Author: WomenandMyth

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Announcing 2018 Kore Award for Best Dissertation

The Association for the Study of Women and Mythology 2018 Kore Award Committee is pleased to announce the following honorees:

  • The 2018 Kore Award for Best Dissertation in Women and Mythology has been awarded to Dr. April Heaslip of Pacifica Graduate Institute, for “Regenerating Magdalene: Psyche’s Quest for the Archetypal Bride.”
  • The 2018 Dissertation of Merit is awarded to Dr. Elizabeth Wolterink of Pacifica Graduate Institute, for “Cloaked in Darkness: Feminine Katabasis in Myth and Culture.”

Dr. April Heaslip’s work focuses on the capacity of feminist mythology as cultural and psychological change agent embodied in the lost and degraded archetypal Bride, Mary Magdalene.  As a Middle Eastern woman embedded within a complex web of gendered religious “history” and mythology, she is also located within a dynamic and enigmatic mystery linking ancient Mediterranean goddesses, including Inanna, Isis, and Ariadne, with a partnership lineage relevant for our times.   The void created by this lost and misrepresented archetypal feminine as a sovereign and powerful presence has left Western cultures with a corrupt, wounded, and incomplete masculinist paradigm longing for wholeness. Utilizing literary and film studies, Jungian psychology, feminist studies, archaeomythology, and religious studies to examine the cultural and personal phenomenon of Magdalenian renewal, this study explores how remythologizing bridal regeneration—as well as remapping the neglected Wasteland landscape—revitalizes the relationship between psyche, culture, and Nature.
Dr. Heaslip will discuss her work at our Las Vegas Conference, on the Friday panel LIVING MYTHS: REVIVING FEMININE IMMANENCE
Dr. Elizabeth Wolterink’s study of feminine katabasis asserts that myths of the journey to the underworld in which the protagonist is female have been marginalized in favor of stories in which the descender is male. Female figures on the journey, also called the nekyia, act in significantly different ways than their male counterparts and stories of feminine descent commonly result in the protagonist remaining in the underworld. Analyses of the nekyia of Ereshkigal, Hel, Izanami, Hine-nui-te-po, Inanna, and Persephone show that female descent narratives are as wide-spread as those of males and illuminate the differences between feminine descent and the traditionally accepted pattern of katabasis. The study finds that these female figures, far from being “defeated” by the underworld, cloak themselves in its power and come to abide there, making it their home.
The honorees will be awarded at the 2018 ASWM Conference in Las Vegas, March 16-17, 2018.  Please join us in congratulating these fine scholars and in celebrating emerging scholarship in Women and Mythology.
The 2018 Kore Award Committee
Dr. Dawn Work-MaKinne, Chair
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Presentation Grant Award Winner: Rachel Kippen

From Pesticide-Laden Plastic to Authentic Artworkings: Weaving Environmental Justice in Hawaiian Lauhala

Environmental justice education is only genuine if it includes indigenous and women’s rights perspectives.

The Hawaiian cultural practice of weaving is imbued with cultural significance. In the traditional art form of Lauhala, Hawaiian women weave together leaf (lau) from the hala tree into mats, clothing, and other textiles. My research shares personal artworkings and those from environmental justice research, particularly Lauhala created by participants who wove pieces of agricultural plastic while discussing the weaving of perspectives. My research addresses climate change, water scarcity, and plastic waste in a primarily agricultural and immigrant community. The rich weavings from a multi-day environmental justice Monterey Bay walk imbricated these multivocal perspectives, including shifting women’s roles, naming stories, the naming of places, and the erasure of indigenous names by waves of settler-colonizers. Creating the weavings enabled re-envisioning what the original Ohlone landscape looked like and countered values enforced by patriarchy that lacked respect for weaving, otherwise seen as minimized “women’s work.” The work also heightened a desire for care for the land, malama ‘aina.

 

A. Rachel Kippen is a coastal environmental quality advocate and artist with a background in environmental program development and ocean conservation nonprofit management in Santa Cruz, CA. She is a Masters student in Environmental Studies at the Prescott College and holds a Bachelors in Environmental Studies and a Certificate in Strategic Leadership and Nonprofit Management. She researches environmental justice education through place and arts-based curriculum development in agricultural and immigrant communities, and coordinates environmental initiatives for the City of Watsonville.

Rachel’s presentation is featured on the panel, THE REGENERATIVE EARTH: GODDESSES, PRIESTESSES, ORACLES, FUTURES, with Marna Hauk, Mandisa Amber Wood, and Mandy Leetch

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Conference panel: “Fierce and Beneficent Female Figures”

Fierce and Beneficent Female Figures and their Evolution from Prehistory into Modern Folkloric Witches and Fairies and their Enduring Iconography

Many Neolithic cultures were equalitarian and matrilocal.  After the migrations of the patriarchal Proto-Indo-Europeans throughout Europe, South Asia, and elsewhere, the cultures and the religions of the indigenous peoples were changed.  “Great”-Goddesses of the life continuum which were worshipped by the indigenous peoples were assimilated into pantheons dominated by male deities.

At this time, the “group”-Goddesses, which would have had many powers and functions in the Neolithic, were likely demoted to fairies and often to witches.  Many of these historic figures had avian characteristics, as did thousands of figurines excavated from the European Neolithic: they had wings and they could fly.  Thus, they carried on some of the attributes of Neolithic female figures.  These groups of female figures may have represented aspects of the divine and often the power of renewal.

Starr Goode will share her knowledge of British and Irish Sheela- na-gigs and their ancient origins; Dawn Work-MaKinne will discuss the Celto-Germanic (and Italic) Three Mothers, with information from her Kore-Award winning doctoral dissertation; Mary Beth Moser will present on Tyrolean Anguane, and Miriam Robbins Dexter will discuss Romanian Zâne, Latvian and Lithuanian Laumas and Raganas, Indic Yogīṇīs and Yakṣīṇīs, and Slavic Vili and Rusalki.

This panel features Kore Award winners Dawn-Work Makinne and Mary Beth Moser, and Sarasvati Nonfiction Book Award winners Miriam Robbins Dexter (2012) and Starr Goode (2018).

 

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Upcoming at Conference: Women and Earth-Centered Mythologies

WOMAN AND EARTH-CENTERED MYTHOLOGIES;  TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE AND SACRED KINSHIP BETWEEN WOMEN, PLANTS AND ANIMALS

Joan Marler moderates this important panel for our upcoming conference in March.  Scholars bring the perspective of archaeomythology, which combines archaeological and folklore evidence with information about sacred stories and images.

  • Joan Cichon, “Celebrating Goddess, Women, Plants and Animals:  Bronze Age Cretan Iconography as seen through an Archaeomythological Perspective“
  • Mara Lynn Keller, “Divine Mistress of Animals in Ancient Greece”
  • Susan Moulton, “Unbridling the Past: Reconsidering Animal Imagery in Paleolithic Cave Paintings”
  • Elisabeth Sikie, “The Personhood of Nature and an Indigenous Consciousness of Communion Stories of Bees and Glaciers”
  • Moderator:  Joan Marler
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2018 “Winter Warmer” Film Screenings

Again this year we are providing the member benefit of special screenings for films by and about women. These films are accessible through the member section of our website. To get the 2018 member access code, join or renew and we will send you the code. To find out more about what we are doing, and to learn more about films we have screened, contact the ASWM film group.

Here are this year’s selections:

The Girl from God’s Country (2014), written and directed by Karen Day

In the 1920s, Nell Shipman was the first female independent film maker to pioneer the nude scene and advocate for animal welfare. Shipman wrote, directed, produced and acted in movies portraying women as self-reliant heroines. This film reveals the forgotten legacy of Shipman and a generation of female silent film pioneers, including rare footage of these women, including minority filmmakers Zora Neale Hurston and Miriam Wong. Geena Davis and women directors discuss gender-inequities Nell and her counterparts faced that perpetuate in today’s film industry.

The Passionate Pursuits of Angela Bowen (2016), a film by Jennifer Abod

For six decades Angela Bowen, classical dancer and teacher, black lesbian feminist activist, and professor has influenced and inspired untold numbers speaking out as strongly for the Arts, Black and Women’s Rights as she has for Lesbian and Gay Rights. The film depicts Bowen’s life across the decades, from the early fifties, with historic footage, photographs and interviews. Bowen’s candid and compelling stories allow us to understand how race, class, gender, age, and sexuality played into her decisions and choices, her mission, and strategies for survival. Passionate Pursuits is intended to challenge and inspire diverse audiences to pursue their own dreams with tenacity and courage, but not for themselves alone.

Let’s Get the Rhythm (2014) a film by Irene Chagall

Music is central to our lives. Mothers soothe their babies with gentle rhythm and melody. Music is one of the oldest arts, a vehicle for learning, present in all cultures. Let’s Get the Rhythm captures girls’ handclapping games from inner city playgrounds and across the world… from every continent… and islands in between. Girls from diverse cultures – from Brooklyn to Tanzania – charm us as they learn and share while expanding their experience. Drawing attention to the social importance of girls’ games, the film features footage from far-flung locations as well as ancient Egyptian reliefs. Let’s Get the Rhythm accentuates the beauty of the beat with compelling observations on the empowering force on the lives of girls, women and humanity.

Once again we will have the films available for a month, until March 7. This year we have adjusted the times of our conference calls to include our friends in the UK. You may see the films at any time, and we hope that you’ll fill out review forms so that we will be able to share comments with the filmmakers.

The call in number is available on the member only page.