Category: Events

ASWM-sponsored events: conferences and symposia and online events such as film series and scholar salons

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2020 Keynote Speaker Annette Williams: The Feminine Power of àjẹ́

 

Among the West African Yoruba, àjẹ́ is the power of the feminine, of female divinity and women, and àjẹ́ is the women themselves who wield this power.  Women who are àjẹ́ have held power in religious, political, judicial, and economic domains, and àjẹ́ have also been branded as witches, feared, and persecuted. Oral history, myth, and ritual assist in understanding the roles and functions of the Yoruba àjẹ́ as well as reactions to their power from pre-colonial to contemporary times. Through appreciating àjẹ́ we reclaim the timeless female power of transformation.


Annette Williams is chair and core faculty in the Women’s Spirituality program at the California Institute of Integral Studies.  She holds a doctorate in Philosophy and Religion with specialization in Women’s Spirituality.  Her dissertation, Our Mysterious Mothers: The Primordial Feminine Power of Àjẹ́ in the Cosmology, Mythology, and Historical Reality of the West African Yoruba, was a recipient of the 2016 ASWM Kore Award for best dissertation in women and mythology. Her research interests have centered on soul healing from sexual trauma, and the theme of women’s spiritual power and agency within the Yorùbá Ifá tradition, with specific reference to the feminine authority of àjẹ́. 

 

Register for the 2020 event!

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Scholar Salon 3

"Lessons from the Roadless Road- Mongolia 2019" with Arieahn Matamonasa, Ph.D.: In the Summer of 2019, Matamonasa traveled to Mongolia to visit the people of Khuvdgal, the Darkhad Valley and Tsagaan Nuur. These people represent the world’s oldest shamanic traditions that have persisted despite years of persecution and oppression.

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Announcing Scholar Salon 3: Arieahn Matamonasa on Mongolian Shamans, Dec. 11

Lessons from the Roadless Road: Mongolia in 2019

Arieahn Matamonasa, Ph.D., DePaul University, Chicago, IL
Date and time: Wednesday December 11, 2019, 1:00 PM Central Time

Dr. Matamonasa writes,

“I am a clinical psychologist, researcher and cross-culturally trained traditional healer. My lifelong work has been building bridges between indigenous healing and worldviews and Western psychology. In the Summer of 2019, I traveled with a group of nine other Westerners to visit the ancient steppes and valleys of Mongolia to visit the people of Khuvdgal, the Darkhad Valley and Tsagaan Nuur. These people represent the world’s oldest shamanic traditions that have persisted despite years of persecution and oppression. The world’s remaining Indigenous people are the keepers of our human intellectual and ecological knowledge through deep time. This presentation highlights some of my experiences and the lessons that are invaluable for modern cultures in this time of ecological, spiritual and social crisis.”

Highlights will include:

  • Stepping back in time: Vast, ancient wild spaces
  • Community in the West: ‘downloaded’ but not installed
  • Shaman’s Warnings: Consumerism and predatory cultures

Members will receive a link to join the Salon. If you are not yet an ASWM member, join now to participate. The Salon recording will be available to members after the event.

Recordings are listed on our Member Library’s Scholars Salon page womenandmyth.org/salons. Updated Salon News and Scholars Salon recordings are here in chronological order, most recent first.

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Call for Proposals: 2020 Poster Session for ASWM Conference

Due January 5, 2020

This year we will feature a juried poster session at our conference. This is a great opportunity to explain your ideas and applied work in a more engaging way to a wider audience. During the poster session, participants will informally discuss their presentations with conference attendees, and posters will be displayed throughout the conference. Poster session participants place materials such as pictures, data, graphs, diagrams and narrative text on boards size A0 (33.1″ x 46.8″) or video. Video posters are short videos where the presenter discusses the nature and impact of their research/project which is illustrated on the printed poster they are displaying at the conference.

As with paper presentations, posters should follow the conference themes found in our Call for Proposals.

Send a 250 word abstract in PDF or MSWord to aswmsubmissions@gmail.com by November 23, 2019. ​Use “2020 poster proposal” and last name in the subject header of your email. ​Include a bio of up to 70 words and contact information including surface address and email. Presenters from all disciplines are welcome, as well as creative artists and practitioners whose work engages mythic themes in a scholarly manner. Poster Presenters must become members of ASWM.

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Writing an ASWM Conference Proposal

How does ASWM’s program committee read and review proposals? We start by focusing on the written proposal that you submit. We look for a clear and succinct statement of your work. We have more than a hundred proposals to review for each event, so we are serious about the 250-word limit for an individual proposal. In this case, giving us more information than that word limit works to your disadvantage. If you exceed the word limit, you will probably be asked to submit your proposal again, following the guidelines. (Some organizations would reject such a proposal on the basis of guidelines alone.)

It will be this 250-word abstract that is made available to attendees. Your proposal enables people to make a choice of what to attend during the conference. It is your best chance to present your work, so it needs to be spelled out clearly. (Remember that you are presenting the proposal to an intelligent general audience, who may not be familiar with the jargon of your field.) See below for a checklist for proposal form and content.

Your 70-word bio will need to have enough information so that people can find you after the event if they want to make contact about your work. Biographies are included in the conference program book. Accepted proposals will be available on the website, alphabetical by author last name.

Film Proposals

If you are proposing to show a film, know that, at the first stage, our proposal readers will not look up films on websites. That’s the job of the film subcommittee, which doesn’t see proposals until we have determined whether/how the film fits with our themes. The general proposal readers recommend films to the subcommittee. What is the subject of your film (be specific)? How does it fit with our themes? How long is the film? Is it a documentary, scripted story, non-narrative, or something else? How do you want to show your film at the conference, and how much time do you need for discussion and response? And, finally, include a link to your film or video.

Hints and Tips

Does your proposal

  • stay within the word limit?
  • start with your best one-sentence summary of your work?
  • make a clear and succinct statement of what your work is about?
  • explain any unfamiliar or esoteric terms?
  • show how the work fits our conference theme(s)?
  • highlight what makes your work stand out from other work on the same topic? (ex. unique perspective, new information, synthesizing theories, etc.)
  • state your goal for the presentation? (What idea do you want people to take away from your work?)
  • include a 70-word bio with current contact information?

Thank you for submitting your work for an ASWM event, and best wishes for success in your work.