Women’s Spirituality Faculty

Program Chair

Arisika Razak, CNM, MPH Health Care Administration, UC Berkeley 1978, Certified Nurse Midwife, UC San Francisco 1980, is the WSE Program Chair. Arisika is an African-American healer, ritualist, spiritual dancer, and educator who practices an eclectic mix of Earth-based spiritual traditions.

She has worked with indigent women as an inner-city nurse-midwife for more than 20 years, focusing on the lives and cultures of women of color, which has led to her research interest in feminist, womanist, mujerista, and postcolonial epistemologies and
worldviews, and in women's health.

Arisika is a diversity trainer and spiritual dancer who leads spiritual and healing workshops. She has performed nationally and internationally; she was the 2008 American Association of Religion-Western Region's conference chair and vice president, and she is the organization's 2009 president.

Her film credits include Fire Eyes (on female genital cutting), A Place of Rage (which profiles Alice Walker, JuneJordan and Angela Davis), and Who Lives Who Dies (on health disparities in the U.S.).

Read Arisika's article, Her Blue Body: A Pagan Reading of Alice Walker Womanism

Core Faculty

ALKA ARORA, PhD (Women Studies, University of Washington) is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Religion, and Women's Spirituality at the California Institute of Integral Studies. She is a first generation Indian-American with spiritual roots in the Yogic philosophy of Hinduism. With these roots as a foundation, she has also been deeply influenced by the vipassana tradition within Buddhism, New Thought philosophy, and ecofeminism/environmental justice. Her dissertation, The Re-enchantment of Feminism: Countering Fundamentalisms, Encountering the Sacred (2008) examined spiritual discourses among third-wave feminists in Seattle. Arora's teaching experience and interests include feminist theory, women of color feminism, women in Hinduism, spiritual activism, and the spirituality and politics of love relationships. Prior to joining the CIIS faculty in 2011, she worked as director of the Women's Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Mara Lynn Keller, PhD (Philosophy, Yale University) is a Professor of Philosophy and Religion and Women's Spirituality, and past Director of the Women's Spirituality MA and PhD program at the California Institute of Integral Studies, where she teaches courses on the Eleusinian Mysteries in which the rites are re-enacted; and on the Goddess and God Civilization of Ancient Crete.

 She is a philosopher and thealogian, who has written articles about the Goddesses of Greece and Crete; including "Sacred Arts and Ritual in Crete of the Mother Goddess" and "The Eleusinian Mysteries' Ritual Path of Initiation." She is interested in promoting dialogue between Goddess people and God people. She is a co-founder of the OCHRE Journal of Women’s Spirituality. And she has promoted many special events at CIIS celebrating women's sacred arts and scholarship, most recently Ïneffable/Woman: a Bi-coastal Conversation" with CERES Gallery in New York.  

 In keeping with her goal of integrating body, mind, and spirit, she is also a Rosen Method bodywork practitioner and movement teacher. She previously taught Philosophy and Women’s Studies at the University of California at Riverside and at San Francisco State University, where she co-founded and coordinated the Global Peace Studies Program.

Read Mara's article, The Ritual Path of Initiation into the Eleusinian Mysteries

Charlene Spretnak, MA, UC Berkeley, 1981, is an ecofeminist philosopher whose areas of specialty include cultural history; ecofeminist social criticism; ecological thought, including embodied, embedded philosophy and literature; ecosocial analyses, vision, and activism; and spiritual dimensions of modern art. She is one of the "founding mothers" of the Women's Spirituality movement and is a cofounder of the Green Party movement in the U.S. Charlene was named by the British government's Environment Department, in 2006, one of the "100 Eco-Heroes of All Time."

Associated CIIS Core Faculty
Alfonso Montuori, PhD
Sandra Pacheco, PhD
Jim Ryan, PhD
Rina Sircar, PhD
Brian Swimme, PhD
Tanya Wilkinson, PhD

Adjunct Faculty

Jennifer Berezan, MA
Carolyn Brandy, BA (Initiated Elder - Santeria)
Susan G. Carter, PhD
Carol P. Christ, PhD
Mary Churchill, PhD
Randy Conner, PhD
Cheryl Dawson, MA
Riane Eisler, JD
Tricia Grame, MFA, PhD
Loretta Green, MA
Susan Griffin, MA
Miri Hunter Haruach, PhD
Mary Mackey, PhD
Bisola Marignay, MA
Mytrae Meliana, MA
Ana Perez-Chisti, PhD
Marguerite Rigoglioso, PhD
Peggy Reeves Sanday, PhD
Jacob Sherman, PhD
Starhawk, MA
Luisah Teish, Iyanifa (Initiated Elder - Ifa)
Elizabeth Ursic, PhD
Afia Walking Tree, MA
Sara Webb, BA, CMT