About the PhD in Women’s Spirituality

Description of Our Programs

The Women’s Spirituality movement offers many paths that support the pursuit of an authentic spiritual quest while simultaneously engaging with the core ecosocial justice issues of our time.

At CIIS, the Women’s Spirituality (WSE) programs constitute leading sites for the academic study of these phenomena. Our distinguished faculty includes several intellectual pioneers in Women’s Spirituality whose work is internationally known and whose methodology encompasses diverse epistemological traditions.

The WSE programs are based on the study of women and world religions. Scholarship in this area includes the philosophy, cultural history, and embodied wisdom found in diverse spiritual traditions; the “submerged” beliefs of subaltern cultures; and the emergent chorus of women’s voices from disparate postcolonial, sociocultural, and academic locations.

Epistemological frameworks utilized by our faculty and students include womanist, feminist, mujerista, and postcolonial worldviews.

They embody our belief in engaged spirituality, and in personal, social, and planetary transformation, as well as our commitment to an inclusive ecosocial vision of peace, justice, and sustainability.

We believe that the academic exploration of women’s spirituality is a fertile area within academia and a source of deeply needed insightful and critical work that is sorely needed by the world today.

PhD in Philosophy and Religion, Concentration in Women's Spirituality

In Fall 2006, the WSE doctoral program became a concentration within the CIIS Philosophy and Religion doctoral degree. Doctoral students entering the WSE program now receive a Philosophy and Religion doctoral degree with a concentration in Women's Spirituality.

The doctoral dissertation—supported by a vision of personal and social transformation grounded in the literature of women’s spirituality and at least one other academic field—enables the student to make an original contribution to the growing body of knowledge and scholarship in Women’s Spirituality, Philosophy, Religion, Women’s Studies, Ethnic Studies, and the Humanities.

Foundational courses for the WSE PhD include the following:

• Contemporary Women’s Spirituality or Embodying the Present: Women’s Spirituality (online version), which celebrates the dynamic emergence of the many voices of the Women’s Spirituality movementaround the world.

• Womanist-Feminist Worldviews, which examines the diversity of womanist, feminist, mujerista, and postcolonial worldviews, theories, and activism found in the U.S. and internationally. This course reviews contemporary international dialogues and postcolonial discourses, along with modern and historical womanist-feminist controversies.

• Women’s Spirituality Research Methodologies, which introduces students to methodologies used in the six areas of study in the WSE program, and assists students in thinking about how to do research more effectively in their two chosen areas of specialization.

• Spirit, Compassion, and Community Activism, a 1-unit community service course.

• Foundational Elements of Academic Research and Writing, PARW 6027-01 (or its online equivalent PARW 6027-02), provides a scholarly review of contemporary elements of academic research and writing. Areas covered include how to use online databases, interlibrary loans, and print and Internet resources effectively; how to fulfill the program’s research paper requirements and utilize its rubrics; how to identify primary and secondary resources in Women’s Spirituality; and what constitutes “original” research.

Our Transdisciplinary Concentration in Philosophy and Religion

Women’s Spirituality, as an emerging academic field, is aligned with Philosophy, Religion, Women’s Studies, Ethnic Studies, and the Humanities.

The Women’s Spirituality doctoral concentration at CIIS is the first doctoral
program in the world to offer this special transdisciplinary concentration, which highlights the role of women’s spirituality in diverse local and global contexts that support the positive transformation of self and society.

Areas of Study

PhD students pursue coursework in two of the following areas of study:

• Women and World Religions

• Feminist and Ecofeminist Philosophy

• Women’s Mysteries, Sacred Arts and Healing

• Cultural History, Archaeomythology, and EcoSocial Anthropology

• Justice, Community, Sustainability/Peace and Partnership Studies

Within the parameters of program and institute requirements, studies are tailored to individual student interests. The doctoral dissertation embodies a vision of personal and social transformation grounded in the literature and standpoint of Women’s Spirituality and at least one other academic field (such as Philosophy, Religion, or Ethnic Studies).

The dissertation offers an original contribution to the growing body of knowledge of Women’s Spirituality in relationship with Women’s Studies, Philosophy, Religion, Ethnic Studies and/or Humanities, and is inclusive of the student’s voice.

Community Service

Students are required to complete 60 hours of community-based, in-service learning with a nonprofit community organization, in conjunction with the Spirit, Compassion, and Community Activism course.

Some of these hours may be in-house service for the WSE program (for example, work on the OCHRE Journal of Women’s Spirituality or student coordination of the New Moon Forums). Students choosing this option must consult with the program chair.

For more specific details, consult the instructor, Susan G. Carter, and the syllabus. Although this course is offered for 1 to 3 units, WSE students are only required to take this course for 1 unit. Students wishing to take it for more than one unit must obtain the approval of their advisor.

Length of Study

The required preliminary coursework for the PhD degree may be completed in five semesters or two-and- a-half years if the student is enrolled full-time and successfully completes all academic course requirements.

After the preliminary coursework is completed, PhD students require several additional semesters in order to complete their comprehensive exams, their proposal writing course, and their advanced research course.

Once the dissertation committee has been constituted and the dissertation proposal has been completed and approved, PhD students work closely with the chair of their dissertation committee to devise a timeline for the research and writing of the dissertation.

CIIS requires that students spend a minimum of one year engaged in research and writing the dissertation. Full-time PhD students who have elected to work through the summers should be able to complete their PhD in four or four-and-a- half years, but part-time PhD students and those with particular research needs will usually need more time.

PhD students entering the program without an MA degree in Women’s Spirituality, Women’s Studies, Philosophy, or Religion may be required to take up to 18 supplemental units from the WSE program to ensure that they have received an appropriate foundation in Women’s Spirituality.

Community Building

Orientation and community building for our semi-distance students takes place during the annual Nine-Day WSE Intensive in mid-August. It also occurs during the online, required, introductory portal course (Embodying the Present).

Semi-distance students who attend the Intensive are encouraged to stay an additional day for the CIIS New Student Orientation, which usually occurs on the day after the last WSE Intensive class.

WSE semi-distance students are encouraged to have face-to-face visits with CIIS staff in the Financial Aid office, the Library, and other relevant Institute departments and programs at that time, as well as to meet other WSE faculty.

When semi-distance students travel to CIIS to attend WSE weekend residential courses taught by the core or adjunct faculty, they are encouraged to have face-to-face advising sessions and/or meetings with other WSE core faculty whenever possible.

In addition, WSE semi-distance students are always invited to attend WSE program meetings or student presentations that may occur while they are at CIIS.