Rev. Dr. Michelle Mueller is a teaching scholar and minister in Philadelphia.
Rev. Dr. Mueller works at the intersection of religion/spirituality, gender, sexuality, and media. Her first book, New Religions and the Mediation of Non-Monogamy, examines the relationship between alternative American religions and the media representation of non-monogamies on reality-TV shows.
The book tracks community members’ responses to the new media about them, their engagement with television and other media, and the likeness of representations to actual populations through fieldwork and interviews. The book highlights differences in socioeconomic privileges that shape Mormon polygamists’ lives and LGBTQ polyamorists’ lives, respectively. Her research is interdisciplinary, drawing on the fields of religious studies, anthropology, sociology, and media studies.
She has taught for Santa Clara University, Las Positas College, Berkeley City College, Cherry Hill Seminary, Starr King for the Ministry, and Pacific School of Religion. She has been the Director of Religious Education for three Unitarian Universalist congregations. She is an Elder in Gardnerian Wicca.
Her passions include administration, research, and collaboration. She is conducting new research on race in rhetoric and boundaries of contemporary Pagan studies and on Eleusinian mysteries (rites of Demeter) across contemporary Pagan sects.
"I feel like I grew immensely throughout the ethnographic research process, and I am looking forward to continuing to study and practice yoga."
--SCU student Fernanda Gaete
"Gender inequality in religion is more than just in leadership positions; it is perpetuated in every aspect of society. I was unaware that even women's theological work could be discredited or ignored. I appreciate nonprofit organizations and their hard work."
"Michelle Mueller’s “Constructing Wicca as ‘Women’s Religion’: A By-Product of Feminist Religious Scholarship” shows how academics can sway popular imagination."
--Amy-Jill Levine
"Michelle Mueller's article on transgender rights in North American Wicca...brings modern Paganism into the twenty-first century."