This new program offers an advanced degree for women at a pivotal “crossroads” in their lives, women asking themselves: "How can I create a more meaningful life that is in alignment with who I am?" The program content and group experience empowers students to find direction, self-authorization, connection to female roots, authenticity and fulfilling life work. The curriculum is taught by supportive, diverse, leading practitioners in the fields of women's spirituality and spiritual activism, as well as leading authors, scholars, artists and ritualists. The program promotes intellectual and creative expression; explores and integrates global and historic intellectual, social, artistic and spiritual aspects of womanhood. We are also committed to preparing graduates to transform society through transforming themselves.
The innovative curriculum explores women’s roles in pre-history and history, women’s spiritual and religious leadership, women’s work in healing and social activism, and women’s ritual, literary, social and artistic contributions. Our feminist learning community offers dedicated mentoring, encouraging the development of new knowledge and theory through an integration of scholarly research, spiritual practice, embodiment, activism and the sacred arts. The Sacred Feminine and the values of justice and equality associated with Her are explored in multi-spiritual traditions including Asia, Europe, Africa, the Americas, the Ancient Near East/Middle East and Australia. Each student is also encouraged to seek, develop and honor her own unique path.
The Women’s Spirituality MA degree prepares women for
leadership in the pluralistic global culture of the 21st
century. The classes, which are small graduate seminars
in a cohort model meet on weekends and the program can
be completed in two calendar years of full-time study.
Students living out-of-state attend by driving or flying
in for classes one weekend a month.
Although the curriculum is new to ITP,
the closely-knit faculty has been teaching Women's
Spirituality together for ten years,
and will co-direct
the program. A bit about
them:
Judy Grahn, Ph.D., Co-Director
and Core Faculty, is internationally known as a poet,
woman-centered cultural theorist, co-founder of
lesbian-feminism, and early contributor to literature of
women’s spirituality. Her work centers on reclamation of
stories, values and methods of Sacred Feminine
traditions. Her book, Blood, Bread, and Roses: How
Menstruation Created the World (Beacon Press, 1993)
outlines a new origin theory of culture blossoming from
women’s peaceful blood rituals, especially menstruation.
Her poetry collections include The Queen of Wands, The
Queen of Swords, She Who, and The Common Woman Poems,
considered foundational to the development of cultural
feminism. Dr. Grahn is editor of the new academic
journal Metaformia: A Journal of Menstruation and
Culture (www.metaformia.com). She was recently invited
to present her work on Metaformic Consciousness in Chile
at Tremonhue, Centro de Espiritualidad y Salud Integral,
where she met with women of varied backgrounds and
religions from seven countries, who are engaged in
remythologizing the feminine in society.
Dianne E. Jenett, Ph.D., Co-Director and Core Faculty, is a co-author of Organic Inquiry: If Research Were Sacred and her work has been published in the U.S. and India. Her research focus is on women-centered rituals in Kerala, India, qualitative research methods and women’s psycho-spiritual development. She is co-founder, along with Dr. Grahn, of Serpentina, which sponsors women’s cutting edge research (www.serpentina.com). Dr. Jenett's publications include “Menstruating Women/Menstruating Goddesses: Sites of Sacred Power in South India” in Menstruation: A Cultural History (ed. Andrew Shail, Palgrave Macmillan Ltd., 2005) and “A Million Shaktis Rising: Pongala, A Woman's Festival in Kerala, India” in Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, 21, no. 1 (2005). Dianne examines Pongala at Attukal Temple from the viewpoint of thirty Hindu, Moslem and Christian women. She used ethnographic material and the research methodology she helped develop, Organic Inquiry, to enable her to explicitly incorporate the sacred wisdom and practices of this tradition. She and Judy Grahn lead educational trips to explore sacred arts and rituals of South India.
Deborah J. Grenn, Ph.D., Co-Director and Core Faculty, author of Lilith’s Fire, is founder and director of The Lilith Institute, and founding kohenet/priestess of Mishkan Shekhinah. Dr. Grenn’s dissertation is an inquiry into South African Lemba and United States Jewish women’s religious identities, beliefs and ritual practices. Other writings include Lilith’s Fire (Universal Publishers, 2000); “How Women Construct And Are Formed By Spirit: She Who Is Everywhere In Women’s Voices” (She Is Everywhere, Volume I, Lucia Birnbaum, ed. 2005) and “Connecting with Deity through a Feminist Metaformic Theology” (Metaformia Journal, 2005). Her article “Lilith’s Fire: Re-reading Sacred Texts” appeared in the Feminist Theology journal in September 2007. She published Talking To Goddess, a collection of blessings, meditations and invocations in May 2007.