Institute for Thealogy & Deasophy

Melinda Grube
PhD

Melinda Grube graduated from Wells College, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, with a degree in history. She completed an interdisciplinary, independently designed M.A. in Women's Spirituality at the McGregor School of Antioch University and an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Women's Studies in Religion at the Union Institute and University. Melinda's research focuses on the historical intersections of radical human rights activism and heterodox, gynocentric spirituality. Her dissertation explored the developing thealogical consciousness of nineteenth-century suffragist and feminist theorist, Matilda Joslyn Gage.

Melinda is an adjunct professor of history at Cayuga Community College and a home schooling mother of three children. As a descendant of suffragists and abolitionists from the birthplace of women's rights in Seneca Falls, NY, she feels a deep spiritual connection to the land of her ancestors. She shares her love of the Finger Lakes region and its history through public presentations on women's rights and religious history which she gives in historical costume. Most recently her research has focused on the influence of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) on the development of progressive religious traditions in the United States. She attends a Quaker meeting and is the author of the Quaker Pagan blog, "Plainly Pagan." She has also written for Free Inquiry and for the Encyclopedia of Unbelief. Finally, she cheerfully embraces herself as a nerd who once used a Star Trek book to mark her place in a Harry Potter book.