Category: Sharing News of Others

News and articles of allied and complementary organizations, of interest to the membership

The Institute for Archaeomythology

IAM

ASWM’s 2021 Symposium, “Wisdom Across the Ages: Celebrating the Centennial of Archaeomythologist Marija Gimbutas,” is presented in cooperation with the Institute of Archaeomythology (IAM). Inspired by the scholarship of Lithuanian-American archaeologist Marija Gimbutas, IAM is an international organization of scholars dedicated to fostering an interdisciplinary approach to cultural research with particular emphasis on the beliefs, rituals, social structure, and symbolism of past and present societies. The Institute encourages dialogue among specialists from diverse fields by sponsoring international symposia, by publishing collected papers and monographs, and by promoting creative collaboration within an atmosphere of mutual support.

Marija Gimbutas
Background

A visionary scholar, Marija Gimbutas actively encouraged students and colleagues from a variety of fields to examine problems in European prehistory with a more inclusive and interdisciplinary point of view. A major focus of her research centered on the Neolithic cultures of Old Europe and the Indo-European Bronze Age societies that replaced them. She stressed the importance of investigating the enormous changes in beliefs, rituals and social structure that took place as a result of the “collusion of cultures” that took place between c. 4500-2500 BC, during the Indo-Europeanization of Europe, in order to more fully understand subsequent European cultural development. In Gimbutas’s view, this was “one of the most complex and least understood [periods] in prehistory.”

Journal of Archaeomythology

The JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOMYTHOLOGY has been published on a semi-yearly basis since 2005. The Journal is available on an OPEN ACCESS basis. All issues of the Journal are freely available to members and non-members alike. To have full access to all Journal articles, please click here to register for a free account. IAM also publishes collected papers from international symposia and monographs on archaeomythological themes. Learn more at their website. IAM is a membership organization; learn more here.

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Remembering the Work of Judith Anderson

This article recently came to our attention. Judith was a wonderful visionary artist  of archetypes of women and nature, who passed away in 2008. (Our thanks to Lauren Raine and Max Dashu for the reference.) The Encyclopedia of  Women in World Religions: Faith and Culture Across History says that Judith “used womb/vagina imagery explicitly as devotional work dedicated to the goddess.”

In the Dark Speech of Praise and Birth:  The Prints of Judith Anderson 

by Catherine Madsen

“Missa Gaia: This is My Body,” Judith Anderson, etching, 1988

Describing her process of printmaking, Judith said,

“The germ of the idea for a particular print develops over many months or sometimes years. Images from reading, dreams, relationships, pictures, plants and animals will gather and cluster until a beginning form for the print emerges. The main image grows and changes, often in surprising ways, during the long process of working on the plate, which may be several months. Only some time after a print is finished do I come to understand intuitively more about its origins and implications.”  (from Art of the Print website)

Here as well is artist Alicia Blaze Hunsicker’s blog post about Judith.

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Virtual Film Festival for Women’s History Month

To commemorate International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month, Women Make Movies (WMM) is hosting a virtual film festival that highlights the new releases in our Transnational Feminist Film collection.

Women Make Movies provides services to filmmakers and educators, and distributes over 700 films by and about women worldwide. WMM has worked with ASWM to bring the best of women’s films to our events and film series.

Throughout March, festival attendees will receive free access to select films about women from around the globe. New films will be added each week and will be available for viewing at no cost for the duration of the festival (March 1 – March 31, 2020).

Our thanks to the women of WMM for bringing us together in this way to celebrate women’s lives this month and every month!

You may sign up here to enjoy the 2020 free films.

Matriarchal Studies Day

facebook.com/ModernMatriarchalStudiesDay

Modern Matriarchal Studies is the “investigation and presentation of non-patriarchal societies”, and matriarchies as “non-hierarchical, horizontal societies of matrilineal kinship”, effectively defining matriarchy as “non-patriarchic matrilineal societies”. Matriarchy is characterized by the sharing of power equally between the two genders, an egalirarian model. – Heide Göttner-Abendroth

Dr. Heide Goettner-Abendroth, the founder of Modern Matriarchal Studies as a branch of feminist anthropology and was a Keynote Speaker at Matriarchal Studies Day 2012, co-sponsored with ASWM.

Matriarchal Studies Day is presented in conjunction with ASWM’s conference, to the benefit of both groups, but registration for this event is not covered by registering for the ASWM Conference. You must register for Matriarchal Studies Day in addition to registration for the ASWM Conference. Early bird registration available, so watch for announcements in January here on the ASWM News blog.

Priestesses of Pele, by Lydia Ruyle

New Bilingual Website:

The Academy HAGIA is pleased to announce its newly created, bilingual website, Matriarchal Studies—Matriarchatsforschung (AHMSM), a unique bibliography of Modern Matriarchal Studies.

matriarchalstudies.com  – Available in English and German (Deutsch)

Read more in ASWM’s News post 8/20/2019

 

Matriarchal Studies Day, Sunday, March 15, 2020

2020 Events were held at the Tamaya Resort and Spa, Santa Ana Pueblo, New Mexico the day immediately following the 2020 ASWM Conference.

Program included

      • an opening welcome by Laura Fragua-Cota
      • video talks by the founding mother of Modern Matriarchal Studies, Heide Gottner-Abendroth, and Gift Economy scholar Genevieve Vaughan

Speakers included

      • Max Dashu
      • Sherri Mitchell
      • Mariam Tazi-Preve
      • Irene Friesen
      • Leilani Birely.

Please visit this page for further additions to our program and watch our Facebook page. For specific questions, contact Joan Cichon, cichon@oakton.edu.

Check out the photos on facebook.com/ModernMatriarchalStudiesDay .

 

Anadolu Twins by Lydia Ruyle
Anadolu Twins by Lydia Ruyle

Anadolu Twins by Lydia Ruyle

Featured Header Image on this page.

A contemporary 36″ x72″ banner based on the gold Twin Goddesses of Alacahuyuk, Turkey, c. 2400 BCE, with Medusa.

Lydia says of this image, “The Anadolu Twins vibrate with the transformational energy of human relationships between parent-child, feminine-masculine, teacher-student, friend-foe, spirit-matter, idea-reality. Nothing in the universe exists in isolation. Everything is in relationship.”

See Lydia’s work at lydiaruyle.com

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Matriarchal Studies – Matriarchatsforschung New Bilingual Website

The Academy HAGIA is pleased to announce its newly created, bilingual website, Matriarchal Studies—Matriarchatsforschung (AHMSM), a unique bibliography of Modern Matriarchal Studies.

The Academy HAGIA has been planning the launch of AHMSM for quite some time, and now it is available on internet, in German at: www.matriarchatsforschung.comand in English at: www.matriarchalstudies.com

The Bibliography exhaustively lists all known studies of and commentaries on the subject of matriarchies, from ancient times up to the modern day. Each title mentioned includes a short caption, so that the origin and development of the field of matriarchy can be traced through to the establishment of modern matriarchal studies.

In the first part of AHMSM offers anthropological publications describing matriarchal societies and societies with matriarchal elements worldwide, in Africa, the Americas, Asia, Australia. The second part of the bibliography is dedicated to the history of matriarchal cultures through archaeological publications and the history of cultures, which have contributed to the knowledge about matriarchal societies in history in West Asia and Europe.

 The Oxford University Press (U.S.) first published this comprehensive, English-language bibliography in 2015, with an update published in 2019, the same year that it was translated into German, making this excellent intellectual tool for research on matriarchal societies now accessible in both English and German.

Licensed by Oxford University Press, AHMSM is available, free of charge, as a gift to scholars and people interested in Modern Matriarchal Studies.