News

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Green Goddess Conference Follow-up

The 2010 Green Goddess Conference has come and gone (alas) but it has left us with wonderful memories and connections.

More than 80 of us met in the mountains of Pennsylvania for three very busy, very productive days.  The program was packed full, including both academic presentations and experiential workshops.  The conference was a great success,  according to our measures—the “hive” was full of energy and ideas, many new friendships and collaborations took place, and we enjoyed diverse and stimulating presentations and performances.  Furthermore, all of the organizers are still good friends (not always a given in event planning)!

Your president/web reporter will offer follow up articles and pictures of the event soon.  At present I am re-learning to sit still with a cat on my lap and to listen to the violets bloom.

Watch this site for conference reports and announcements of upcoming events.  We are already planning for regional symposia in 2011 (WI and PA) and a conference in Chicago in 2012!

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Online Class on Ice Age Art and Archetypes

Shamans, Skywatchers, and Storytellers:  Wisdom from the Ice Ages

a six-week online course offered in 2010.

This class was designed to  “meet around an on-line hearth” to explore myths and realities of life for our most ancient ancestors, the tribes of the Ice Age.   I am interested to share resources with other scholars of Ice Age life, art, and symbolism.  Contact me here:

Sid Reger, Ed.D., is a goddess artist and scholar whose passions are prehistoric art and goddess cultures. Sid is a member of the faculty of the Women’s Thealogical Institute, and the president of the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology.

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Heart of the Sun: forthcoming Sekhmet anthology

Sekhmet

The anthology  Heart of the Sun:  An Anthology in Exaltation of Sekhmet will be published this year by Goddess Institute Publishing.  The editors, Dr. Candace Kant and Dr. Anne Key, Priestesses of the Temple of Goddess Spirituality Dedicated to Sekhmet, describe the project as follows: “As Priestesses and scholars, we endeavor to create an anthology that will serve as a resource and a source of inspiration to those that want to honor Sekhmet and explore more about Her multiple manifestations.”

Watch this site for more information detailing this exciting publication and other projects of Goddess Institute Publishing.

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2010 Kore Award for Best Dissertation

Dawn Work-MaKinne receives first Kore Award

The first Kore Award for Best Dissertation in Goddess Studies was presented  April 24, 2010, at ASWM’s  Green Goddess Conference.  The award went to Dawn E. Work-MaKinne, Ph.D., a graduate of Union Institute & University.  Her dissertation, Deity in Sisterhood: The Collective Sacred Female in Germanic Europe, was commended for its “skilled integration of important German language material critical to studies of mythology.”

Dr. Work-MaKinne received her Doctor of Philosophy in Interdisciplinary Studies in 2010, with a Concentration in Arts and Sciences and a specialization in Women’s Studies in Religion. Continue reading “2010 Kore Award for Best Dissertation”

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Review: Textbook on Women and Goddesses

Women and Goddesses in Myth and Sacred Text:  An Anthology, Tamara Agha-Jaffar, editor.  New York:  Pearson Longman, 2005.

Reviewed by Johanna H. Stuckey, Ph.D., York University, Toronto, Canada

Women and Goddesses in Myth and Sacred Text

When I was teaching Goddess courses in the 1970s to 1990s, I would have been really grateful to have had access to this textbook. It does what few other such books do: it provides key selections in translation from religious and mythical material pertaining to the goddess/woman being studied. Thus, students can dip into, among others, such works as the Babylonian creation story, the Hebrew and Christian Bibles, the Qur’an, and the Ramayana.

The goddesses and sacred women Agha-Jaffar treats are as follows: Isis, Inanna, Tiamat, Demeter and Persephone, Circe, Medea, Sita, Kali, Amaterasu, Kuan Yin, Lilith, Eve, Virgin Mary, Hawwa, Maryam, Oshun, White Buffalo Woman, and Corn Mother. If I had been picking the ones to include, I probably would have left out two of the sacred women (Circe and Medea) and added the Canaanite/Israelite Asherah and another Greek or Asian goddess or both. However, Agha-Jaffar’s choices reflect the course she was teaching and for which she devised this textbook.

Continue reading “Review: Textbook on Women and Goddesses”