Author: WomenandMyth

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Dr Elinor Gadon Receives Demeter Award in 2016

E Gadon Photo 2

At our 2016 Conference, the ASWM Board of Directorspresented Dr. Elinor Gadon with the Demeter Award for Leadership in Women’s Spirituality.* The award recognizes Dr. Gadon’s lifetime contribution to understanding the cultural and visual history of religion and myth.

With this Award, we honor and cherish her long career of feminist scholarship, education, and inspiration for generations of women artists. As an art historian specializing in Indian art and beyond. Dr. Gadon has analyzed myth and visual imagery in their cultural context and has provided an informed transmission of images related to the sacred feminine and women’s experience.

Her 1989 book, The Once and Future Goddess: A Symbol for Our Time, is a visual chronicle of the history of the sacred female and her re-emergence in the cultural mythology of our time. This work introduced scholars, feminists, artists and interested women to the astounding array of images of the female divine, culled through rigorous research from cultures across history, up to and including the work of contemporary women artists. This ground-breaking beginning was followed by numerous articles and lectures across the globe about art, gender, and the goddess, especially in India.

The award honors her widespread teaching and lectures at universities and conferences across the globe. Through scholarly publications, lectures, and curation, Dr. Gadon has contributed her expertise on religion and gender to wider international audiences. Her leadership also includes training the next generation; she founded the first graduate program on Women’s Spirituality.

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*In a break with tradition, this year’s award was also awarded to Dr.Gadon’s good friend Dr. Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum..

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Dr. Lucia Birnbaum Receives 2016 Demeter Award

Dr. Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum
Dr. Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum

Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple, says of Dr. Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum “You are one of the most forward thinking, history conscious, and integrative thinkers… You are doing the work that truly turns the tide.”

In a break with tradition, the ASWM Board of Directors awarded both Dr. Birnbaum and Dr. Elinor Gadon the 2016 Demeter Award for Leadership in Women’s Spirituality. Dr. Birnbaum was honored in recognition of decades of visionary scholarship as a Founding Mother of Feminist Spirituality, Cultural History and Political Awareness. Her continuing intellectual leadership ,as a cultural historian, educator and mentor, focuses on questions about the origins of submerged cultures.

Beginning over thirty years ago with the English and Italian publications of Liberazione della donna: Feminism in Italy (1986, l988), and Black Madonnas: Feminism, religion, and politics in Italy (1993), Dr. Birnbaum’s work has enlightened and continues to inspire readers with knowledge concerning the hidden herstory of our quintessential African cultural heritage and foremothers.   Incorporating knowledge from history, anthropology, and genetics, she examines the transformative power of the image of the primordial Dark Mother and female divinity that was carried out of Africa on waves of human migration.

Continue reading “Dr. Lucia Birnbaum Receives 2016 Demeter Award”

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“Growing the Groundswell”

Registration is now closed for our 2017 Symposium in Philadelphia,  “Mythology, Women and Society:  Growing the Groundswell.”

We will meet at Pendle Hill Retreat Center for a program of scholarship and arts, and a community conversation about women, society and justice:

Our schedule includes such topics as The Mothers of #Black Lives Matter, Biblical heroines and queer theory, Algerian mythology, Eco-Justice, Hildegard von Bingen and Anatolian Great Mothers.

Come early on Friday for interest groups discussions about film and intuitive knowledge, and other topics of interest.  Those who register may apply for our Marketplace.

Update: Interest Groups will meet at 7:30 Friday evening, in the Brinton House

  1.  Film and Filmmakers will meet Friday evening.  They will offer a special screening of “As She Is,” a new film by Megan McFeely, who will participate in the group’s conversation about the feminine principle and individual power for change.  This is an authentic and beautiful documentary about a woman’s real quest into the unconscious to claim what was missing..to integrate the masculine with the feminine and give birth to herself. 
  2. Nondominant Ways of Knowing:  Intuition and Divination.  This group will consider the relationship between our women’s wisdom, intuition, and methods to divine insight.  Nancy Vedder-Shults will be on hand to discuss her new book, The World Is Your Oracle.
  3. Chant, Song, and (maybe) Dancing:  This group will get us centered through bringing our voices together. Weather permitting, we will meet outside where we can dance together.

For more information contact our Events team.

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“Mythology, Women and Society: Growing the Groundswell” Schedule

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Mythology, Women and Society: Growing the Groundswell

March 25, 2017, Brinton House, Pendle Hill,  Philadelphia PA

8:00-8:30 – REGISTRATION (Dining Hall & Brinton House)

8:30-9:30  KEYNOTE

The Matrixial Foundation of Maternal Cultural Meanings in Myth and Ritual

Dr. Peggy Reeves Sanday, Professor of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania

 

9:45-11:15 SESSION 1: Motherhood in Patriarchy

Moderator: Marna Hauk

  1. Priscilla Hobbs-Penn, Finding Demeter: Re-Imagining the Myth of Motherhood for Millennials
  2. Carla Ionescu, The Myth of Athena/Medusa–Justice and War: The Duality of Women’s Roles in Patriarchal Politics [skype]
  3. Donna Giancola, Women, Land, and Eco-justice

 

9:45-11:15 SESSION 2: Biblical Heroines and Social Justice

Moderator: Joan Cichon

  1. Jessica Bowman, Riding the Spiral: Social Justice, Mystic Creativity, and Goddess Consciousness
  2. Caralie Focht, The Butch Goddess: A Queer Reading of Exodus 2-6
  3. Judith Wouk, Justice for Hidden Heroines – Delilah
  4. Hadassah Nechushta, Justice for Hidden Heroines – Queen Nechushta

 

11:15-12:45 PM  Networking Lunch (Dining Hall)

 

1:00-2:30 SESSION 3: Writing Workshop

Among the Goddesses: A Writing Ritual for Justice and Healing

Annie Finch

 

1:00 – 2:30 SESSION 4: Matricultures and Social Justice

Moderator: Gayatri Devi

  1. Mary Louise Stone, Empowered Leadership from a Motherline of the Americas
  2. Gayatri Devi, Mothering as an Imaginary of Political Peace: Mothers of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement and the Democratic Process
  3. Laura Zegel, Black Mother Within: Retrieving Our Selves from Racism and Sexism Through the Black Madonna

 

2.45 – 4:15   SESSION 5: Goddess Wisdom Righting Wrongs: Three Transnational Stories

Moderator: Dawn Work-Makinne

  1. Dawn Work-Makinne, Sibyl of the Rhine: Hildegard von Bingen as a Northern Wisdomkeeper
  2. Monica Mody, The Borderlands Feminine: A Feminist, Decolonial Framework for Remythologizing the Goddess in South Asia/Transnational Culture
  3. Irene Wolfstone, Indigenous Matricultures in North America [skype]

 

2:45 – 4:15   SESSION 6: Embodiment and Mysticism: New Sisterhood in the Academy

Moderator: Gayatri Devi

  1. Annalisa Derr, Invoking Inanna: Female Bodily Wisdom of Cyclical Renewal as the New Societal Model
  2. Gina Belton, Soror Mystica Wears a Red Dress: The Alchemy of Midwifery and Decolonization in Our Last Wild Place
  3. Megan McFeeley, Alone Together: Social Activism From Inside
  4. April Heaslip, Reinitiating Psyche: The Academy as Sisterhood

 

4:30 – 5:45 PLENARY: From Groundswell to Eruption: Transformative Justice

  • Cristina Biaggi, Volcano Goddesses
  • Lucia Birnbaum, Future has an ancient heart. case: Blackbird and Pear Tree

 

6:00 – 7:30 DINNER BREAK

 

7:30 – 9:00 PM  GODDESS IN ART AND SONG

  • Lisa Levart, Art, Activism and the Goddess
  • Anna Crusis Women’s Choir, Concert
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Highlighting Four Great Films in 2017

Jewels for January & February, Online Film Series

 This winter we are offering our first member-only online film series. Our thanks to the filmmakers and distributors who have made it possible. Special thanks to Women Make Movies and Grasshopper Films for their guidance and generosity.

For your consideration, here are descriptions of the great films we will show from Jan 25-Feb 28, 2017. (It’s another great reason to join or renew, since the films and discussions are only available to members.)

Apache 8, by Sande Zeig

For 30 years, the all-female Apache 8 unit has protected their reservation from fire and responded to wildfires around the nation. Facing gender stereotypes and the problems that come with life on the impoverished reservation, the women became known as some of the country’s most elite firefighters. This film focuses primarily on four women who speak tenderly and often humorously of hardship, loss, family, community and pride in being a firefighter. They are separated from their families, face tribe initiation, and struggle to make a living. But while the women may have initially set out to try and earn a living in their economically challenged community, they quickly discover an inner strength and resilience that speaks to their traditions and beliefs as Native women.

SPECIAL SNEAK PREVIEW:  The Breast Archives, by Meagan Murphy

The Breast Archives is a powerful documentary, illuminating significant themes and often-stifled experiences of womanhood in America: puberty, sexuality, social mores, and menopause. Viewers get to know nine unforgettable women, ages 32-68, who boldly bare their hearts and breasts to the camera, candidly revealing individual journeys they’ve made in reclaiming their bodies. By exposing themselves, the women expose, and challenge, all of us. And by understanding how breasts are defined by American culture and how women are affected, The Breast Archives suggests what we can do to make positive changes for ourselves and our loved ones.

A Woman to Match a Mountain, by Karen Snyder

Are myths and legends only available from ancient sources?  This charming biographical film proves that it’s possible for a modern woman to single-handedly build a myth tradition that continues to thrive in Wyoming 80 years after its creation.  Neal Forsling was herself the stuff of legend, a young woman who divorced in the 1920s and moved with her two girls to homestead on a mountaintop in the rugged land near Casper.  There she not only defied convention as a writer and artist, but in 1930, at her Summer Solstice party, she started a living myth tradition: the Witches of Crimson Dawn.

Letters from Baghdad, by Sabine Krayenbühl and Zeva Oelbaum

Voiced and executive produced by Tilda Swinton, Letters from Baghdad is a visually rich, beautifully crafted documentary that tells the story of Gertrude Bell, who, more influential than her friend and colleague Lawrence of Arabia, shaped the modern Middle East in ways that still reverberate today. Explorer, writer, archeologist, spy and political powerhouse, Bell was one of the most influential and fascinating women at the dawn of the 20th century. Widely travelled across Arabia, she was instrumental in pushing for an end to colonial rule and played a major role (alongside Churchill and T.E. Lawrence) in creating and administering the modern state of Iraq.