The Association for the Study of Women and Mythology
General ASWM news and organizational updates
Recently we invited our advisory board members to tell us what is on their minds these days, to share their current projects, milestones, and emerging collaborations. Cristina’s is the first post for this series.
In these times, too many of us have lost treasured friends. We acknowledge all such losses, and offer condolences and comfort to Cristina and to everyone who has experienced such a loss.
OLYMPIA by Cristina Biaggi
Continue reading “Cristina Biaggi Remembers Olympia Dukakis”
Wisdom Across the Ages: Celebrating the Centennial of Archaeomythologist Marija Gimbutas
July 16-18, 2021
UNESCO has recognized the centennial of Marija Gimbutas’ birth as one of the world’s most influential events for 2021.
In honor of her work and life, ASWM’s 2021 Symposium is presented in cooperation with the institute of Archaeomythology. This unique event offers cutting edge scholarship in the context of artistic celebrations and memories of this revolutionary scientist, who was also a wise mentor and a loving friend.
We are pleased to introduce the program for our Online Symposium. The program features two important keynote addresses:
“Celebrating a Great Woman of Science: The Life and Legacy of Archaeomythologist Marija Gimbutas” (Joan Marler)
“Marija Gimbutas’ ‘Collision of Cultures’: the Kurgan
Invasions and the End of Old Europe” (Dr. Harald Haarmann)
See the full program at the symposium website–and watch for updates coming soon. Registration for this event opens May 5, 2021.
Please note: We realize that there may be schedule conflicts during the weekend of the symposium. To give you plenty of time to view the program at leisure, all sessions will remain available, to those who register, for twelve months following the event.
A hundred women awaited Marija Gimbutas at a mountain lodge nestled in forest. Banners painted with Old European images from Gimbutas’ books decorated the entrance. Autumn scents of fallen leaves, damp earth, and pine surrounded women as they spilled out of the doorway, singing, drumming, trilling, when Gimbutas arrived at this “Women and the Goddess” retreat in Massachusetts. Continue reading “Announcing Scholar Salon 28: Register for May 19”
There is a far-reaching integrity, authenticity and intelligence in things that are free to self-organize, adapting to change in Nature, a phenomenon that we call being “wild.” The complexity and immeasurable quality of “wildness” is perceived by most Eurocentric people as a mystery, uncontrollable and beyond our ability to comprehend. Typically, wild animals have been considered by Europeans as “beasts” to be feared, hunted, conquered, or tamed solely for the purpose of human utility.
This talk proposes that the earliest humans learned their social organization from the animals and other sentient life they observed in Nature, in a process that considers all parts of the whole as sacred, organized around what Marija Gimbutas described as a cyclical, Mother-centered principle of life-death-regeneration. The oldest visual messages left by some of the first humans are found in Palaeolithic caves in Southern Europe, dating to as far back as 38,000 B.C.E. Using what we might consider current Indigenous understanding and animal behavior, we can decode these vibrant ancient messages through a “language of animacy” which requires that we focus on deeper levels of sensory perception and knowing that is universal.
Susan Moulton Currently retired from teaching at Sonoma State University in California, Susan now devotes her time to managing her small farm in rural Sonoma County where she has worked for 50 years with rescued animals, particularly American mustangs, and conducting research and writing on human-animal communication and relationships. She developed and taught courses ranging from the Palaeolithic to Post Modern and In the 1970s she developed the first inclusive American Art Course in the California State University system, where she included contributions of First Nation Peoples before the arrival of European colonizers, with artistic and cultural contributions from African American, Asian American and Hispanic American artists through the present time. In collaboration with Joan Marler, she helped develop the International Institute of Archaeomythology, which focuses on the fields of study created and advanced by Marija Gimbutas. For over a half century she has functioned as “caretaker” of the farm she views as a sanctuary, not just for wild and abused animals, but also for rare conifers, many of which were started by internationally known agronomist Luther Burbank. A tireless organizer, educator, and working artist, Susan is currently working on a book that explores the impact of animal behavior on the earliest human communities.
Save these dates for upcoming ASWM Events:
May 19 at 3pm Eastern Time
Encounters with Marija: Wisdom from Women’s Lodge and The Women’s Well
Apara Borrowes & Anne Yeomans
July 16-18 2021
ASWM Symposium Wisdom across the Ages: A Celebration of the Centennial of Marija Gimbutas
Registration to open May 1, 2021
Note: Because of our work on the July Symposium, we will not offer Salons again until September.
The Salon recording will also be available to members after the event.
Over thirty years ago, novelist Mary Mackey received an unpublished manuscript from the Editor-in-Chief of HarperSanFrancisco who suggested she might like to base an historical novel on the author’s research. The author was Marija Gimbutas, and the manuscript was The Civilization of the Goddess.
In this salon, Mary will discuss how she met personally with Professor Gimbutas, and how, with her blessing, she used that research into the Neolithic cultures of Old Europe to create four bestselling novels–The Year The Horses Came, The Horses at The Gate, The Fires of Spring, and The Village of Bones. These novels evoke the moment in prehistory when marauding nomads brought horses, male deities, and war to a Goddess-worshipping Europe that had known peace for thousands of years.
Travel back to Old Europe with Mary, learn how fiction springs out of nonfiction, and watch the Mother People tend their crops, cook their dinners, make love, and raise their children; and, perhaps best of all, meet Marrah, the brave young priestess who becomes the savior of her people.
Mary Mackey became a writer by running high fevers, tramping through tropical jungles, dodging machine gun fire, being swarmed by army ants, and reading. Her published works consist of fourteen novels including The Village of Bones, which won a 2018 CIIS Women’s Spirituality Book Award from the Department of Diversity and Inclusion; The Year the Horses Came, the first novel in her Earthsong Series; and A Grand Passion, which made The New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle best seller lists. Her collections of poetry include Sugar Zone, which won the 2012 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award; and The Jaguars That Prowl Our Dreams, which won the 2019 Eric Hoffer Award for the Best Book Published by a Small Press. Professor Emeritus and Former Writer in Residence at California State University, Sacramento, Mary received her B.A. from Harvard and her PhD from the University of Michigan. In the 1970’s she founded the Feminist Writers Guild with poets Adrienne Rich and Susan Griffin, novelist Valerie Miner, and author Charlene Spretnak. See Mary’s work on her website and subscribe to her quarterly newsletter.
Save these dates for upcoming ASWM Salons:
May 5at 3pm Eastern Daylight Time
Learning from the “Wild”
Susan Moulton
The Salon recording will also be available to members after the event.
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