Category: Conferences & Symposia

ASWM Conferences, held biennially in even-numbered years, and symposia, held on occasion in odd-numbered years

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Featured Speakers for Conference: Miriam Robbins Dexter

Miriam Robbins Dexter holds a Ph.D. in ancient Indo-European languages, archaeology, and comparative mythology, from UCLA.  She has published Whence the Goddesses: A Source Book (1990) and Sacred Display: Divine and Magical Female Figures of Eurasia (2010) as well as scholarly articles and encyclopedia articles on ancient female figures.  She edited and supplemented Marija Gimbutas’ The Living Goddesses (1999.)  She teaches at UCLA.  Additionally, she serves on the Advisory Board for ASWM.

“Sacred Display”: Divine and Magical Female Figures of Eurasia

Depictions of erotic and magical goddesses and heroines occurred in numerous ancient cultures from about 8000BCE into historic times, from Asia to western Europe.

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Charlene Spretnak Wins 2012 Demeter Award

Charlene Spretnak is the 2012 winner of the Demeter Award for Leadership in Women’s Spirituality. Her presentation for the ASWM conference is entitled, Modernity, Mythology, and the Elusive Gestalt.

Ms. Spretnak’s work is internationally recognized in the areas of spirituality, cultural history, feminist and other social criticism, and ecological thought (Green politics, ecofeminism, ecophilosophy). In 2006 she was named one of “100 Eco-Heroes of All Time” by the publication of the British government’s Environmental Department.

She is one of the founding mothers of the Women’s Spirituality movement, through her work in the second half of the 1970s and the early 1980s.  Her first book, Lost Goddesses of Early Greece: A Collection of Pre-Hellenic Myths reconstructed pre-Olympian myths for the first time in more than 2500 years; the Los Angeles Times called it “a poetic revelation.”

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Modern Matriarchal Studies Panel

 

Matriarchal Studies Max Dashu writes of early feminist theory, “In 1970 we began asking, where are women free? Where are the egalitarian cultures, and why don’t we know about them? How can we access a fuller record of human experience, that acknowledges female sovereignty, elders, wisewomen, and spheres of power?”

Academics in the US tend to avoid the term Matriarchy to describe these cultures, because it is seen to project a mirror image of Patriarchy, with women dominating society. In Europe, however, the term has been brought into clear focus through the work of Dr. Heide Goettner-Abendroth and others.  This panel at the ASWM conference will explore the development of modern Matriarchal Studies and efforts at serious study of non-patriarchal, egalitarian societies past and present.  The panelists will be Dr. Heide Goettner-Abendroth, Max Dashu, Lydia Ruyle, and Vicki Noble.

Click here for a complete description of the panel and panelists:  MS Panel ASWM 2012

And–continue reading for information about these presenters and their topics.

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Voices of the Mothers: A Ritual-in-progress

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The arts of ritual are as old as humanity, and still have a profound impact on those who witness them.  We’re proud to include in our conference a ritual in progress, Voices of the Mothers, created by Macha NightMare and employing sacred goddess masks especially created for this event by  Lauren Raine.  (See below!)

At the conference you will have a chance to experience portions of this powerful ritual, which combines elements of rhythm, movement, and chant with scientific knowledge.  You will also be able to go behind the scenes to learn about the process or creating of a large public ritual that brings ancient goddesses into the present day.

Pachamama mask by Lauren Raine
Pachamama mask by Lauren Raine
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Featured Speakers for ASWM Conference: Judy Grahn

We are fortunate to be able to offer excellent keynote presenters at the 2012 Conference!  Watch for updates in the coming days.

Judy Grahn is an internationally known poet, writer, and social theorist.  Her work underpins several movements, including Gay, Lesbian, and Queer; Feminist/Woman-Centered; and Women’s Spirituality, but it has spread far beyond any of these.  She currently serves as Associate Core Faculty for the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in Palo Alto, California, in their Women’s Spirituality Master’s Program.

Her presentation is titled:  Goddess Is Alive! But How Do We Know…?

We have gathered the images and myths, the rock art and the archeological speculations, the myriad clues in ancient literature and contemporary ritual. Practitioners from living traditions have surfaced to teach and demonstrate. Many if not most of us have felt the presence of a living goddess energy at some time in our lives, and maybe we have students who hunger for this or have experienced “something” from a different dimension. How do we track these occasions, how do we teach methods for recording and analyzing rare happenings, how do we know, “this time it’s real—?”   And just what is “real”? Some thoughts on Organic Inquiry methods, art-based research, teaching divination as a method of gathering data. 

To learn more about Judy’s work, see her web site.