Monica Mody, PhD, MFA

Monica Mody, PhD, MFA, is a transdisciplinary educator, poet, writer, and theorist at the intersections of earth-based wisdom, whole person philosophy, and embodied regenerative consciousness. She comes to her teaching and writing as a border-crossing and cross-genre practitioner interested in the resilient knowing of the body as a site for connection with vaster, more fluid energies.

Dr. Mody’s doctoral dissertation investigated decolonial feminist consciousness in South Asian borderlands, and was selected for the Kore Award for Best Dissertation in Women and Mythology 2020 by the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology. She received her Ph.D. in East-West Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Notre Dame, and a Bachelor of Arts and Laws (Hons.) from the National Law School of India University. Among the other honors she has received are the Cultural Integration Fellowship Integral Scholarship from CIIS in 2016, the Sparks Prize Fellowship from the University of Notre Dame in 2010, the Zora Neale Hurston Award from Naropa in 2007, and the Toto Award for Creative Writing in 2007.

Dr. Mody also serves as an Adjunct Faculty member at CIIS. She has presented widely, including at the Parliament of World Religions, Symposia of the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology, American Academy of Religion Western Region, and Association of Writers & Writing Programs Conference, and the Oakland Summer School.

She is the author of the cross-genre book Kala Pani (1913 Press), the forthcoming full-length poetry collection Bright Parallel (Copper Coin), and three chapbooks including Ordinary Annals (above/ground). Her academic writing can be found in The Land Remembers Us: Women, Myth, and Nature, and Integral Review: A Transdisciplinary and Transcultural Journal For New Thought, Research, and Praxis. Her poems appear in numerous literary journals, magazines, and anthologies.

Dr. Mody was born in Ranchi, India, and lives in San Francisco, ancestral homeland of the Ramaytush Ohlone peoples. She has studied and circled with elders, wisdom-keepers, and medicine holders from many earth-based and indigenous traditions, developing an interconnected worldview rooted in ancestral healing practices. She has also facilitated and been a part of community and women’s healing, divinatory, and grief work sessions, spaces, and circles.

www.drmonicamody.com