Reading Between Worlds: Three Approaches to the Study of Myth
Join us for a special admissions webinar for the M.A./Ph.D. in Mythology and Religious Studies online-only program
What can a fourteenth-century Tibetan hermit, a Greek tragic chorus, the Arthurian grail legends, and a Buddhist goddess tell us about the crisis of meaning in our own time? In this ninety-minute live event, the core faculty of Pacifica Graduate Institute’s newly launched online M.A./Ph.D. in Mythology and Religious Studies invite you into the heart of what this program does: reading the world’s most powerful stories through multiple lenses and discovering that each lens reveals something the others cannot see.
Dr. Evans Lansing Smith — author of thirteen books on comparative mythology who traveled with Joseph Campbell on study tours of France, Egypt, and Kenya — will demonstrate how depth psychological and Campbellian approaches illuminate the descent to the underworld as a universal structure of transformation.
Dr. Emily Lord-Kambitsch — a classicist trained at Oxford and University College London whose research traces the relationship between memory, longing, and selfhood in the voices of women from Greek tragedy — will show how close reading of ancient texts opens onto questions about grief, gender, and embodied experience that are as urgent now as they were in fifth-century Athens.
Dr. Kali Cape — a scholar of Tibetan Buddhism and religious studies whose work focuses on the esoteric Buddhist traditions, women’s religious authority, and contemplative epistemology — will introduce how the mythic narratives of tantric Buddhism challenge Western assumptions about what counts as knowledge, who holds spiritual power, and what stories are for.
Dr. Allie Davis — a clinician, researcher, and author whose work in maternal ecopsychology explores how mothers experience and metabolize ecological crisis will show how myth and depth psychology open new frameworks for understanding the relationship between the human body, the maternal, and the living earth.
Dr. John Bucher Executive Director of the Joseph Campbell Foundation, story consultant for HBO, DC Comics, and A24 Films, and author of six books on storytelling including the bestselling Storytelling for Virtual Reality , will demonstrate how a Pacifica Ph.D. in mythology translates directly into creative industry leadership and a career bringing the power of mythic narrative to global audiences.
Together, they will show you what it looks like when myth, religion, and depth psychology converge in a single program — and why that convergence matters now more than ever.
Following the faculty presentations, you will hear a brief overview of the program’s curriculum, online format, dissertation options, and career pathways, and have the chance to ask questions directly of the faculty and admissions staff. Whether you are considering applying for the Fall 2026 cohort or simply want to understand what the study of mythology and religion looks like at the doctoral level, this event will give you a vivid sense of what it means to do this work — and why Pacifica is the only place in the country where you can do it. Applications are currently being accepted, and scholarships — including the Joseph Campbell Scholarship — are available for incoming students.
Dates
July 8, 2026, 6:30pm PT, online on Zoom
Admissions Webinar with Dr. Evans Lansing Smith, Dr. Kali Cape, Dr. Emily Lord-Kambitsch, Dr. John Bucher, and Dr. Allie Davis
