired on BBC Radio and National Geographic Television.