Category: The Archive

Pendle Hill is a Quaker study, retreat, and conference center located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, just outside Philadelphia.

Pendle Hill was established in 1930 as a Quaker study center designed to prepare its adult students for service both in the Religious Society of Friends and in the world. The founders envisioned the new school as “a vital center of spiritual culture” and “a place for training leaders.”

Today, Pendle Hill continues to be a vibrant experiment in adult religious education, through its conferences, publications, and online resources. At the heart of its programs are the foundational principles of “equality of opportunity and respect for individuals, simplicity of the educational and material environment, harmony of inward and outward actions, community in daily life and in the seeking of the Spirit.”

 

Our 2017 symposium sessions will take place in the historic Brinton House, overlooking the woods and pond, and located a short walk from the Main House where our meals will take place. Pendle Hill is located on 23 beautiful acres of grounds. We encourage you to come early to enjoy walking the mile long woodchip trail, through “miniature ecosystems” with140 species of trees and flowering shrubs.

Pendle Hill is located just outside Philadelphia, easy to reach by car, train, or plane. It’s a Five-minute drive from Media and Swarthmore College and 20 minutes from Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges.

 

At our 2017 symposium, ASWM members will be treated to a special concert by the Anna Crusis Women’s Choir (ANNA), Philadelphia’s own feminist choir.   We will also recognize the long time work of ANNA by presenting them with the 2017 Brigit Award for Excellence in the Arts. For over 40 years, the Choir has empowered, challenged and uplifted audiences with music that inspires, provokes, delights and informs.

ANNA is a premier performing arts group in the greater Philadelphia region, supporting critical causes including promoting peace, guarding reproductive rights, ending poverty, achieving gender equality, supporting the LGBTQ community, fighting rape and abuse – anywhere that music can bring a sense of empowerment.

At the same time, ANNA is committed to musical excellence and to the creation of new music by commissioning works from women composers. They have performed at such diverse venues as Carnegie Hall, the Tannenbaum Center for Interreligious Education at the United Nations, and the Women’s Rights Convention at Seneca Falls, NY. Their songs unite women of all economic backgrounds, sexual orientations, ages, and racial and religious heritages.  In their own words:

We believe in using music as a force for social change. We often focus our vision on women’s issues and lives in all of our diversity. We create an open and welcoming space for people who love lifting their voices in song and who share the belief that music is the currency of hope.

Registration is now closed for our 2017 Symposium in Philadelphia,  “Mythology, Women and Society:  Growing the Groundswell.”

We will meet at Pendle Hill Retreat Center for a program of scholarship and arts, and a community conversation about women, society and justice:

• Peggy Reeves Sanday–Keynote:  “The Matrixial Foundation of Maternal Cultural Meanings in Myth and Ritual,” exploring the matriarchal cultures of the Muoso and Minangkabau
• Annie Finch–a writing ritual for justice and healing
• Lucia Birnbaum and Cristina Biaggi–transformative justice
• Lisa Levart –“Art, Activism and the Goddess”
• Anna Crusis Women’s Choir–evening concert

Our schedule includes such topics as The Mothers of #Black Lives Matter, Biblical heroines and queer theory, Algerian mythology, Eco-Justice, Hildegard von Bingen and Anatolian Great Mothers.

Come early on Friday for interest groups discussions about film and intuitive knowledge, and other topics of interest.  Those who register may apply for our Marketplace.

Update: Interest Groups will meet at 7:30 Friday evening, in the Brinton House

1.  Film and Filmmakers will meet Friday evening.  They will offer a special screening of “As She Is,” a new film by Megan McFeely, who will participate in the group’s conversation about the feminine principle and individual power for change.  This is an authentic and beautiful documentary about a woman’s real quest into the unconscious to claim what was missing..to integrate the masculine with the feminine and give birth to herself. 
2. Nondominant Ways of Knowing:  Intuition and Divination.  This group will consider the relationship between our women’s wisdom, intuition, and methods to divine insight.  Nancy Vedder-Shults will be on hand to discuss her new book, The World Is Your Oracle.
3. Chant, Song, and (maybe) Dancing:  This group will get us centered through bringing our voices together. Weather permitting, we will meet outside where we can dance together.

For more information contact our Events team.

Mythology, Women and Society: Growing the Groundswell

March 25, 2017, Brinton House, Pendle Hill,  Philadelphia PA

8:00-8:30 – REGISTRATION (Dining Hall & Brinton House)

8:30-9:30  KEYNOTE

The Matrixial Foundation of Maternal Cultural Meanings in Myth and Ritual

Dr. Peggy Reeves Sanday, Professor of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania

 

9:45-11:15 SESSION 1: Motherhood in Patriarchy

Moderator: Marna Hauk

1. Priscilla Hobbs-Penn, Finding Demeter: Re-Imagining the Myth of Motherhood for Millennials
2. Carla Ionescu, The Myth of Athena/Medusa–Justice and War: The Duality of Women’s Roles in Patriarchal Politics [skype]
3. Donna Giancola, Women, Land, and Eco-justice

 

9:45-11:15 SESSION 2: Biblical Heroines and Social Justice

Moderator: Joan Cichon

1. Jessica Bowman, Riding the Spiral: Social Justice, Mystic Creativity, and Goddess Consciousness
2. Caralie Focht, The Butch Goddess: A Queer Reading of Exodus 2-6
3. Judith Wouk, Justice for Hidden Heroines – Delilah
4. Hadassah Nechushta, Justice for Hidden Heroines – Queen Nechushta

 

11:15-12:45 PM  Networking Lunch (Dining Hall)

 

1:00-2:30 SESSION 3: Writing Workshop

Among the Goddesses: A Writing Ritual for Justice and Healing

Annie Finch

 

1:00 – 2:30 SESSION 4: Matricultures and Social Justice

Moderator: Gayatri Devi

1. Mary Louise Stone, Empowered Leadership from a Motherline of the Americas
2. Gayatri Devi, Mothering as an Imaginary of Political Peace: Mothers of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement and the Democratic Process
3. Laura Zegel, Black Mother Within: Retrieving Our Selves from Racism and Sexism Through the Black Madonna

 

2.45 – 4:15   SESSION 5: Goddess Wisdom Righting Wrongs: Three Transnational Stories

Moderator: Dawn Work-Makinne

1. Dawn Work-Makinne, Sibyl of the Rhine: Hildegard von Bingen as a Northern Wisdomkeeper
2. Monica Mody, The Borderlands Feminine: A Feminist, Decolonial Framework for Remythologizing the Goddess in South Asia/Transnational Culture
3. Irene Wolfstone, Indigenous Matricultures in North America [skype]

 

2:45 – 4:15   SESSION 6: Embodiment and Mysticism: New Sisterhood in the Academy

Moderator: Gayatri Devi

1. Annalisa Derr, Invoking Inanna: Female Bodily Wisdom of Cyclical Renewal as the New Societal Model
2. Gina Belton, Soror Mystica Wears a Red Dress: The Alchemy of Midwifery and Decolonization in Our Last Wild Place
3. Megan McFeeley, Alone Together: Social Activism From Inside
4. April Heaslip, Reinitiating Psyche: The Academy as Sisterhood

 

4:30 – 5:45 PLENARY: From Groundswell to Eruption: Transformative Justice

• Cristina Biaggi, Volcano Goddesses
• Lucia Birnbaum, Future has an ancient heart. case: Blackbird and Pear Tree

 

6:00 – 7:30 DINNER BREAK

 

7:30 – 9:00 PM  GODDESS IN ART AND SONG

• Lisa Levart, Art, Activism and the Goddess
• Anna Crusis Women’s Choir, Concert

The deadline for submissions for 2017 has passed.  This call for proposals is for information only. 

Mythology, Women and Society: Growing the Groundswell
March 25 2017, Pendle Hill, Philadelphia, PA  

In the current era women are stepping into leadership in increasing numbers in social, political and cultural debates around gender, race, ethnicity and other inequalities. Across the globe, women are running for political office with stated interest to advance gender parity in the political area and to better living conditions for all people. In other contexts, feminist leadership with power-sharing and solidarity are changing the political landscape and opening possibilities.
At this time of inclusion of women’s voices in our socio-political arenas, we as scholars of the divine feminine raise the following questions for consideration for the 2017 ASWM Symposium: How can the study of women and mythology contribute to our current conversations about women, justice, and society? How can examination of contemporary and historical mythology of the feminine divine illuminate individual and collective ways of thinking, acting and being, to protect the earth and her inhabitants from war, violence, exploitation, and suffering? Rather than merely reacting to injustice, how may we inspire conversations about solutions? How do matriarchal cultural and spiritual traditions surface unheard voices and enact justice? To such ends, how do cultures around the globe invite, invoke, and listen to the feminine divine?
Globally, Goddess mythologies illustrate definitions and dimensions of societies rooted in balance, gender equity, and reverence for the earth and her creatures, simultaneously providing language to articulate grief and loss, joy and harmony. In the spirit of celebrating women taking leadership we invite papers, panels, and workshops including, but not limited to the following topics:
• The divine feminine and foundational societal myths
• Images of justice and feminine-oriented spiritual practices
• Nationalisms, patriarchy, political violence, and goddess myths
• Mythologies and goddesses of justice, peace, and refuge
• The divine feminine and community solidarity
• Mythologies and goddesses of transitions, liminalities, and migration
• Goddess myths of justice, social order, and national virtues
• Goddesses of death, mourning, and loss
• Divine interventions for out-of-balance human behavior
• Goddess myths and resisting violence
• Feminist spiritual traditions that inspire power-sharing, justice-seeking, and groundswelling movements of liberation
• Priestesses and goddesses of justice, transformation, and liberation
• Herstorical and mythological instances of coalition, justice, and groundswell/uprising
• Cross-cultural, feminist spirituality theories that enable previously suppressed voices and positions
We especially encourage proposals from Native American /indigenous scholars and women of color.  Papers should be 20 minutes; panels with up to four papers on a related topic may be proposed together. Workshop proposals should be organized to provide audience interaction and must clearly address the theme. All sessions and workshops are limited to 90 minutes.

Presenters from all disciplines are welcome, as well as creative artists and practitioners whose work engages mythic themes in a scholarly manner. Presenters must become members of ASWM.

Send 250 ¬word abstract (for panels, 200 word abstract plus up to 150 words per paper) in PDF or MSWord to aswmsubmissions@gmail.com by Nobember 1, 2016. Use “2017 proposal” and last name in subject header. Include bio of up to 70 words for each presenter, as well as contact information including surface address and email. See www.womenandmyth.org for program updates and registration.