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Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture
Editors Mary Ann Beavis and Helen Hye-Sook Hwang
Publisher Mago Books (Lytle Creek, CA)
Publication Date August 7, 2018
BW Paperback ISBN: 9781718760028 (448 pages)
Color Paperback ISBN: 9781976331022 (433 pages)
Sample pages are available below (Table of Contents, Introduction, Authors, Appendix: Artworks, and References).
Description 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 22 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. The color print book that has Artworks will be arriving at a future point of time. In order to save space for the print 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.]
This book and other Mago Books are awarded as Women’s Spirituality 100 Book Award by California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS).
Updates and Testimonials
Book Release Party by Kirsten Brunsgaard Clausen
Full Cover and Endorsements
“This brilliant collection of essays, Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture, is an invaluable contribution to several fields: thealogy, ecology, indigenous cultures, feminist theories, and intra-religious dialogue. The collection marks a new milestone in that it not only celebrates the growing maturity but also critically interrogates aspects of goddess scholarship. It is a rare gift to those searching for spiritual integrity in these darkening days, and a welcome contribution for those searching for thorough academic grounding in this emerging field.” Mary Condren, Th.D. Director of Woman Spirit Ireland, author of The Serpent and the Goddess: Women, Religion and Power in Celtic Ireland.
“This meticulous assembly of historical, archaeological, artistic and religious sources retrieves one of Asia’s most ancient Goddess traditions and tracks the underground streams of its influence across millennia. It was a labor of love to piece together the shards of memories embedded in cliffs, clay, land stone and retrieve the threads of ancient myths in fragments of songs and ritual that belong to this tradition. The scholarship is both passionate and impeccable, patient and detailed, and breath-taking in its broad sweep. There is much to ponder here.” Karen Jo Torjesen, Margo L. Goldsmith Chair of Women’s Studies in Religion at Claremont Graduate University, author of When Women Were Priests: Women’s Leadership in the Early Church and the Scandal of Their Subordination in the Rise of Christianity.
“An academic textbook, regarding the Goddess placed cross culturally, as of the one much needed and numerous topics surrounding the Feminine Divine. Editors Mary Ann Beavis and Helen Hye-Sook Hwang have brought a wide collection of women and men writers, researchers, facilitators and instructors together, all from the Women’s Spirituality community, to bring analysis of cross cultural female wisdom—which has the foresight to appeal to a far reaching audience by giving them back their stories. Bravo Mago Publishers!” Jayne DeMente, MA WSE, CIIS, Feminine Reformation; a Goddess Meta Narrative, Volume I.
“This impressive book offers an erudite survey of the roots and manifestations of goddess worship across cultures while making a valuable contribution to re-emerging Thealogy in the 21st century that is deep, wide, and visionary.” Scott Daniel Dunbar, Ph.D.
“This book is a revelation—and a must-read book for any serious student of the sacred feminine. It shares new insights on the Great Goddesses of the past, and explores some of the contemporary spiritual traditions in Africa, Asia, and the Indigenous world where the Goddess/es are still honored.” Arisika Razak, Professor Emerita, Former Director of CIIS (California Institute of Integral Studies) Women’s Spirituality Program.
“Thus far, there is no book encyclopedic in nature that examines the Divine Feminine of all major and minor religious traditions around the world in a single volume. This is a welcome addition. Not only will undergraduate students find it suitable, but graduate students, too, will find this book a useful resource.” Deepak Shimkhada, Ph.D. Adjunct Professor, Claremont School of Theology, President, South Asian Studies Association.
“Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture is an impressive collection of scholarly articles, which together fill a significant gap in the pedagogy of comparative religion, the history of religion, and cultural history. As textbooks go, it is a historic event.” Charlene Spretnak, author of States of Grace.
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“I was delighted to read this textbook because back in 1978, when Lost Goddesses of Early Greece was published, I envisioned an entire shelf of kindred books that would tell the stories of (and cite the scholarly evidence for) Goddesses in cultures around the world in various eras. This book exceeds what I had imagined then. Many admirable versions have been written for a general audience, but this book weighs in as a solid scholarly contribution. I feel that my hope, so long ago, has come to fruition with Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture.” Charlene Spretnak, author of Lost Goddesses of Early Greece.
Testimonials
“This book looks to be exactly what I was looking for. I am in the middle of writing an historical fiction trilogy about changing women’s roles in the development of patriarchal cultures in the Mediterranean. I have been studying and teaching Goddess history since the 80s, and have a large library of references, however, I wanted to be sure that what I am now writing fits with current research… I’ve just spent the day intensively reading and browsing in Goddesses in Myth, History, and Culture and, I have to say, it is even more than I imagined.” Lucinda Eileen (Arroyo Grande, California: USA)
“I have a copy myself and am enjoying it tremendously. I am a Jungian analyst in the SF Bay Area and am deeply immersed in this work and finding the compilation invaluable to my research. Thank you so much.” (Shoshana Fershtman, JD, PhD Psychologist and Jungian Analyst)
Meet Editors
Mary Ann Beavis
Mary Ann Beavis (Ph.D., Cambridge University) is Professor of Religion and Culture at St. Thomas More College, the University of Saskatchewan (Saskatoon, Canada). Her areas of specialization include Christian Origins, Feminist Biblical Interpretation, and Women and Religion.
The courses she teaches include “Goddesses in Myth and History,” and her current research project, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada, is a study of women who blend Goddess Spirituality and Christianity. Her books include Mark’s Audience, Jesus and Utopia, Mark (Paideia Commentaries), and Hebrews (Wisdom Commentaries), and two edited volumes, The Lost Coin: Parables of Women, Work and Wisdom, and Feminist Theology with a Canadian Accent. She is the author of many peer-reviewed articles, five of which reflect her current interest in the Mary Magdalene/Mary of Bethany tradition. For more, see here.
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Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.
Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D. is scholar, activist, and advocate of Magoism, anciently originated tradition that venerates Mago as the Great Goddess. She earned her MA and Ph.D. in Religion with emphasis on Feminist Studies from Claremont Graduate University, CA. She also studied toward an MA degree in East Asian Studies at UCLA, CA. Hwang has taught for universities in California and Missouri, U.S.A. Since 2012, Dr. Hwang has founded and directed The Mago Work whose branches include the Return to Mago E-Magazine (http://magoism.net), Mago Academy (http://magoacademy.org), and Mago Books (https://www.magobooks.com). Together with Mago Sisters, she also founded Gynapedia (http://www.gynapedia.com) and Mago Pool Circle (http://www.magopoolcircle.net) to broaden The Mago Work. She co-edited and published She Rises: Why Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality? Volume 1 (Mago Books, 2015) and She Rises: How Goddess Feminism, Activism and Spirituality? Volume 2 (Mago Books, 2016). Also authored The Mago Way: Re-discovering Mago, the Great Goddess from East Asia(Mago Books, 2015). For more, see here.
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