“Waterbirds, Water, Women and Place in Archaic European Lore”
Dr. Barber’s works bring together scholarship from a wide range of sources to discuss such diverse topics as textile history as “woman’s work,” culture and migration, the origins of myth in cosmology, and the evolution of modern folk dance from beginnings in ritual and sacred story. Her books include Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years; Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times (1995), The Mummies of Ürümchi (1999), When They Severed Earth from Sky: How the Human Mind Shapes Myth (2004, coauthor with Paul T. Barber) and The Dancing Goddesses: Folklore, Archaeology, and the Origins of European Dance (2013).
The Dancing Goddesses: Folklore, Archaeology, and the Origins of European Dance won ASWM’s Sarasvati Award for Best Nonfiction Book in Women and Mythology in 2014. Publishers Weekly says of this book,
“Rich with anecdotes and compelling explanations of the origin of many modern customs (such as throwing rice at a bride), Barber’s is an informative and amusing read, often bringing together many diverse sources—traditional stories, illustrations of artifacts, and aspects of popular culture—into an illuminating whole that will serve as a nice introduction for those unfamiliar with the topic, and a valuable reference for scholars of European dance and folklore.”
Dr. Barber is professor emerita of archaeology and linguistics at Occidental College.
The Kore Award for Best Dissertation in Women and Mythology is offered through the Association for Study of Women and Mythology and made possible through the gift of a generous contributor. The Award recognizes excellence in scholarship in the area of women and mythology. It is offered in even-numbered years, for dissertations completed in the previous two calendar years (including defense). The 2018 award is offered for dissertations completed and defended in 2016 and 2017.
Applicants can be from any discipline, including but not limited to literature, religious studies, art or art history, classics, anthropology, and communications. Creative dissertations must include significant analysis of mythology in addition to creative work. A letter of support from the dissertation director is required is part of the application. Applicants must be members of ASWM at time of submission. Award-winning dissertations may be included in the ASWM members-only dissertation database.
Applications for the 2018 award may be made between November 1, 2017 and January 19, 2018. Selection is made by a panel of scholars from a variety of disciplines.
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Application for Kore Award for Best Dissertation in Women and Mythology
Deadline for submission: January 19, 2018
Award presentation: March 17, 2018 at ASWM National Conference, Las Vegas (successful applicant will be notified by February 15, 2018 and award presentation will be made in Las Vegas)
Name:
Mailing address:
Email:
Field of Study:
Title of Dissertation:
Date of graduation:
Degree granted by:
Dissertation advisor’s name:
Dissertation abstract:
Please submit this form via email to ASWM.KoreAward@gmail.com, with PDF or MSWord attachment of dissertation. Please have dissertation director email letter of support, also in PDF or MSWord, to same address.
Our main theme is explorations of animal and earth mysteries, with an emphasis on Native American and indigenous scholarship. This year our program will include a poster session for research in progress, in addition to panels, workshops, films, and plenary sessions.
Dr. Gala Argent: “The Agency of Horses, Horses as Heroes in Eurasian Poetry and Archaeology”
Sherri Mitchell, social justice attorney for indigenous peoples and land rights
And we will have a special presentation by Kathy Jones, founder of the Glastonbury Goddess Conference.
Join us to celebrate our first decade of inspiring and stimulating scholarly events. Come early for special pre-conference tour to the Temple of Goddess Spirituality Dedicated to Sekhmet (Thursday March 15).
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And stay over for a day of Modern Matriarchal Studies, also in the Gold Coast Hotel, on Sunday March 18. Register here for Modern Matriarchal Studies:
We are pleased to announce that ASWM has received a special outreach grant for our 2018 conference. This will fund presentations and participation by Native American and indigenous scholars and researchers. Proposals will be read by an outside panel of scholars, and applicants may be asked to provide certification of their tribal membership. ASWM will consider successful grant projects and articles for inclusion in our forthcoming Proceedings series.
Our external grants committee invites Native American and indigenous scholars, researchers, artists, and activists to submit critical, creative, and practitioner proposals on topics that address the identity and empowerment of Native American and indigenous women, girls, families, and the environment through women-centered mythologies, earth centered mythologies, story-telling, healing practices, inter-generational exchanges, and traditional knowledge and practices. We encourage work whose objective is to empower both women and the earth to alleviate violence and suffering in both women and the environment. We invite proposals that demonstrate the application of traditional knowledge and wisdom practices in rectifying social justice issues pertaining to women and the environment.
Grant funded presenters will present their work at the 2018 biennial conference. The final paper or presentation form of approved grant projects should adhere to a 20 minute conference presentation format.
The deadline for submissions has been extended until October 15, 2017.
At the first ASWM conference in 2010, my aunt Savithri and I led the ritual called Karadarshanam (“kara” in Sanskrit means “hand,” and “darsanam” means “looking, seeing, witnessing”) as part of the opening ceremonies for our conference. Hindus believe that our hand is an important organ of apperception and action.
“A Shrine for the Ancestral Midwives” by Lauren Raine
Practicing Hindus would tell you that when you first awake in the morning, you must not jump out of bed, or start thinking about work or your list of things to do or money or debts or anything of the kind.
When you break the fast called sleep, when you have allowed all of your sensory organs to fall into a state of rest, and you wake up, it is a state change. Hindus would tell you that you should initiate this state change each morning by bringing your hands together and feeling your hands mindfully, perhaps by folding them in supplication or prayer and silently meditate on the following mantra.
It is a beautiful mantra. The essence of the mantra is this: within your hand resides the three divine goddesses – Lakshmi (the goddess of wealth), Saraswati (the goddess of Learning), and Gauri (the mother goddess or Devi, also known as Sakti (energy), Siva’s consort. When you meditate on your hand, you invoke the blessings of all three goddesses to bless everything you do for the rest of the day.
In western metaphysics too, there is a similar link between hands and divinity. Remember Michaelangelo’s great painting of God and Adam? In the iconographic systems of many religions, supplicating hands differentiate the spiritual being from non-spiritual beings.
Here is the full mantra, first in Sanskrit, then a linear translation in English, followed by a sense paraphrase translation in English.
Karagre vasate Lakshmi
Kara madhye Saraswati
Kara moole stithe Gauri
Prabhate Karadarshanam
Karagre – at the tip of your fingers vasate – resides Lakshmi – the Hindu goddess of wealth and prosperity Kara madhye — in the center of your palm Saraswati – the Hindu goddess of learning Kara moole – at the base of your palm (wrist really) stithe – dwells Gauri —the Hindu mother goddess or Devi, the root source of all divine energy and power (Sakti) Prabhate — at the break of dawn Kara – palm/ hand darshanam – contemplate, look, study
Now the sense paraphrase-
On the tips of your fingers, Lakshmi
In the center of your palm, Saraswati
At your wrist, Gauri
Pray to your hand in the morning.
The divine energy of Gauri or Devi flows outwards from your wrist to your palm and to the tips of your fingers.
When you write, when you cook, when you eat, when you type, when you garden, when you clean, when you lift something, when you play something, when you build something, when you treat something, when you operate on someone, when you touch something, when you drive, when you sow, when you reap, your hand is your primary interface with the world.
By meditating on your hand, and by asking the mother goddess and her incarnations to bless your hand, you are asking for divine guidance throughout the day for your actions. You don’t have to go to a temple or a church or a synagogue or a mosque. You can pray to your own hand mindfully.
And–here is one more reason never to raise your hand in anger.
Gayatri Devi is a board member of the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology. She is Associate Professor of English at Lock Haven University, Pennsylvania, where she teaches literature, linguistics and women’s studies courses. Her book Humor in Middle Eastern Cinema (Wayne State University Press 2014) examines modalities of humor in select films from the Middle East and the Middle Eastern diaspora. Her articles and book chapters on South Asian and Middle Eastern literatures and films have been published in select scholarly anthologies and in journals including World Literature Today, North Dakota Quarterly, The Guardian, Ms. Magazine, and South Asian Review.
Artwork: “A Shrine for the Ancestral Midwives,” ceramic sculpture by Lauren Raine “The hands in this ceramic piece were taken from a cast I made of a midwife, who was preparing to retire after a long career of bringing babies into the world. This is the gesture she took, which she told me was the actual gesture, or “mudra”, of midwives. Inspired by this I made this Shrine, dedicated to the countless nameless ancestral midwives who have brought us into this world since the beginnings of humanity. ”
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