The Annual Pat Reif Memorial Lectureship was created in 2002 in honor of Patricia A. Reif, IHM, PhD. A scholar, educator, and activist, Reif taught philosophy and chaired the graduate department in religious studies at Immaculate Heart College. In 1984, she founded the MA program in feminist spirituality at Immaculate Heart College Center. Active in many social justice issues, including domestic abuse, poverty, immigration, welfare rights, and the anti-nuclear movement, Reif co-founded the Interfaith Hunger Coalition and the Southern California Interfaith Task Force on Central America (SCITCA).
The funding of the Patricia A. Reif Memorial Lecture Fund is a joint effort of CGU, the Immaculate Heart Community, the Immaculate Heart College Alumnae Board, the Immaculate Heart College Center, the MSMC Religious Studies Department, and the MSMC Office of the Graduate Dean. The lecture fund is dedicated to advancing the ideals she represented.
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23nd Annual Pat Reif Memorial Lecture
RESTORING WOMEN TO CULTURAL MEMORY
MAX DASHU
Women’s history is necessarily interdisciplinary, because this knowledge is hidden, marginalized, and then rediscovered where different fields of study intersect. The whole cannot be grasped from a single angle of approach. There are thousands of ways to come at the impossibly rich, layered and complex history of womanity: rock art, sculpture, ceramic paintings, murals; sometimes in inscriptions, though less often, and in the written record (monopolized by men and colonialist. https://oldwitch.substack.com/p/revival-and-survival-of-womens-history
Please join us for the 23nd Annual Pat Reif, IHM, Memorial Lecture on Monday, Oct. 27, 2025
Max Dashu founded the Suppressed Histories Archives in 1970 to research and document women’s history and heritages internationally. She has built a collection of over 50,000 digital images, and created scores of videos on female cultural heritages across history. Her work bridges the gap between academia and grassroots education. It foregrounds indigenous women passed over by standard histories and highlights female spheres of power retained even in some patriarchal societies. www.suppressedhistories.net Dashu is internationally known for her expertise on ancient female iconography in world archaeology; female spheres of power and matricultures; patriarchies and allied systems of domination; medicine women, female shamans, witches, and witch hunts. For more than 50 years, she has presented hundreds of slide talks at bookstores, schools, universities, community centers, libraries, prisons, galleries, festivals, and conferences.
Dashu is the author of Witches and Pagans: Women in European Folk Culture, 700-1100 (2016) and Pythias, Melissae and Pharmakides: Women in Hellenic Culture (2019), both from Veleda Press, www.veleda.net. Dashu has also produced two videos: “Woman Shaman: The Ancients” (2013) and “Women’s Power in Global Perspective” (2008).
Monday, Oct. 27, 2025 | 7:00 PM—9:30 PM PDT
Location: Burkle Family Building (Drucker, Room 16), 1021 North Dartmouth Avenue Claremont, CA 91711
The event is free and open to the public. Please register to RSVP here.
Contact: Jessi Knippel, Pat Reif Memorial Lecture Coordinator, at jessi.knippel@cgu.edu for more information.
Past Speakers
- (2024) Bishop Jane Via, Mary Magdalene Apostle Catholic Community, Moving a Mountain: One Woman’s Quest to Restore Women’s Ordination in the Roman Catholic Church
- (2023) Rabbi Mira Rivera, BCC, Kehillat Romemu in New York City, Are my Ancestors your Ancestors?
- (2022) Shannen Dee Williams, University of Dayton, America’s Real Sister Act: The Hidden History of Black Catholic Nuns in the United States
- (2021) Valarie Kaur, Revolutionary Love: Seeing No Stranger
- (2020) Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, Chicago Theological Seminary, The Information Apocalypse is Here: Our current technology rewards information that is false or misleading, corrupting thought and debasing society. How can we fight back?
- (2019) Kim R. Harris, Loyola Marymount University, Welcome Table: Liturgical Justice Through Sacred Song
- (2018) Kwok Pui Lan, Emory University, Metaphor, Moral Reasoning, and Women’s Protest Movements
- (2017) María Pilar Aquino, University of San Diego, Feminist Theology: Overcoming Violence, Embodying Liberation
- (2016) Ivy Nallammah Josiah, You Can’t Beat a Woman: Violence at Home and Violence by the State
- (2015) Margaret Farley, Yale University Divinity School, Gender, Sexuality, and Ethics: New Perspectives
- (2014) Lisa Isherwood, University of Wales
- (2013) Amy-Jill Levine, Hartford International University for Religion & Peace
- (2012) Rev. Rita Nakashima Brock, Saving Paradise: Moral Conscience, Beauty, and the Glory of Humanity
- (2011) Mercy Amba Oduyoye, Trinity Theological Seminary, Ghana
- (2010) Riffat Hassan, University of Louisville & Kebokile Dengu-Zvobgo, Pitzer College, A Praxis of Social Transformation: The Feminist Scholar as Activist
- (2009) Ivone Gebara, the Brazilian Sister of Notre Dame, Happiness and the Construction of Right Relationship – A Feminist Perspective Feminism & Religious Identities
- (2008) Venerable Dhammananda (Ven. Dr. Chatsumarn Kabilsingh), Path to Ordination of Women in Buddhism: Challenges and Opportunities
- (2007) Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, Harvard Divinity School, Scripture and Power: A Feminist Exploration
- (2005) Musa Dube, University of Botswana, HIV + Feminism in the Global Aids Epidemic
- (2004) Beverly Jean Wildung Harrison, Union Theological Seminary, New York
- (2003) Chun Hyun Kyung, Union Theological Seminary, New York
- (2002) Mary E. Hunt, WATER (Women’s Alliance for Theology and Ritual)
For more information contact Jessi Knippel, Pat Reif Memorial Lecture Coordinator, at jessi.knippel@cgu.edu.