Category: News & Articles

General ASWM news and organizational updates

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Remembering Elinor Gadon

We note the passing of feminist cultural historian Elinor Gadon with sadness but also with great gratitude for her work and her influence on research into goddesses and strong women.  On this post we will assemble remarks from those who knew her and also from those who benefitted from her work.  We will add comments as they are received.  To contribute your thoughts, email us at the “contact” address.

 

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Starr Goode, who interviewed Elinor for her Goddess in Art television series, says of her

The essential quality of Elinor’s work and what she felt was so important was to resacralize women’s bodies. Thank Goddess, this value has found its way into the spirit of our times. Elinor’s work with artists offered us a foundation from which to rise.
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Miriam Robbins Dexter says,
I have a sweet memory of Elinor from the ASWM conference.  Toward the end of the Boston ASWM in 2016, I joined Vicki Noble and Donna Read at breakfast.  Shortly afterward, Elinor joined us.  The four of us ended up having a very long breakfast with wonderful conversation.  It is my last memory of Elinor, and I am very happy to remember her that way.
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Eleanor’s longtime friend and colleague Dianne Jenett wrote:   A feminist cultural historian and scholar, she was also an extraordinary teacher and the founder of the first academic program in Women’s Spirituality, at The California Institute of Integral Studies, in SF. Her 1989 book The Once and Future Goddess: A Symbol for Our Times remains an important feminist work in the field of women and religion.  With stamina and passionate intellectual curiosity which inspired many of us, in her seventies and eighties Elinor returned to the India she loved in order to do research on the village goddesses of Orissa.  Her son John said after he read letters women from all over the world sent to her, “I had no idea she changed so many lives.” She will be sorely missed.
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Farewell to Elinor Gadon

Elinor Gadon, 92, died peacefully at her home in Cambridge, MA on May 8th.

As an art historian specializing in the art and culture of India, she taught at Harvard, Tufts and the California Institute of Integral Studies, and held an appointment as a Life Scholar at the Brandeis University Women’s Studies Research Center. Her 1989 book, The Once and Future Goddess, became an essential text for the women’s spirituality and Goddess movements, and for college courses on Women and Mythology around the world.

Longtime friend and colleague Dianne Jenett says that her research continued to the end of her life:

With stamina and passionate intellectual curiosity which inspired many of us, in her seventies and eighties Elinor returned to the India she loved in order to do research on the village goddesses of Orissa.  Her son John said, after he read letters women from all over the world sent to her, “I had no idea she changed so many lives.” She will be sorely missed.

Born on September 17, 1925 to Maurice H. Weiner and Jean (Kaplan) Weiner, Elinor grew up in Reading, PA, where her parents were the proprietors of Weiner’s Men’s Clothing store on Penn Street. She graduated from Reading High School in 1942 and from the University of Michigan in 1945. She later obtained her doctorate in History of Culture from the University of Chicago.

She was the recipient of the Honor Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Visual Arts from the Women’s Caucus for Art, and of the Demeter Award for Leadership in Women’s Spirituality from the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology in 2016.

When she received the Demeter award, she responded,

“I have tears in my eyes… how nice of all of you to recognize my work. I really did what was in my heart and on my mind, and how wonderful to have it reach so many people. Let’s keep on with this vision because it’s women who are going to save the world.”

 

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Journal seeking Book Review Editor

The International Feminist Journal of Politics is looking for a new Book Review Editor to serve for a four-year period 2018-2021. The International Feminist Journal of Politics aims to foster debate and dialogue at the intersection of international and global politics, feminist and queer theory, and gender studies within an expanding global critical community of scholars and activists. Central to that mission is its rich and diverse book review section.

 

http://www.ifjpjournal.org/Call-for-Book-Review-Editor.php

ASWM Proceedings 2016

Myths Shattered and Restored

ASWM Anthology

The Association for the Study of Women and Mythology (ASWM) is  delighted to announce the publication of the first of our conference and symposia Proceedings anthology, Myths Shattered and Restored.   This anthology, edited by Marion Dumont and Gayatri Devi, features essays in archaeomythology, place-based wisdom of indigenous peoples, feminist and goddess-centered reworkings of western myths, the Dianic tradition, essays on cross-cultural investigations into goddess myths, and collective goddess deities, to list a few of the themes and topics explored in this collection.  As the Introduction says,

Today’s history becomes tomorrow’s myths. This exceptional collection of essays is a valued contribution toward contemporary feminist and womanist efforts to re-cover the herstory of mythology and to ensure that today’s herstory is not forsaken in tomorrow’s myths. The writings presented in this volume serve to strengthen and support the circle of women and men who share a scholarly passion for sacred myths about women.

Authors include Mara Lynn Keller, Joan Cichon, Arieahn Matamonasa-Bennett, Alexandra Cichon, Mary Beth Moser, Denise Saint Arnault, April Heaslip, Alexis Martin Faasberg, Natasha Redina, Savithri Shanker de Tourreil, Gayatri Devi, and Dawn Work-Makinne.

Purchase Myths Shattered and Restored for Kindle on Amazon or the book at  Amazon or Goddess Ink.

 

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