Goddesses In World Culture

This collection of accessible essays relates the stories of individual goddesses from around the world, exploring their roles in the cultures from which they came, their histories and status today, and the controversies surrounding them. Goddesses in World Culture brings readers the fascinating stories of close to 100 of the world's goddesses, ranging from the immediately recognizable to the obscure. These figures, many of whom derive from ancient cultures and civilizations, serve as points of departure for examining questions that go well beyond the role of women in religion and spirituality to include social organization, environmental awareness, historical developments, and psychological archetypes. Each volume of this groundbreaking set is composed of 20–25 previously unpublished articles written by expert contributors from diverse disciplines. Volume one covers Asia and Africa, volume two covers the Eastern Mediterranean and Europe, and volume three covers Australia and the Americas. Goddesses from cultures often overlooked in texts on religion, such as those of the Australian Aborigines, Korea, Nepal, and the Caribbean, are included here. In addition, the work offers new translations of ancient texts, introduces little-known folklore, and suggests new approaches to contemporary religious practices.

This collection of accessible essays relates the stories of individual goddesses from around the world, exploring their roles in the cultures from which they came, their histories and status today, and the controversies surrounding them.

This book fills the very real need for an affordable, accessible, academic textbook featuring Goddesses from a wide range of world religious, cultural and mythological traditions. As a textbook, its primary audience is professors and students in university and college courses in Goddess Studies, Religious Studies, and Women's and Gender Studies. It will also be of interest to students and instructors in the many Goddess-themed courses outside the academy. The contributors to the textbook were selected for their scholarly expertise and qualifications in their respective areas of study, both established and emerging scholars from Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Scandinavia, and Australia. The Goddess traditions surveyed in the 23 chapters include the Female Divine in the major world religions-not only Hinduism and Buddhism, but also in the "Western Religions" of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, popularly regarded as impervious to the Goddess. The coverage ranges from ancient to contemporary, Mago to Mary Magdalene. As such, it is a unique and much-needed resource for students and faculty, as well as a treasury of Goddess scholarship. [Editorial Note: Regarding the Artworks by Sudie Rakusin and Deborah Jane Milton in Appendix, only e-book and the color print book include them. In order to save space for the book, the list of References is made available in the Mago Books website. (Free PDF download available in a page entitled Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture under the menu of Textbooks in http: //www.magobooks.com). In any case, all chapters are formatted so that full bibliographical information can be found in the footnotes.]

How have the goddesses of ancient myth survived, prevalent even now as literary and cultural icons? How do allegory, symbolic interpretation, and political context transform the goddess from her regional and individual identity into a goddess of philosophy and literature? Emilie Kutash explores these questions, beginning from the premise that cultural memory, a collective cultural and social phenomenon, can last thousands of years. Kutash demonstrates a continuing practice of interpreting and allegorizing ancient myths, tracing these goddesses of archaic origin through history. Chapters follow the goddesses from their ancient near eastern prototypes, to their place in the epic poetry, drama and hymns of classical Greece, to their appearance in Platonic and Neoplatonic philosophy, Medieval allegory, and their association with Christendom. Finally, Kutash considers how goddesses were made into Jungian archetypes, and how some contemporary feminists made them a counterfoil to male divinity, thereby addressing the continued role of goddesses in perpetuating gender binaries.

Covering 3,000 years of goddess worship, and offering unprecedented access to information on more than 11,000 goddesses, nymphs, demons, and deified women, this fascinating book explores hundreds of cultures the world over that have worshipped female divinities. 100 illustrations.

Britomartis, goddess of the moon, was a clever, active girl who loved to hunt with her bow and arrows.... Britomartis was sacred to fishermen, hunters and sailors.

"The scholarship in this book is superior, revealing a depth of insight and a scope of knowledge possible only from a scholar who has lived with the concerns of feminist theology for decades. Ruether is a gifted storyteller, and lucidly translates complex ideas and debates. This work is of the highest importance, and Ruether asks the right questions at the right time. The text is groundbreaking."—Nancy Pineda-Madrid, Saint Mary's College of California "Ruether has provided a valuable introduction to an important feminist topic: what can we know about sacred female imagery in Western culture? She guides us through contemporary feminist scholarship, providing engaging narrative, and venturing her own interpretations. Ruether calls for feminists to move beyond divisions created by our different interpretations of prehistory and work together towards our common project of a more peaceful, just, and ecological world."—Carol Hepokoski, Meadville Lombard Theological School

The essays focus upon popular culture as it is informed by ancient and current mythic images, narratives, personalities, icons and archetypes. Topics include: the cult status of the serial sex killer; sexual murder as a contemporary form of religious sacrifice; pornography as an everyday narrative underlying not only sexism, but also racism, homophobia, and militarism; the relation of incest to nuclearism; pornography and the sacred; cyborg myth; and subtextual presence of ancient goddess figures in contemporary narratives, including that of Princess Diana.