Category: Presenters

Presenters at the Fates and Graces Mythologium, a virtual conference for mythologists.

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Mythologium 2020 welcomes Dr. Nicola Tannion

Nicola’s presentation is titled, “Joaquin Phoenix: A Messenger for the Zeitgeist”

The two films Mary Magdalene and Joker are on the surface joined by one common element: American-born actor, director, and producer, Joaquin Phoenix. Both films are vastly different in the time period, costumes, make-up, and context. As the protagonist in each film, Phoenix’s ability to traverse the worlds through the characters of Jesus and Joker indicates the presence of the mythological figure Hermes. Film, in general, reveals the underlying concerns of the populous, and as such the polarity of the choices we in the zeitgeist face today. This presentation will use archetypal, mythological, and depth psychological perspectives to examine Phoenix as a conduit for the Divine Messenger archetype both on and off the screen, the messages themselves, and the possible future realities for America.

About Nicola:

Nicola Tannion holds a PhD in Mythological Studies with an emphasis in Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute, Santa Barbara, CA (2017). As writer, teacher, and bridge-builder she is adept at creating an awareness of the connections between different cultures and worlds, ideas, and communities. Nicola has presented at national and international conferences: Popular Culture conference (United States 2018, 2019), Australasian Irish Studies Conference (Australia 2018), and as adjunct faculty at Antioch University Seattle.

Visit Nicola’s website at www.nicolatannion.com.

2020 Mythologium program
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Mythologium 2020 welcomes Dr. Jody Gentian Bower

Jody’s presentation is called, “Edenic Comedies—The Missing Fourth in Louise Cowan’s Theory of Comedy”

In The Terrain of Comedy, professor of English Louise Cowan proposed that all comedies can be categorized as Infernal, Purgatorial, or Paradisal, depending on how the plot plays out. Jody Gentian Bower argues in this presentation that many comedies—particularly those featuring women as the main protagonists—fall into a fourth category. Following Cowan’s naming scheme, Dr. Bower calls this the Edenic comedy. In addition to describing the unique characteristics of the Edenic comedy, Dr. Bower delineates how careful and deliberate use of costuming, lighting, props, secondary characters, and background contributes to the distinctive “archetypal field” of each type of comedy.

About Jody:

Jody Gentian Bower is a cultural mythologist who earned her PhD in Mythological Studies with a Depth Psychology Emphasis from Pacifica Graduate Institute in 2012. She is the author of Jane Eyre’s Sisters: How Women Live and Write the Heroine Story (Quest 2015), which examines the “wandering heroine” story that has been told for centuries, and The Princess Powers Up: Watching the Sleeping Beauties become Warrior Goddesses (Mandorla 2020), about the evolution of female agency in scifi and fantasy shows over the last 80 years. She writes and lectures about archetypal and mythological motifs in modern culture and blogs about movies at jodybower.com. She is currently at work on a historical romance, set during the War of 1812 and based on a family legend.

2020 Mythologium program
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The Mythologium welcomes Stephanie Zajchowski

Stephanie’s presentation is called, “The Whore of Babylon: Mythemes in Contemporary Reproductive Politics”

The Whore of Babylon is a diabolical female figure in the Book of Revelation, the final book of the canonical Bible. Throughout history this image has been used metaphorically to communicate a threat. The focus on the Whore as a woman and mother infuses the female body with apocalyptic significance and reinforces stereotypical gender roles. This presentation traces how a fundamentalist mythological interpretation of the Whore of Babylon enters into current reproductive politics that aim to bolster moral codes of female procreation. Focusing on religious imagery associated with the Whore of Babylon in conversation with contemporary socio-political discourses, the project identifies three mythemes: False Religion and Deception, Empire, and Monstrous Births. Attentive to the reciprocating relationship between story and culture, this study shows how these mythemes form a mythological narrative important to meaning-making in contemporary American reproductive dialogues. A feminist critique exposes how the appearance of these themes in anti-abortion discourse influences cultural ideas about gender, sexuality, and reproduction manifesting in public policies that police female reproduction.

About Stephanie:

Stephanie Zajchowski, PhD(c) holds a MA in Mythological Studies from Pacifica Graduate Institute (PGI) and a certification in Spiritual Direction from Southern Methodist University’s Perkins School of Theology. Her doctoral dissertation, The Mythology of the Whore of Babylon in Contemporary Reproductive Politics, examines how religious narrative moves beneath the surface of current reproductive politics and emphasizes the importance of reclaiming the female power in the myth of the Whore placing the authority over procreation back within the domain of the procreative body. Stephanie has presented papers at the Association for Women in Mythology (2016), the American Academy of Religion Western Regional Conference (2017), and the Popular Culture Association National Conference (2017, 2019). Her publications appear in PGI’s Mythological Studies Journal (2014) and Between: Literary Journal (2015, 2016). Stephanie lives in Texas. She has worked in corporate marketing at Southwest Airlines, as a docent for the Dallas Museum of Art, and in communications and ministry assistance for the United Methodist Church. Her academic interests focus on the reciprocating relationship between culture and story.

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The Mythologium welcomes Dr. Stacey Simmons

Stacey’s presentation is called, “Not a Heroine’s Journey”

For years we have been told about the Hero’s Journey. In 1988 when Bill Moyers interviewed Jospeh Campbell for The Power of Myth, Moyers asked him about a monomyth for women. Campbell replied that he was sure that there was one, but he had dedicated his life to the Hero’s Journey, so had not found it. The Hero’s Journey has been adapted for women, but it is not a woman’s story. There IS a monomyth for women, that has been discovered in every story with a female protagonist from the descent of Inanna to Wonder Woman. The core of this monomyth tells the story of a divided woman who traverses a path of difficulty, the way markers of this path depend on her separation. She is divided into one of two groups, and treated by family and culture dependent on this lane. As she faces the challenges ahead of her she is offered the end of the journey through symbolic death, either through a “Happily Ever After” life of marriage and children, or through the abjection and isolation of wielding power. If she doesn’t choose one of those terminal points, she has the option of becoming a “Queen” where she must overcome the divide, heal the disparate parts of herself rendered piecemeal in the divide, and then re-emerge, reunited with full self-sovereignty.  Put your ruby or glass slipper on the Path of the Queen.

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About Stacey:

Stacey Simmons, MA, PhD, LMFT is a writer, psychotherapist, and former entertainment executive. She studies social psychological phenomena through a mediated lens, and is particularly passionate about women’s stories and animation. Her current research focuses on the discovery of a monomyth for women that is an analog to the Hero’s Journey.  Stacey holds a PhD in Urban Studies with a focus in media psychology, from the University of New Orleans, and an MA in Counseling Psychology with a focus in Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute. 

You can connect with Stacey through Facebook or her website, www.writewomen.com.

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The Mythologium welcomes Dr. Amy Lawson

Amy’s presentation is called, “Embracing the Beauty of the Feminine: Lessons for Medicine and its Healers from the Myth of Psyche and Eros”

According to James Hillman, “Myths do not ground, they open . . . We may thereby see our ordinary lives embedded in and ennobled by the dramatic and world-creative life of mythical figures.” The myth of Psyche and Eros, a story about development of the feminine, has given new perspective to my journey as a burned-out physician, a wounded healer. Modern medicine has long repressed its more feminine attributes. But Psyche’s journey back to Eros, and especially her fourth labor—retrieving the beauty ointment from Persephone in the underworld—speaks to a healer’s maturation in the masculine field of medicine, regardless of that healer’s gender. This presentation examines the relationship of Psyche and Eros to the relationship between physician and medicine. We will also closely analyze Psyche’s fourth task, looking for lessons that can help medicine’s healers heal themselves. Perhaps the myth of Psyche and Eros can serve to re-ennoble the ordinary lives of today’s doctors by reinvigorating the hidden feminine in medicine, helping it to escape from the underworld and reclaim the healing balm for itself.

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About Amy:

Amy Lawson, M.D., is a practicing pediatrician in the San Francisco Bay area. She is also a third-year graduate student pursuing a Ph.D. in Jungian and Archetypal Studies at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, California. She is interested in ways depth psychology can be used to reconnect modern medicine with its roots, improve patient experiences, and decrease physician burnout through creation of meaning.

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The Mythologium welcomes Kathryn Makeyev

Kathryn will present on the topic of reincarnation

What happens if I die? Incredibly we in the West often think if instead of when. A belief in reincarnation as a series of improving lives opens the conversation, and eases fears. I will present a Western view of Eastern ideas from my dissertation “Reincarnation: A Myth of Rebirth.” We will conjure Pythagoras and maybe Krishna and ask what they think about near-death and out-of-body experiences.

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The Mythologium welcomes Dr. Elizabeth Wolterink

Elizabeth’s presentation is called, “Beyond the Binary: Trans-sacrality in Vedic and Indigenous American Cultures”


We in the West often think of religion and transgender issues as being at odds. However, there are many religions in which trans-imagery and being is not only accepted, but seen as a sacred aspect of the Divine. This paper examines two examples of this phenomenon: Native American and Vedic traditions. The act of seeing oneself and of being seen, of perceiving one’s own being in the images of myth and belief, connects us to history and culture and is one way in which we construct identity. Reclamation of religious transgender imagery and history not only furthers dialogue between religious and transgender communities, but helps affirm trans modes of being. These mythological images and roles also illuminate ancient wisdom in modern day trans people’s questioning of gender assumptions and of the concretization of binary modes of being.

About Elizabeth:

Elizabeth Wolterink earned her Ph.D. in Mythological Studies with an Emphasis in Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute in 2017. Her dissertation, Cloaked in Darkness: Feminine Katabasis in Myth and Culture, explored the differences between male and female mythological descents to the underworld and found that female katabatic figures not only have far more agency than is traditionally granted to them, but that they hold important psychological and cultural insights into female identity. Elizabeth has presented at the Western and Midwestern American Academy of Religion as well as at the Parliament of World Religions. She has also worked with youth for over twelve years using myth, depth psychology, philosophy, martial arts, and wilderness skills as means to psychological and spiritual development. Elizabeth guest lectures on mythology and gender for high schools and community organizations and on gender identity and welcoming in churches.

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The Mythologium welcomes Bob Scott

Bob’s talk is called, “San Diego as Archetypal Geography: The Box Canyon as Alchemical Vessel”

City planning can benefit from archetypal psychology by offering a perspective that is absent in the process of planning cities: one that re-visions the city by activating the figural, the metaphorical, and the imaginal as crucial and essential forms of a city’s soul. My talk, and the dissertation from which is it developed, offers a multi-disciplinary, mytho-poetic perspective toward San Diego as city. Through the lens of archetypal psychology, city is approached as subjective being to inform one’s ability to understand, and to relate to, presences that are palpable but invisible in the natural and physical landscapes.

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About Bob:

Bob holds a BA in Geography and an MA in Mythology with an emphasis in Depth Psychology. He is a PhD candidate working on his dissertation, entitled “Poiesis in the Polis: Re-imagining San Diego as Archetypal City.” In a 25-year career in city planning, Bob has observed a broken and outdated mythos toward a city planning process where economics control and where issues of aesthetics and beauty, the subjective elements that stir the soul, have no real part in the city-making process. Bob has always been intrigued by the layout of cities, the magic of natural open spaces, and understanding the psychological underpinnings of what makes a great sense of place. His academic and professional areas of interest are steering him toward a more humanistic and collaborative relationship toward the environment and city.

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The Mythologium welcomes Dr. Edward M. Smink

Edward’s presentation is called, “Who Hugs the Hugger: A Mythology of Self Care”

Once upon a time, or maybe it was many times ago, when you experienced that the sky was falling, that moment of being overwhelmed,  similar to the story of Chicken Little, instead you found the courage to pause and take a deep breath, and somehow a calm came over you and insight emerged. At this moment you entered that liminal space, the land we may call OZ, where imagination took flight birthing  a new call to adventure. Where would we be without the myths to guide and comfort us? Like a cup of hot chocolate on a cold winter’s night, or to snuggle up to one we love, or to be captivated by a poem, a novel, a sonata, or a work of art, new insight and wisdom emerged. We become lost in the certitude of that moment, that we are not alone, and are comforted. 

To care for one’s self is such an adventure. While most of us love to be pampered, few of us take the time for self care. The mythology of self care invites the inductee to explore the archetypes of the hero, the caregiver, the lover, the wounded healer, and the practice of hospitality. Travel any way you like. You can walk, hike, sit on the back of a camel, ride in a rickshaw, or sit on an imaginary magic carpet as you become a participant in a pilgrimage that is being assembled. Who are the caregivers among us? We all are, for at the heart of being human is the capacity to care, to reach out to others and to build relationships.

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About Ed:

Edward M. Smink, PhD defended his doctoral thesis, “Thresholds of Afflictions: The Heroic Journey of Healing,” at Pacifica in May of 2010 and graduated with a PhD in Depth Psychology. He has over forty years of experience in healthcare as nurse, crisis and pastoral counselor, executive leader, facilitator of mission, ethics, value and leadership formation and community health. He served on local, regional and international committees of value formation in the United  States, Australia, Korea,  England, Spain and Italy.  Edward likes to claim that along with his academic credentials, he has learned most from his experience with colleagues who care for others and from those who needed his services. Edward’s focus includes an emphasis on the development of strengths and the integration of values in personal and professional practice. He is passionate about the universal values and archetypes that unite humankind and with his background in mythological studies, enjoys discovering the unique personal stories of each client that contribute to successful outcomes.

“Who Hugs the Hugger: A Mythology of Self-Care” is gleaned from Edward’s book, The Soul of Caregiving: A Caregiver’s Guide to Healing and Transformation. Learn more at www.soulofcaregiving.com.

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The Mythologium welcomes Dr. Olivia Happel

Olivia’s presentation is called, “Teaching Homer’s Odyssey:  Where is your Ithaca?” 

For several thousand years, students have eagerly devoured the tale of the wandering Odysseus making his way home from the war at Troy. In the world of smartphones, paperless classrooms, and Project Based Learning, does this ancient myth fit today? Absolutely. This presentation seeks to explore how one may teach myth through Homer’s epic poem, the relevance of this text for students seeking a path through all their wanderings, and how to engage students with an ancient text. With two paths, students advocate for their desired level of involvement either through examining “what is your Ithaca” or “how does myth inspire art.” While this project is constructed for secondary education, it may easily be scaffolded for junior high or college level courses. 

Olivia Happel, PhD is a Latin, Mythology, Theory of Knowledge, English, and Film Studies teacher at Dos Pueblos High School where she has worked since 2014. There she serves as the Extended Essay Coordinator (a four thousand word research essay comprised by IB students over the junior and senior year). She has created her own curriculum for both the Mythology and Film Studies course at DPHS. Her doctoral dissertation is titled, “That Which Is Not Yet Known:  An Alchemical Analysis of Michael Maier’s Arcana Arcanissima.” She has presented at the American Academy of Religion Regional Conference as well as the Pop Culture Association Regional and National Conference. Her academic interests include myth, religious studies, alchemy, and classics. She seeks to pursue the #immutablediamondbody throughout her life, scholarship, and career.