This is a collection of works by internationally recognized women leading the field of dance research and spirituality across the globe. Building on current soulful research scholarship in the discipline, these authors offer extensive and detailed research into spirituality, dance, gender, religion, and somatics. Written by women dance scholars in higher education, this evocative and illuminating work highlights a growing discourse on gendered leadership in dance research. Spiritual Herstories provides new pathways and innovative research methods that respond to the educational needs of women emerging in male-centric socio-historic research traditions.


Amanda Williamson is visiting honorary professor of somatic movement dance education at Coventry University in the UK. She is founding editor of The Journal of Dance, Movement & Spiritualities, a peer-reviewed journal, coeditor of Dance, Somatics and Spiritualities: Contemporary Sacred Narratives, both also published by Intellect. Barbara Sellers-Young is a senior scholar and professor emerita at York University in Toronto, where she was dean of the School of Arts, Media, Performance and Design. She is the author of many books, including The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Ethnicity and Belly Dance, Pilgrimage and Identity. She is currently editor-in-residence at Dance Chronicle.