Talks & Events

Image from the Annual Conference of The International Society for the Study of Information (IS4SI), University of California, Berkeley, June 2019

“Consciousness, the Brain, and Our Chimeric Selves.” Annual Conference of the American Philosophical Association, Pacific Division. Virtual Conference. 8 April 2026. Forthcoming.

“Matricentric Art: A Philosophy of Maternal Work Through the Act of Creativity.” Matricentric Feminism with an embedded conference on Mothers, Mothering, and the Black Lives Matter Movement. Virtual Conference through Demeter Press. 19-21 March 2026. Forthcoming.

“AI Technology and Visualizing the Womb in Birth as a Contemporary Rite of Passage.” American Academy of Religion, Western Region. University of Nevada, Las Vegas. 13-15 March 2026. Forthcoming.

“The Re-Conception Pod Rebirth Experience” Funded by the Luce-AAR Advancing Public Scholarship Grant. The Radical Reading Room. San Francisco, California. 21 December 2025.

“Rebirth Tunnel Immersive Art Installation” Funded by Luce-AAR Advancing Public Scholarship Grant. Harvey Milk Center for the Arts. San Francisco, California. 12 December 2025.

“The Re-Conception Pod Rebirth Experience” Funded by the Luce-AAR Advancing Public Scholarship Grant. The Radical Reading Room. San Francisco, California. 28 November 2025.

“Peace Pods for Palestine.” Immersive Art Experience. Lower Haight Art Walk. San Francisco, California. 2 August 2025.

“Pregnant Robots, Birth Simulators, Artificial Wombs, and Soul Machines: AI and the Emerging Social Ontologies and Technologies in the Delivery Room.” 2025 Summit of the International Society for the Study of Information (IS4SI). Varna, Bulgaria (in-person and online). 23-30 June 2025.

“The Rebirth Tunnel Immersive Art Installation: Art & Rites of Passage.” Spirituality and the Arts Conference. Harvard Divinity School (in-person and online). 23-26 April 2025.

“Natality as a Philosophy of Rebirth.” Annual Symposium of the Society for the Study of Pregnancy and Birth (SSPRB). Virtual event. 3-4 April 2025.

“Traces of People: Art and Genocide in Colombia, Palestine, and Spain.” American Academy of Religion, Western Region. University of Nevada, Las Vegas. 14-16 March 2025.

“The Potrero Hill Rebirth Tunnel.” Art Immersive Installation. Potrero Hill Neighborhood House. San Francisco, California. 11 January 2025.

“Matricentric Art: Maternal Agency and the Sacred Through the Act of Creativity.” Annual Conference of the American Academy of Religion. San Diego Convention Center, San Diego, California, 23-26 November 2024.

“The Rebirth Tunnel Immersive Art Installation: An Event of the American Academy of Religion, Western Region’s 2024 Annual Conference at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.” Annual Conference of the American Academy of Religion. San Diego Convention Center, San Diego, California, 23-26 November 2024.

“Matricentric Art: A Philosophy of Maternal Work Through the Act of Creativity.” International Association of Maternal Action and Scholarship (IAMAS). Boston University. 21-24 June 2024.

“Rebirth and an Eternal Return to Cultural Identity in Modern and Contemporary Catalan Art.” Guest Speaker, Stanford University (Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages). 23 April 2024.

“Immersive Rebirth Experiences: When Art and Ritual Merge to Transform Individuals and Communities.” American Academy of Religion, Western Region. University of Nevada, Las Vegas. 15-17 March 2024.

“Rebirth Tunnel Immersive Art Installation and Peace in the Middle East.” Installation. Annual Conference of the American Academy of Religion, Western Region. University of Nevada, Las Vegas. 15-17 March 2024.

“Memory, Time and Resistance in the Catalan Art of Eugènia Balcells and Mari Chordà.” American Academy of Religion, Western Region. University of California, Davis. 24-26 March 2023.

“Mountains as Humans and Humans as Mountains: Song Landscape Paintings & Daoist Alechemical Body Charts” (Video) Created as part of conference presentation for the Daoist Studies Unit, American Academy of Religion Annual Conference. Denver, Colorado, November 19, 2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmT_a3hkdRI

“Religion, Nonreligion and Social Ontology in the Contemporary Rituals of Birth.” The Institute for a Global Sustainable Information Society. Virtual Conference. August 26, 2022.

“The Merging of Body and Landscape in the Material Culture of Song China’s Religion and Ideology.” Chinese Indigenous Social Science Association (CISSA). Changhua, Taiwan, In-Person and Virtual Conference. October 1, 2022.

“Cyclical Time, Rebirth and Catalan Identity in the Art of Eugènia Balcells.” American Academy of Religion, Western Region. University of Nevada, Las Vegas. 18-20 March 2022.

“Collective Intentionality and the Transformation of Meaning During the Contemporary Rituals of Birth.” The World Summit of the International Society for the Study of Information (IS4SI), Virtual Conference, 12-19 September 2021.

“La maternitat, trauma i naixement en l’art català.” Àrea de Feminisme: Maternitats, cures i concilació. Universitat Catalana d’Estiu, Prades, France. Presentation via zoom. 16-17 August 2021.

“Birth, Art, Trauma and Catalonia: The Eternal Return as Cultural Identity.” Presidential Address, Annual Conference of the American Academy of Religion, Western Region. Virtual Conference, 19-21 March 2021.

“Sacred Art and the Birthing Justice Movement.” Arts and Religion unit. Annual Conference of the American Academy of Religion, Western Region. Virtual Conference, 19-21 March 2021.

“Religion and Art in Imagery, Ritual, and Birth: Ontology Between the Sacred and the Secular.” Social Sciences and Religion unit. Annual Conference of the American Academy of Religion, Western Region. Virtual Conference, 13-15 March 2020.

“The Intersection of Motherhood and Religion in Imagery, Ritual, and Birth.” Annual Conference of the American Academy of Religion. San Diego Convention Center, San Diego, California, 23-26 November 2019.

“Social Ontology and the Rituals of Birth.” The International Society for the Study of Information (IS4SI), UC Berkeley, 2-6 June 2019.

“Imagery, Ritual, and Birth: Ontology Between the Sacred and the Secular.” Berkeley Social Ontology Group (BSOG). University of California, Berkeley, 5 March 2019.

“Alchemical Representation and the Externalization of Internal Alchemy in Song Daoism.” Annual Conference of the American Academy of Religion. Colorado Convention Center, Denver, Colorado, 17-20 November 2018.

“Social Ontology and Childbirth in a Philosophy of Religion.” American Academy of Religion, Western Region. Institute of Buddhist Studies, Berkeley, 23-25 March 2018.

“Technology, Birth, and the Transformation of Social Ontology.” Berkeley Social Ontology Group (BSOG). Church School of the Pacific, Berkeley, 14 March 2018.

“Mental Visualization, the Phenomenology of Birth, and a Philosophy of Mind.” Society for the Phenomenology of Religious Experience. Jesuit School of Theology, Berkeley, 26-26 January 2018.

“Social Ontology and the Transformation of Religious Objects during Birth as a Rite of Passage.” Berkeley Social Ontology Group (BSOG). University of California, Berkeley, 8 March 2017.

“Visualization and Representation of Body and Landscape in the Religious Experience of Medieval China.” American Academy of Religion Western Region Annual Conference. Arizona State University, Tucson, 1-3 April 2016.

“Neiguan and the Ontology of Visualized Mental Imagery.” Pacific Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association. The Westin St. Francis Hotel. San Francisco, CA, 30 March – 3 April 2016.

“Uncovering the Topic of Childbirth in Art, Religion, and Philosophy.”
XXI World Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions (IAHR), Erfurt, Germany, 23-29 August 2015.

“A Synthesis of Body and Nature in Contemporary Chinese Art: Images of Pregnancyand birth.” American Academy of Religion Western Region Annual Conference. Santa Clara University, 20-22 March 2015.

“Chinese Alchemical Representations of the Body: Material Manifestations of Religious Experience and Ideology.” Perceiving the Body: Dialectics of Surface and Interior. IEAS Multi-Disciplinary Conference, Between the Visible and the Invisible: Cosmology, Ritual and Hermeneutics in Historical and Contemporary Chinese Worlds. University of California Berkeley Institute of East Asian Studies. Berkeley, California, 14-15 November 2014.

“Alchemical Representation and the Externalization of Internal Alchemy in Song Daoism.” American Academy of Religion Western Region Annual Conference. Loyola University Marymount, March 7-9, 2014.

“Birth Art and the Transformation of Religious Imagery: Representations of Birth and Motherhood as Contemporary Forms of The Sacred.” The Maternal Body Exposed. College Art Association (CAA) Annual Conference. Chicago, Illinois, February 12-15, 2014.

“Birth Art and the Transformation of Religious Imagery: Representations of Birth and Motherhood as Contemporary Forms of The Sacred.” ‘Reimagining Birth’: An International Research Symposium on the Visual Culture/Art/History/Design of Childbirth in the 21st Century. University College Dublin, July 2-3, 2013.

“Empowerment through the Object-Idea Dialectic: Using Images of Birth and Motherhood in Academic Teaching and Education.” The Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement (MIRCI) Conference, Toronto, Canada, 24-27 June 2013.

“Secularizing Goddess Imagery and Birth as a Nonreligious Rite of Passage.” American Academy of Religion Western Region Annual Conference. Arizona State University, March 9-11, 2013.

“The Lights Going On and Off.” (Re)Discovering Aesthetics Conference. University College Cork. Ireland, 9-11 July 2004.

“Yongwu and Momei in the life of Wu Zhen.” Second Annual Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities. Honolulu, Hawaii, 8-11 January 2004.