Monica Emerich, Ph.D.
Monica Emerich, Ph.D., is the post-doctoral Fellow with the Center for Media, Religion and Culture at the University of Colorado's Center for Media, Religion and Culture. She holds an MSc. in Technical Communication from Colorado State University and the Ph.D. from the University of Colorado in Media Studies. Her dissertation - The Spirituality of Sustainability: Healing the Self to Heal the World - focuses on the concept of sustainability in the Healthy Living media in the U.S. as a therapeutic discourse that attempts to link the self-actualization of the Mind Cure and New Age movements with global civic engagement and social change. Prior to receiving the Ph.D., Emerich was a communications strategist and consultant for the natural and organic products industry, focusing on public relations, marketing communications, and freelance journalism. As a journalist with a 25-year career in magazines and newspapers, her work has focused on the Healthy Living marketplace including natural and organic products, alternative medicine, ecotourism, and Mind/Body/Spirit goods and services. Emerich served as research director for Natural Business Communications, the publisher of the LOHAS Journal, and progenitor of the term that has captured interest worldwide in "Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability" (LOHAS).
She is a member of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, The American Academy of Religion, and the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture. In 2003 and 2004, Emerich organized the first Celtic Representations conference with co-organizer Sharon Curtis. This interdisciplinary conference has continued in the UK, most recently at the Institute of Cornish Studies, Truro, Cornwall, under the direction of Dr. Garry Tregidga. For more information on the Celtic conferences, click here.