Curriculum Vitae 

I have made many presentations in my career. They fall into roughly four categories. If you are interested in having me as a speaker (sliding scale negotiable fee), you can either suggest a topic, or peruse this list to get some idea of what I have already prepared.

​

1. Talks about the Canterbury Academy, Prudence Crandall, and  Intersectionality can be found here

​

2. Talks about Environmental topics, including Birding, Community Science, and Lichens

"Lost and Found: The Ivory-billed Woodpecker, Extinction, and Immanence."  American Academy of Religion, National Meeting, Washington DC (November 2006); revised version at Alternative Expressions of the Numinous conference, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia (August 2007).

“Using eBird,” Talk given to Sequoia Audubon Society, San Mateo, California, April 2012.

Presenter, “Grassroots Bio-Blitzing” at Rio Grande Valley Bird Festival, November 2014.

Presenter, “Citizen-Science” at Santa Clara City Library Citizen-Science program, October 2015.

“The History of Sequoia Audubon Society, Part One (to 1970),” Talk and tutorial given to Sequoia Audubon Society, San Mateo, California, February 2019.

“Touring South Africa,” Talk given to Sequoia Audubon Society, San Mateo, California, November 2019.

“Affinity and Identity in the Queer Birders of North America (QBNA).” Podcast hosted by American Birding Association, Nathan Swick, with Michael Retter. January 2020. Podcast volume 4, no. 3. Link here.

“Queer Birds: Community Inclusion, Community Building, and Community Science.” Talk given to Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society, June 2021, video available here.

“Initiators and Novices: Birders and Community-Science.” Talk given to Rochester (NY) Birding Association, February 2022.

3, Talks about Music and the Arts

Panelist, Interviewing Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith, 2018 Arts Award Recipient from the American Academy of Religion, National Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (November 2018)

Facilitator, screening of Purple Rain (Prince) and “Lazarus” (David Bowie). American Academy of Religion, Annual Meeting, San Antonio, TX (November 2016).

“Death and the Middle Class: Musical Immanence and Cosmological Reflection in Schubert and Pink Floyd.” American Academy of Religion, National meeting, Chicago, IL (November 2012).

"Social Change, Biblical Exegesis and Rock and Roll: PJ Harvey and U2 in the Classroom."  American Academy of Religion, Western Region meeting, Santa Clara, CA (March 2009).

“The Same Situation: Joni Mitchell and the Women’s Liberation Movement.”  Joni Mitchell Symposium, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada (October 2004). 

"Is This Desire?: Queering Large-scale Form in Rock Music."  Feminist Theory and Music VII, Bowling Green, Ohio (July 2003).

"Queering the Pitch, Queering the Practice: Plenary Panel Discussion."  International Association for the Study of Popular Music, Montreal, Quebec, Canada (July 2003).

"Endless Caresses: Musical Form as Queer Exuberance in the Music of Yes."  Society for Music Theory, Philadelphia, PA (November 2001).

"The Mythology of Music, Knowledge and Sexuality: The Hidden Image of Sarasvati in Two Karnatic Kritis."  University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill NC (March 2001); University of California, Riverside (January 2001); Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY (October 2000), American Academy of Religion, Western Region, Claremont, CA (March 1998), and Society for Ethnomusicology, Annual Meeting, Seattle WA (October 1992).

"Joni Mitchell's Court and Spark as a Sonic Document of the Women's Liberation Movement."  Society for Ethnomusicology National Meeting, Toronto, Ontario (October 1996).

“Form, Sound, and Spirit in Beethoven’s Cello Sonata Op. 102, No. 2.” Scripps College Symposium on Music in American Life, Claremont, CA (October 1995).

“Expressions of Sexuality and Physicality: American and British Women Rock Musicians.”  Scripps College Symposium on Music in American Life, Claremont, CA (October 1995).

"Retheorizing Music" Panelist, American Musicological Society, Minneapolis, MN (October 1994).

"Moments Surrounding Action: Musical Compositions"  American Academy of Religion, Western Regional Meeting, Santa Clara, CA (March 1994).

"The Spirituality of Sound and the Myth of John Cage."  Cage in Claremont Symposium, November 1993, and at Long Beach Opera, Long Beach, CA (November 1993).

"A Noisy Century: Revolutionary Creativity and its Feedback Loop."  Unnatural Acts Conference, Riverside, CA (April 1997).

"Feminist Spiritual Philosophy and the Materiality of Music."  American Academy of Religion, Western Region Meeting, Oakland, CA (March 1990).

 

"Composed Speech: Parallels in Musical and Linguistic Expression by Composers."  Society for Ethnomusicology, Northern California Chapter Meeting, Hayward, CA. (February 1990).

 

"Self-Mythologizing by Contemporary Composers."  American Academy of Religion, Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL (November 1988).

 

"Who is the Composer?  Intention and Self-Perception in the Compositional Process."  Society for Ethnomusicology, Northern California Chapter Meeting, Santa Cruz, CA (April 1988).

 

"Sound, Space, Time, Stillness: Musical Experience and Religious Expression."  American Academy of Religion, Western Region Meeting, San José, CA (March 1988).

 

"Devotion and Union: Text/Music Paradigms in South India."  Society for Ethnomusicology, National Meeting, Ann Arbor, MI (November 1987).

 

"Filling the Available Space: Extremes of Dynamics and Meditational Tendencies in Western Contemporary Music." American Academy of Religion, Atlanta GA (November 1986).

​

"Transcendentalism as a Religio-Aesthetic Strategy in Ives' Second String Quartet." Conference on "Music, Politics, and the Transcendental Strain: 1900-1920" Berkeley CA (April 1992).

 

"Musico-Philosophic Parameters of the Tyagaraja Kriti "Mokshamu galada." Society for Ethnomusicology Southern California Chapter, Dominguez Hills, CA (March 1992).

 

"The Religio-Aesthetic-Eclectic Tradition in American Music."  American Academy of Religion, Western Region, Los Angeles, CA (March 1991).

 

"Politics and Spirituality in the Theory and Practice of Ornette Coleman's Improvisation."  Society for Ethnomusicology/American Musicological Society/Society for Music Theory, Combined Annual Meeting, Oakland, CA (November 1990).

​

4. Miscellaneous Topics, including Feminism, Philosophy

“The Percolation of Jonathan Dymond’s Thought among New England Abolitionists, 1829-1836.” American Academy of Religion National Meeting, Online, December 2020.

“Prolegomena to a Philosophia of Insistent Consistent Urgent Biophilia,” Mary Daly panel, Exploratory Session. American Academy of Religion, National Meeting, San Diego, CA (November 2019).

“Keep on Teaching,” Making the Move from a Faculty Position to Administration” panelist, Academic Relations Committee. American Academy of Religion, National Meeting, San Diego, CA (November 2019).

“Let Your Mind be Filled With Love: The Global Significance of Guru Nanak, Founder of Sikhism.” Talk presented at the United Congregational Church, Norwich, CT (February 2017).

“Furies and Nemesis: Righteous Rebellion in Mary Daly’s Philosophia.” Pagan Studies Conference, Claremont, CA (February 2014)

“Richard Jefferies and F.C. Happold: The Presumption of Nature’s Naiveté.” Pagan Studies Conference, Claremont, CA (January 2013)

“Out/rage: The Ethical Dimensions of Biophilia in Mary Daly's Work.” Pagan Studies Conference, Claremont, CA (January 2010); American Academy of Religion, Western Region meeting, Tempe, AZ (March 2010); American Academy of Religion, National meeting, Atlanta, GA (October 2010).

"Serious Immanence: Ludic Philo-sophia (for the Birds)."  American Academy of Religion, National Meeting, Chicago, IL (November 2008).

"Immanence Afield: What the Birds and the Abolitionists Share."  Plenary Presidential Address, American Academy of Religion, Western Region meeting, Berkeley, CA (March 2007).

"From Plotinus to Mary Daly: Monism, Pluralism and Lived Tensions."  Plenary Presentation, 3rd Annual Pagan Studies Conference, Claremont, CA (February 2007).

"Lost and Found: The Ivory-billed Woodpecker, Extinction, and Immanence."  American Academy of Religion, National Meeting, Washington DC (November 2006); revised version at Alternative Expressions of the Numinous conference, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia (August 2007).

"Nascent Feminism in Critiques of Religious Literalism."  Women and War Conference, Syracuse University, Syracuse NY (October 2006).​

“Religion and Authority at Home: White Abolitionist Women and Marriage.”  American Academy of Religion, Western Region Meeting, Tempe, Arizona (March 2005).

"Abolitionists, Spiritualists, and Exodusters: The Mythic Aura of Kansas in the Late Nineteenth-Century."  American Academy of Religion, National Meeting, Atlanta, GA (November 2003); Western Region Meeting, Davis, CA (March 2003).

"Counter-memory and Counter-telos: A Response to Ann Burlein's Lift High the Cross."  panel presentation, American Academy of Religion, Annual Meeting, Toronto, Ontario, Canada (November 2002).

“Impulses, Inclinations, Passions: Historical Considerations Toward a Dialectics of Revolution and Sexuality.” Sexualities and Knowledges Conference, University of California, Riverside (February 2002); revised version given at Pacific School of Religion, Bay Area Religious Dialogues group, Berkeley, CA (April 2008).

"Feathered Immanence: Thoughts on the Work of Lynda Sexson.”  panel presentation, American Academy of Religion, Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (November 2001).

"A Greater Awakening: Women's Intellect in the Transatlantic Abolitionist Movement, 1824-1834.”  Sisterhood and Slavery: Transatlantic Antislavery and Women’s Rights Conference, Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition, Yale University, New Haven CT (October 2001); http://glc.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/conference/rycenga.pdf“Goading Philosophia: Inter-generational Continuity and Nagging Questions in Lesbian-Feminist Thought.”  American Academy of Religion, Annual Meeting, Nashville, TN (November 2000).

Presider and Discussant for screening of Deepa Mehta’s film Fire.  American Academy of Religion, Annual Meeting, Boston, Massachusetts (November 1999).

“Philosophy in Place of Religion: Edith Simcox's Nineteenth Century Proto-Lesbian Critique and Creation of Cosmology in Natural Law.”  Annual 18th- and 19th-Century British Women Writers Conference, Lawrence KS (March 2001); American Academy of Religion, Western Region, San Francisco, CA (March 1999).

“To the Left and Over the Barricades: the Legacy of Queer Leftist Thinkers.”  Midwest Bisexual, Lesbian, Gay, Transgender College Conference, Madison, WI (February 1999).

Panelist and Presider, “Lesbian-Feminist Utopian and Dystopian Visions: Future and Past.”  American Academy of Religion, Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (November 1998).

“Fighting Back: Women's Revolutionary Thought in the Writings of Gage and Simcox.”  Matilda Jocelyn Gage centenary conference, Kalamazoo, MI (October 1998).

“The Fetish Returns: Religious Commodities to the Left and to the Right.” Northern California Women’s Caucus in Religious Studies Symposium, Berkeley, CA (April 1998).

“The Embodied and the Metaphoric,” a response to Joseph Runzo’s “The Symbolism of Sex and the Reality of God.” Presented at the “Gender and Love in the World’s Religions” Conference, Chapman University, Orange, CA (April 1998).

Panelist, “Religion, Idealism, and the Method of Dialectical Materialism in the context of the 150th Anniversary of the Communist Manifesto.”  Symposium on the Relevance Today of the Communist Manifesto, New College, San Francisco, CA (May 1998)

“The Telling of Racism: Online Narratives for Changing and Healing.” co-presented with Cecelia Baldwin.  University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA (June 1997).

"Gender and/at the Crossroads; or, What's Sacred About the Intersection of I-10 and I-15?" American Academy of Religion, Western Region, Berkeley, CA (March 1997).

"In the Interstices between Battles: Antigone Calls to Maria Stewart."  Frontline Feminisms: Women, War and Resistance Conference, Riverside, CA (January 1997); Pomona College, Claremont, CA (March 1997); California State University, Los Angeles (April 1997).

"Queer Notion: The Idea of Freedom and Homosexual Self-Definition in the Nineteenth Century."  University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill NC (March 2001); University of California Los Angeles, LGBT Studies Program (February 2001); Rethinking Marxism Conference, Amherst, MA (December 1996); Pomona College, Claremont (March 1997).

"'Pagan Traditions' as a New Pedagogical Rubric for a Family of Religious Traditions."  American Academy of Religion, Western Regional Meeting, San Diego, CA (March 1996).

"Infinitesimal Infinitudes: Points of Chaos and Insight in Women's Spirituality."  National Women's Studies Association, Norman OK (June 1995).

"You've No Way of Knowing: Philosophic Traditions and Physical Experience in the Poetic Epistemology of Mahadeviakka," Asian Studies Association Conference, Claremont, CA (October 1994), and American Academy of Religion, Western Regional Meeting, Redlands CA (March 1995).

"Raya Dunayevskaya's Reading of Hegel: Creativity, Chaos, and the Dialectics of the Plunge."  Los Angeles, CA (December 1994).

"Multiple Mysticisms/Bunched Epistemologies," Study of Mysticism Conference, Binghamton, NY (October 1994).

"Are the Categories Clear or Queer?: the Lack of Queer Perspectives in the Sociology of Religion," American Sociological Association, National Meeting, Los Angeles, CA (August 1994).

"Bunched Epistemologies: Mysticism and the Ineffability of the (Queer) Body."  Philosophy of Religion and Theology Colloquium, Claremont Graduate School, Claremont, CA (April 1994).

"Philosophy on the Campus and in the Streets." Roundtable discussion with workers and intellectuals.  Conference on "Politics, Theory, and the Place of the Academy," Los Angeles, CA (March 1994).

"Religious Homophobia: Political Action Strategies"  Presider/Moderator, Lesbian Feminist Issues in Religion, American Academy of Religion, National Meeting, Washington DC (November 1993).

"A Mysticism of the Body: Audre Lorde's "Uses of the Erotic." Audre Lorde Symposium, sponsored by Office of Black Student Affairs, Claremont University Center, Claremont, CA (October 1993).

"Beyond Dichotomies in Lesbian Radical Politics."  West Coast Socialist Conference, University of California, Los Angeles, CA (April 1993).

"Out in the Classroom: Lesbian-Feminist Issues in the Religion Classroom," Organizer, Moderator, and Panelist, American Academy of Religion, Western Regional Meeting, Fullerton CA (March 1993).

"Plotinus and the Perennial Philosophy in the Essays of Ananda K. Coomaraswamy." American Academy of Religion, Annual Meeting, Anaheim, CA (November 1985).

"Creativity as Spirituality in Contemporary Lesbian Arts."  About Productions, Lambda Alumnae and the Gay and Lesbian Association of UCLA panel on "Hidden (not Hiding from) History."  UCLA, Los Angeles, California. (April 1991).

 

"Women and the Language of War."  Greens Party Meeting, Claremont, CA (April 1991).

 

"Indian Aesthetics."  University of California, Berkeley.  (March 1986).

 

"The Thought of Plotinus."  San José State University.  (December 1985).

​

​

LECTURES

​

 

​

​

Speaker on American Religion and Gender Issues in Religion, for the Senior Academy at the Villages, San José, CA (February 2014).

 

​

 

Speaker at Art Ark Gallery show on Mythologies. San José, CA (June 2013).

 

Speaker on World’s Religions, for the Senior Academy at the Villages, San José, CA (November 2012 and January 2013).

 

Speaker on “Vanishing Birds” art exhibit by Rita Sklar, at the Jewish Community Center, Palo Alto, CA (October 2012).

 

Panelist, subscriber's preview of Splitting Infinities, San José Repertory Theater, San José, California (September 2008).

 

"God Will Raise Up Your Own Females To Strive: African-American Women and Protestant Christianity in the U.S."  Talk given as part of the Campus Reading Program, San José State University (October 2007).

 

“Guru Nanak and Religious Diversity.”  Talk at Guru Nanak Day, sponsored by the Punjabi Studies Program, San José State University (October 2004).

 

Panelist, post-production discussion on tolerance, The Laramie Project.  San José State University, Theatre Program (October 2004).

 

Moderator and Presenter, "Children of a Greater God: Embracing Different Spiritualities."  Panel on affirming participation of les-bi-gay people in institutional religion.  Southwestern University, Georgetown, TX (February 2003).

 

"Ignite the Fires of Female Furies: Its Time for Feminist-Assisted Deicide!" organizer and panelist, extra session featuring Mary Daly at the American Academy of Religion National Meeting, Toronto, Ontario, Canada (November 2002).

 

“The Future of LGBT/Q Religious Studies.”  Roundtable participant in closing plenary discussion, Queer Visions in the Americas conference, University of California at Santa Barbara (May 2002).

 

“Combating Violence: Frontline Feminisms Presentation.”  Midnight Special Bookstore, Santa Monica CA (February 2001); University of California Riverside (February 2001); Claremont Graduate University Women and Religion program (February 2001).

 

"Teaching 'Religion in America'."  Panelist, Yale Northeast Regional Faculty Conference on Religion and American History, New Haven, CT (December 2000).

 

“Pagan Traditions and Nature-Based Religions.”  Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Los Gatos (October 1999).

 

“Transcending Hate Crimes: Building Coalitions.”  Mosaic Multi-cultural Center, San José State University (October 1999).

 

“Women in Hinduism and Islam.”  First Presbyterian Church, Palo Alto, California (January 1999).

 

Panel Respondent, concerning "Liberalism and Religious Conviction" (paper given by Stanley Fish).  University of California, Riverside. (April, 1995).

 

"Lesbian Ethics."  in "Contemporary Moral Issues" class, Mount St. Mary's College, Chalon Campus, Los Angeles (April 1993); also in "Contemporary Ethics" class, California State University at Northridge (March 1994); also at the Orange County Chapter of Integrity (Episcopalian Gay/Lesbian Organization), Huntington Beach, CA (May 1994); also in "Ethics, Conflict, and Religion" class, San José State University (October 1995).

 

"Dimensions of Native American Religions," presentation at California 3 R's project, Santa Clara County Board of Education, (March 1995).

 

"Transcendentalism as a Religio-Aesthetic Strategy in Ives' Second String Quartet." University of California, Riverside, Music Department Series on Music and Interdisciplinary Explorations (May 1992).

 

"'It Don't Matter'?: A Discussion of Michael Jackson's "Black or White"."  Panelist at this discussion: Pomona College (February 1992), Society for Ethnomusicology Southern California Chapter (March 1992), California State University at Dominguez Hills (April 1992), and at the International Society for the Study of Popular Music, Annual Meeting, Ft. Worth, TX (October 1992).

​