Category: Awards

ASWM’s mission includes the conferring of awards of excellence in a variety of fields comprising Women and Mythology

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ASWM Proceedings Receive Best Books Awards

Myths Shattered and Restored and Vibrant Visions: Women, Myth and the Arts included in

100 of the Best Books in Women’s Spirituality!

The Board of the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology is thrilled to announce that two of ASWM’s publications, Myths Shattered and Restored, and Vibrant Visions: Women, Myth, and the Arts (Proceedings of the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology, volumes 1 & 2) were honored by being included in the recent 100 of the Best Books in Women’s Spirituality awarded by the Women’s Spirituality Department of the California Institute of Integral Studies.

The 100 of the Best Books in Women’s Spirituality were announced at the Women’s Spirituality Department’s conference Women Rising: New Visions for a Post-Patriarchal World which took place at the CIIS campus in San Francisco October 12-14, 2018.  The conference was held in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Women’s Spirituality Department at CIIS.

As the Department noted on their web site:

These acclaimed authors include a broad diversity of scholars and artists who are contributing to the emerging field of Women’s Spirituality in academia. . . . Our faculty and students are especially grateful to the many Women’s Spirituality authors and artists who inspire and nourish the work we do in higher education to support women’s spiritual freedoms, cultural agency, and eco-social justice around the world.

If you wish to purchase one or both of the ASWM volumes, you can do so through Amazon, or the Goddess Ink website.

Many of ASWM’s members also have their individual books honored by inclusion in this list.  Our hearty congratulations go out to them all!

You can view the complete list of Best Books at:  http://womenrisingconference.org/index.php/wse-book-awards/

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Kathy Jones Receives 2018 Demeter Award

Kathy Jones Receives 2018 Demeter Award from ASWM Board

At the 2018 Conference, the ASWM Board of Directors was pleased to present the Demeter Award for Leadership in Women’s Spirituality to Kathy Jones, author, teacher, and creatrix of the Glastonbury Goddess Conference and the Goddess Temple of Glastonbury.  The award letter reads, in part,

“As a writer, healer, teacher, Priestess of Avalon, visionary, and scholar, we recognize the important roles that you have played in restoring the divine feminine to modern culture. Your tireless work for thirty-plus years, bringing the awareness of Goddess back to the U.K., Europe, the U.S., and the world, has provided not only important original scholarship but also the creation of a vital energetic container for explorations of Goddess archetypes and practices.

“Your considerable body of written work explores the mysteries of sacred land, mythology, and healing: Soul and Shadow: Birthing Motherworld, 2017; Priestess of Avalon, Priestess of the Goddess, 2006; In the Nature of Avalon: Goddess Pilgrimages in Glastonbury’s Sacred Landscape, 2007; The Ancient British Goddess: Goddess Myths, Legends, Sacred Sites, Present Revelation, 2001; Chiron in Labys: An Introduction to Esoteric Soul Healing, 1997; Breast Cancer: Hanging on by a Red Thread, 1998; On Finding Treasure: Mystery Plays of the Goddess, 1999; Spinning the Wheel of Ana: a Spiritual Quest to Find the Primal British Ancestors, 1994; and The Goddess in Glastonbury, 1990.  

“We thank you for all of your work to restore Goddess Spirituality to a modern world much in need.”

In accepting the award, Kathy joins a select group of prior winners and foremothers: Margot Adler, Jean Shinoda Bolen, Charlene Spretnak, Elinor Gadon and Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum.

 

 

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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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2018 Sarasvati Award Goes to “Sheela na Gig”

Sheela na gig
: The Dark Goddess of Sacred Power 

by Starr Goode

Published by Inner Traditions

 

The ASWM Board of Directors is pleased to present the 2018 Sarasvati Award for nonfiction to Inner Traditions for this provocative and beautiful book. With over 150 illustrations, this book explores the archetype of the Dark Goddess in the form of female display figures. It examines a range of images of supernatural females like Sheela na gigs adorning medieval architecture.

The award letter reads in part:

This book advances the field of feminist mythological/Goddess studies, presenting both scholarly information and wonderful images to the reader.  The inclusion of this large number of illustrations is essential in a work of this type, in order to convey the rich and diverse imagery of Sheela na gigs and displaying figures.

This book is very well-balanced in offering descriptions and lists of Sheelas along with scholarly explorations and an understanding of issues regarding their their deep meanings and mystery. Additionally, this book gives evidence of similar sacred display figures throughout the world: in Polynesia, in Africa, in India, in Europe, and in the Far East.  It takes the reader from sacred display figures dating to the Upper Palaeolithic, to those from the Neolithic, to those from the Classical era, and finally those dating to the medieval era in Europe.

 In short, we believe this book has great value in to interdisciplinary studies of myth and folklore.  We would strongly recommend it as a resource to faculty, researchers, travelers, and general readers.  

The author will be on hand to accept this award at our 2018 Conference in March.

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2018 Sarasvati Book Award Applications

The Association for the Study of Women and Mythology (ASWM)

Sarasvati Award for Nonfiction

The Sarasvati Book Award solicits nonfiction books published during 2015-2017 in the field of goddess studies/women and mythology. Named for the Hindu goddess of learning and the creative arts, the Sarasvati award from the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology (ASWM) honors creative work in the field of goddess and mythology studies. The award will be presented during ASWM’s biennial conference, Las Vegas, Nevada, 16-17 March 2018. Book submissions must be received by ASWM Sarasvati Award committee no later than 15 November 2017.  Books must be submitted by publishers only.  Anthologies and self-published books are not eligible for this award. 

The 2017 deadline for submissions has now passed. Past winners of this prestigious award for the study of women and mythology include:

  • Miriam Robbins Dexter & Victor Mair and Cambria Press for Sacred Display: Divine and Magical Female Figures of Eurasia
  • Elizabeth Wayland Barber and W. W. Norton for The Dancing Goddesses: Folklore, Archaeology, and the Origins of European Dance
  • Adrienne Mayor and  Princeton University Press for The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World

 See the link for submission form.

2018 ASWM Sarasvati Submission Form-2