News – Page 88

December 18, 2014January 9, 2024

2015 Keynote by Susan Griffin

“Who Is Telling the Story? A Few Remarks on the Mythic Imagination”

The wondrous events and magic depicted in myth mirror the creative process of storytelling in countless ways. Using her own experience as a writer as well as that of other contemporary and classic writers and poets, Griffin will describe the often mysterious alchemical process by which words and rhymes, plots, turns of plots, characters, scenes and even whole landscapes enter the imaginary realm of the tale, a process which challenges many of the dualities engrained in modern consciousness.

Susan Griffin was born in Los Angeles California in 1943, in the midst of the Second World War and the holocaust, and these events had a lasting effect on her thinking. She draws deep connections between the destruction of nature, the diminishment of women, and racism, and she traces the causes of war to denial in both private and public life. Her work moves beyond the boundaries of form and perception. She is known for her innovative style. Her groundbreaking book Woman and Nature, is an extended prose-poem that inspired the ecofeminist movement.

In A Chorus of Stones, the Private Life of War, Griffin blends history and memoir. Her most recent book, Wrestling with the Angel of Democracy, the Autobiography of an American Citizen (published by Trumpeter books in April, 2008) explores the state of mind that engenders and sustains democracy.

Her “social autobiography,” A Chorus of Stones, was a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Award, winner of the BABRA Award in 1992, and also a NY Times Notable Book of the Year. Her play Voices, which won an Emmy in 1975 for a local PBS production, has been performed throughout the world, including a radio production by the BBC. In 2009 she was awarded a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship.

Additionally, she has been named by Utne Reader as one of a hundred important visionaries for the new millennium.

December 17, 2014January 9, 2024

Registration for 2015 Symposium Is Now Open

At the link below you’ll find the registration pages for our 2015 Symposium. You’ll be offered the chance to join when you register, giving you member rates for the event. Please remember that if you have received confirmation that you are presenting, you must join ASWM in order to be part of the program.

And reserve your room here: Red Lion Hotel Reservation Link.

October 27, 2014January 9, 2024

Illustrations Needed!

How many times have you read a scholarly work that describes a design or artifact and said, “But what does it look like?” As publishers cut costs, illustrations are disappearing from books. As scholars we’re left with half an idea, half an understanding. We can’t learn what we can’t see.

In other cases old photos are reproduced from previous editions, degraded to the point that they are almost meaningless. Can you find anything useful in this repeatedly over-printed picture of the Matres at Bath? Yet it appears in a book on Scottish folklore.

Miriam Robbins Dexter is co-author of the award-winning book Sacred Display: Divine and Magical Female Figures of Eurasia. This volume bucks the trend of modern publishing; it relies heavily on illustrations to advance its thesis. Miriam describes the issue this way:

Images greatly enhance scholarly books and articles, but it is essential that they be high quality. Most good publishers will not accept fuzzy or low-pixel images. It is possible to purchase excellent images from museums but those are quite expensive. Crisp line drawings are not as expensive as museum copies, and they reproduce much better than poor quality photographs. Line drawings are an excellent means of rendering publishable images.

At ASWM, we want to be able to include quality images in our proceeding anthology. We are issuing this special call for donations to enable us to include artists’ original line drawings for the anthology. We will work directly with illustrators, rather than placing the burden on individual authors to find and hire artists.

At the same time we are working on the anthology, we can develop a resource that will have a long-term impact on scholarship. Among ASWM’s members are many visual artists; we plan to set up directory that would link them with authors in need of illustrations. Miriam says, “I applaud the idea of pairing authors with artists who can render excellent line drawings: it is an idea whose time has come.”

ASWM is in an ideal position to provide a service and enhance publication of scholarship. If you would like to help us with this project, please go to our Donations page. And watch our site and newsletter for updates on this important project.