Joanna Gardner, PhD

Profile

Join date: Dec 21, 2023

About

Joanna Gardner, PhD, is a writer, mythologist, and magical realist who serves as the managing director of the Joseph Campbell Foundation. She is the author of The Practice of Enchantment: MythBlast Essays, 2020-2024 and the lead author of Goddesses: A Skeleton Key Study Guide. Joanna co-founded and co-led the Fates and Graces, hosting webinars and workshops for mythic readers and writers, and she teaches in Pacifica Graduate Institute’s Mythological Studies program. For Joanna's updates and additional publications, you are most cordially invited to visit her website at joannagardner.com.

Posts (20)

May 10, 2026 ∙ 5 min

“Pink Pony Club” Goes Zero-G

“Pink Pony Club” tells the story of a heroic journey strikingly similar to that of the Artemis II astronauts. In both cases, protagonists hear a call to venture far from home, be it Earth or Tennessee. “Pink Pony Club” defies the gravitational pull of societal norms and family, while Artemis II defied historical norms as well as literal gravity to take flight and then enter a space of levity, their bodies and spirits floating within the spacecraft.

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Feb 9, 2026 ∙ 5 min

Listening for Aphrodite

Like the ancient Greeks and Romans, we still sing to the goddess of love. The hit song “Venus” (1969) by Shocking Blue—delightfully covered by Bananarama in 1986—opens with: “Goddess on the mountain top / burning like a silver flame / the summit of beauty and love / and Venus was her name.” Natalie Merchant’s “Come On, Aphrodite” (2023) echoes this call: “Come on, Aphrodite, you goddess of love / Come on, Aphrodite from that mountain above, / Come on, Aphrodite, I’m begging you, begging you,

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Jul 20, 2025 ∙ 5 min

The Inner Sovereign, Lost and Found

The film The Lost King (2022) tells the fictionalized story of a real woman who, inspired by Shakespeare’s fictionalized play Richard III, successfully led the discovery of the real remains of King Richard III of England. Although the movie includes no literal, living kings or queens, it revolves around the archetype of the Sovereign in the form of the historical Richard (Harry Lloyd) and an utterly charming, modern-day apparition of him visible only to the protagonist, Philippa (Sally Hawkins).

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