Category: News & Articles

General ASWM news and organizational updates

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Scholar Salon: Filmmaker Emily Packer’s Vision of Mythic Motherhood on the Border

February 22, 2020
2pm Eastern Standard Time

ASWM Online Scholar Salon with Filmmaker Emily Packer

La Frontierra Chingada is a 2015 poetic non-fiction film about motherhood on the US-Mexico border. Mythic figures like Tonāntzin, the Virgin Guadalupe, la Llorona and la Chingada, manifest themselves at Friendship Park–a space where families on either side of la frontera can come together, but meet there under extreme conditions of surveillance. Guided in part by conversations with the filmmaker’s matrilineal family, the film concerns itself with relationships betweenwomen’s bodies, space, and the shared land and history in the San Diego-Tijuana region.

 

Scholar Salons with Emily Packer, Filmmaker

Emily Packer is an experimental non-fiction filmmaker with an interest in border culture and border theory.  She says, “A huge part of my trepidation in making this film was about not wanting to presume to be able to make a relevant film about the border as an Anglo American filmmaker.  But I think it’s incredibly important for white artists to make reflexive work about the border, given that we are implicated in its existence, and that our understanding and perspective shift is necessary to improve the situation (which includes death, dehumanization, and forced separation of family). At some point I gave myself permission to trust that I could make meaningful art about the border, and that the story I had to tell was important.”

See the one-hour film, available now in ASWM’s member-only resource library, and join us for a conversation with Emily about crossing and transforming borders that separate us. The Salon discussion will be moderated by Natasha Redina, a filmmaker and ecotherapist who is a member of ASWM’s advisory board.

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2020 Conference Presentation by Judy Grahn: “Living in a Sentient World”

 

Judy is unable to attend the conference. We are hoping to Skype in her presentation. Please check the updated conference schedule.

“For forty years I’ve been thinking and writing about the intense psychic connections we can experience with creatures, including insects, that live around us, incorporating them in my poetry and my novel, Mundane’s World, as well as in stories.  This paper will discuss how to recognize and induce these connections of inter-species consciousness (shared sacred space), how to record and believe the experiences, and then how to write them.  My goal is to share these accounts with more skeptical humans in order to reduce both cynicism and romanticism, to strengthen bonds between people and creature life, to encourage recognition of shared minds, and to amplify the value we place on beings who share space with us. I’ll illustrate the topic with selections from my current work in progress.”

Judy Grahn is internationally known as a poet, author and cultural theorist. She has published fourteen books, with two more forthcoming. Judy holds a Ph.D. in Integral Studies from the California Institute of Integral Studies, where she often teaches. She is retired co-director and core faculty of the Women’s Spirituality MA program at New College of California, and the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology and Sofia University.

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Announcing the 2020 Sarasvati Award for Best Nonfiction Book

The Sarasvati Book Award solicits scholarly nonfiction books published during 2018-2019 in the fields of goddess studies/women and mythology. Named for the Hindu goddess of learning and the creative arts, the award is given by the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology to honor outstanding scholarship and presentation. The award will be presented during ASWM’s 2020 conference in Albuquerque, NM.

Submissions and book copies must be received by the Awards Committee no later than February 1, 2020. Books must be published in print, rather than only in e-book format. Nominations must come directly from the publisher; authors should contact their publishers to ask them to submit a work for this award. Each publisher may nominate one work published in 2018-2019. Anthologies and self-published books are not eligible for this award.

 Contact aswmsubmissions@gmail.com for forms and details of the submissions process.

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A fundraiser on Facebook

Bee on Sunflower, by Ginny Stibolt

Hi All,

This year for the first time we have set up a Facebook fundraiser for ASWM.

If you are on FB check out (Association for Study of Women and Mythology)  and by all means respond there or here on the website.

We are seeking funds for our Indigenous Scholars Fund, which we have used since 2015 to support Native American and Indigenous students and scholars. We will use this fundraiser to

  • offer conference scholarships to presenters and students
  • videotape presentations to assure online availability of their research
  • encourage meaningful and respectful conversations about indigenous myths and sacred stories.

Thanks in advance for helping us to build strong collaborations for the future!

 

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Matching Fundraiser for ASWM Projects!

Opis, Roman Goddess of Abundance

Our First Matching Funds Campaign! Help us get to $5,000!

We are thrilled to announce a generous donor has offered to match your donation, dollar for dollar, up to $5,000. We are so thrilled and grateful for this support!

Please help us not let this generous offer slip away. Make a donation now and have your gift DOUBLED! No amount is too small to match.  Here’s why:

The ASWM Board, Advisory Council and volunteer committees have many projects and programs in the works as we continue to build this vibrant community.  We are hard at work on our 2020 conference, our next publication of proceedings, the next members only salons,  our online Resource Library, and a long overdue website redesign.  Please help us reach our goals by donating today!

Questions about donating to ASWM? Please contact our Board Treasurer: womenandmyth @gmail. com.