Case Sheppard (she/her) is a senior undergraduate student at Naropa University, a nontraditional Buddhist-inspired contemplative liberal arts institution that integrates rigorous academic study with contemplative and wisdom traditions. Sheppard maintains a 4.0 GPA while pursuing a major in Religious Studies and double minors in Environmental Studies and Performance.
Her academic work investigates the historical and contemporary forces that shape political, environmental, cultural, economic, gender, and racial inequalities, with particular attention to the role of religions, ritual practices, and wisdom traditions in constructing social realities. Her research interests center on ritual studies, feminist religious studies, embodiment, gender, menstruation, and the cultural, historical, religious, ancestral and political meanings of blood. She is particularly interested in how menstrual blood has been interpreted across religious traditions, how menstrual rituals have shaped lives throughout history, and how contemporary feminist scholarship and performance practices can challenge stigma, reclaim embodied knowledge, and generate new understandings of self, the collective, ritual, power, and sacredness.
Combining her passion for the outdoors—whether on a mountain bike, paddleboard, or hiking trail—with a deep commitment to artistic expression, Sheppard creates performance art that investigates the complexities of contemporary life through embodied practice. Her work draws from personal experience, academic research, interspiritual traditions, intuition, martial arts, current events, social justice movements, intersectional feminism, popular culture, and religious studies.
Through performance, Sheppard explores themes of ritual, transformation, ecological relationships, fem embodied experiences, and the intersections of spirituality, gender, and social change. Her artistic practice serves as a form of research and a method of inquiry, as well as expression. By engaging curiosities surrounding menstrual rituals, blood symbolism, feminist theory, and religious practice, she seeks to create work that invites reflection on the ways societies construct ideas of purity, pollution, sacredness, and belonging. Through this interdisciplinary approach, Sheppard aims to contribute to ongoing explorations within religious studies, performance studies, feminist scholarship, and ritual theory.
