Saturday, February 4th
Time: 2pm EST
Admission: FREE (Must RSVP)

A Special 20% Discount Code will be offered to participants who wish to purchase the book.

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Please join us for a free, online event to celebrate the publication of A New Gnosis: Comic Books, Comparative Mythology, and Depth Psychology, a new book edited by David M. Odorisio, PhD, Co-Chair of the Mythological Studies program at Pacifica Graduate Institute.

This newly published collection of essays examines the Superhero phenomena as it exploded into 20th- and 21st-century popular culture by way of the visual medium of comic books. In an increasingly secular (yet spiritual) culture that has largely renounced “the gods” (and even religion), what does the return of the superhero through our own pop cultural mythologies say to us―or even about us? In A New Gnosis, the interpretive tools of comparative mythology and depth psychology are placed alongside the comic book phenomenon to reveal a super-powered palette that unveils the hidden potential of modern readers’ own heightened imaginations. The essays in this anthology examine select comic book and superhero characters from the “Silver Age” 1960s through contemporary 21st-century adaptations and innovations, as readers are invited to discover and uncover what the (re)emergence of these perennial gods and goddesses have to say about our own secret super selves today.

The event will be moderated by essay contributor, Amy Slonaker PhDc, and the volume's editor Dr. David Odorisio. The event will feature a conversation with two of the book’s contributors: Dr. Jeffrey J. Kripal, PhD, Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University; and Dr. Yvonne Chireau, PhD, Peggy Chan Professor of Black Studies at Swarthmore College. The event will also provide a platform for all other contributors to A New Gnosis to join in conversation about the themes explored in the volume and to celebrate the collective achievement of its publication. 

SPEAKER BIOS

Jeffrey J. Kripal, PhD, is the Associate Dean of the Faculty and Graduate Programs in the School of the Humanities and the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University. He also helps direct the Center for Theory and Research at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, and sits on advisory boards in the U.S. and Europe involving the nature of consciousness and the sciences. Jeff is the author of numerous books, including, most recently, The Superhumanities: Historical Precedents, Moral Objections, New Realities (Chicago, 2022), where he intuits an emerging new order of knowledge that can engage in robust moral criticism but also affirm the superhuman or nonhuman dimensions of our histories, cultures, and futures. He is presently working on a three-volume study of paranormal currents in the sciences, modern esoteric literature, and the hidden history of science fiction for the University of Chicago Press collectively entitled The Super Story: Science (Fiction) and Some Emergent Mythologies. His full body of work can be seen at http://jeffreyjkripal.com. He thinks he may be Spider-Man.  

Yvonne Chireau, PhD, is the Peggy Chan Professor of Black Studies at Swarthmore College, where she teaches courses on Africana religions and American religious history.  She is the author of Black Magic: Religion and the African American Conjuring Tradition (2003) and the co-editor of Black Zion: African American Religions and Judaism (1999). Her writings on the historical intersections of magic, religion, and cultural discourses on Voodoo can be found online at the research blog The Academic Hoodoo: academichoodoo.com. 

David M. Odorisio, PhD, is Associate Core Faculty and Co-Chair of the Mythological Studies program at Pacifica Graduate Institute, Santa Barbara, CA. David received his PhD in East-West Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies and teaches in the areas of theory and method in the study of religion, psychology and religion, and Christian mysticism.  He is editor of Merton and Hinduism: The Yoga of the Heart (Fons Vitae, 2021), and co-editor of Depth Psychology and Mysticism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), and has published in numerous journals in the fields of Jungian and transpersonal psychology.

Amy Slonaker, JD, PhDc, is a doctoral candidate in the Mythological Studies program at Pacifica Graduate Institute. After receiving her undergraduate degree in Religious Studies from UC Santa Barbara, she attended Seattle University School of Law and subsequently practiced as an attorney for over 20 years in the areas of criminal defense and securities litigation. Since 2012, she has worked with the Morbid Anatomy Library of Brooklyn, New York, by contributing programming and serving on its board. 

IMAGES

1. Rick Griffin, Man From Utopia (1972)

2. Book Cover

3. St. Francis Brother of the Universe, Marvel Comics (1980)

4. St. Francis Brother of the Universe, Marvel Comics (1980)