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!
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 publicationof proceedings, the next members only salons, our online Resource Library, and a long overdue websiteredesign. Please help us reach our goals by donating today!
Questions about donating to ASWM? Please contact our Board Treasurer: womenandmyth @gmail. com.
Keynote: Inanna’s Journey: Letting Ourselves Off the Hook
Presented by Rev. Judith Laxer
Rev. Laxer is the founder of Gaia’s Temple in
Seattle, WA, and author of Along the Wheel of Time: Sacred Stories for
Nature Lovers [Ravenswood Publishing]
Conference organizers say: “Our purpose is
to provide a supportive and nurturing setting for a dialogue of caring and
mutual respect between and among people from many spiritual and religious
traditions. The conference does not advocate or exclude any view and continues
to foster an understanding and celebration of similarities and differences. May
we continue to aid one another on our individual and communal spiritual
journeys.” Learn more about the conference and register at https://womenandspirituality.org/
Sadly, we report that Dr. Savithri Shanker De Tourreil (1935-2019) passed away from complications related to illness, in Montreal, Quebec, on 18 June 2019. She was 84. She was a beloved member of our ASWM community of scholars.
Dr. De Tourreil who held degrees in English literature and religious studies was an active member of the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology (ASWM) where she presented foundational and engaging studies on the matrilineal cultures and customs of Kerala. Her groundbreaking ethnographic doctoral research on women-centered social customs among the Nayar community, *Nayars in a South Indian Matrix: A Study Based on Female Centered Rituals* (Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, 1995) continues to serve as an inspiring model of feminist ethnography, feminist religious studies, matrilineal kinship, goddess scholarship, Hindu women, social change and social customs. Savithri cherished her colleagues and friends in the ASWM circle, and until failing health prevented her from traveling, actively participated in ASWM conferences. Savithri’s clear, original and engaging discussions on the ethnographic, sociological, and anthropological dimensions of women-centered religious practices, gift-economies, matrilineal studies, and goddess mythology have enlivened many ASWM conferences. Savithri’s research has been widely published in feminist religious studies and matrilineal studies.
Full of laughter and wisdom, Savithri was an inspiration to scholars everywhere. Her niece, Gayatri Devi, who co-presented with her, is a member of our ASWM Board. It was Savithri and Gayatri who taught us the wonderful Hand Blessing of the women of Kerala. To paraphrase the famous Jewish prayer, her memory is a blessing to us all.
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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