The Goddess


Book Description

From the dawn of the human race, the idea of a Mother Goddess has been an archetype found in every culture and every era--and this fascinating study explores all of her many faces and multitude of roles




Reinventing Eden


Book Description

Visionary quests to return to the Garden of Eden have shaped Western culture from Columbus' voyages to today's tropical island retreats. Few narratives are so powerful - and, as Carolyn Merchant shows, so misguided and destructive - as the dream of recapturing a lost paradise. A sweeping account of these quixotic endeavors by one of America's leading environmentalists, Reinventing Eden traces the idea of rebuilding the primeval garden from its origins to its latest incarnations in shopping malls, theme parks and gated communities. With eloquence and insight, Merchant shows how the drive to conquer nature and to explore and settle the globe, springs from this utopian pastoral impulse throughout Western history. Time and again, human manipulation of the environment is our downfall: Eden is achieved by fencing off pristine beauty in national parks and wildlife preserves, while leaving the majority of the earth in ruins. Challenging both narratives, Merchant argues that the green veneer of city-park conservation has become a cover for the corruption of the earth and the neglect of its environment. Reinventing Eden is a bold new way to think about the earth that includes green political parties, sustainable development and a partnership between humans and earth that is nothing short of an ecological revolution.




Encyclopedia of Goddesses and Heroines


Book Description

More Than 1,000 Goddesses & Heroines from around the World Groundbreaking scholar Patricia Monaghan spent her life researching, writing about, and documenting goddesses and heroines from all religions and all corners of the globe. Her work demonstrated that from the beginning of recorded history, goddesses reigned alongside their male counterparts as figures of inspiration and awe. Drawing on anthropology, folklore, literature, and psychology, Monaghan’s vibrant and accessible encyclopedia covers female deities from Africa, the eastern Mediterranean, Asia and Oceania, Europe, and the Americas, as well as every major religious tradition.




Encyclopedia of Goddesses and Heroines [2 volumes]


Book Description

This two-volume set provides a comprehensive guide to the vast array of feminine divine figures found throughout the world. Drawn from a variety of sources ranging from classical literature to early ethnographies to contemporary interpretations, the Encyclopedia of Goddesses and Heroines provides a comprehensive introduction to the ways goddess figures have been viewed through the ages. This unique encyclopedia of over thousands of figures of feminine divinity describes the myths and attributes of goddesses and female spiritual powers from around the world. The two-volume set is organized by culture and religion, exploring the role of women in each culture's religious life and introducing readers to the background of each pantheon, as well as the individual figures who peopled it. Alternative names for important divinities are offered, as are lists of minor goddesses and their attributes. Interest in women's spirituality has grown significantly over the last 30 years, both among those who remain in traditional religions and those who explore spirituality outside those confines. This work speaks to them all.




F*ck Like a Goddess


Book Description

“I felt as if I had had a cathartic emotional experience not by talking but by following Ms. Roxo’s coaching to tune into my energy and desire.” —New York Times What if your deepest fears and wounds were the KEY to living a turned on, passionate life, sharing your gifts with the world, and having mind-blowing orgasms along the way? And what if you could embrace all of you—all of your messy, wild, raw, sensual self—exactly as you are right now AND still feel good? This is what it means to f*ck like a goddess—literally and metaphorically. To let life make love to you and enjoy every bit, even the parts that hurt, and to find the magic in all of it. And this is your birthright. So why is it so damn hard for women to simply feel comfortable in their own skin, let alone feel strong and secure enough to freely share their gifts with the world? “Because each of us has been conditioned, programmed, and literally brainwashed into thinking we are not enough,” writes Alexandra Roxo,” and it is up to us to rewrite that story.” A prominent voice in transformational healing and the divine feminine, Roxo shares tried-and-true methods that have led to both her own healing and that of hundreds of her coaching clients over the years. “We are in need of an uprising of bold, wild women who have reclaimed their bodies and stand in their sacred sexuality for them,” she writes. “As women, we need to liberate our voices, step into total security within ourselves, and fully own our raw, sensual power, finally letting go of the shame, guilt, denial, and repression that’s been put upon us.” The methods in this book will inspire you, challenge you, bring up your resistance, and unleash your gifts. It won’t always be easy, but if you do the work, you’ll discover what it really feels like to f*ck like a goddess.




Feminine Feminists


Book Description

Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible to scholars, students, researchers, and general readers. Rich with historical and cultural value, these works are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. The books offered through Minnesota Archive Editions are produced in limited quantities according to customer demand and are available through select distribution partners.




The Goddesses' Mirror


Book Description

Discusses the cultural background and meaning of ten goddesses, including Aphrodite, Isis, Athena, Durga, Laksmi, and Sita




Ungendering Civilization


Book Description

Nine papers examines a specific body of archaeological data - from societies including Minoan Crete, ancient Zimbabwe and the Maya - in order to discuss the role of women in the evolution of states.




Blood, Milk, Ink, Gold


Book Description

Most people would be hard pressed to name a famous artist from Renaissance France. Yet sixteenth-century French kings believed they were the heirs of imperial Rome and commissioned a magnificent array of visual arts to secure their hopes of political ascendancy with images of overflowing abundance. With a wide-ranging yet richly detailed interdisciplinary approach, Rebecca Zorach examines the visual culture of the French Renaissance, where depictions of sacrifice, luxury, fertility, violence, metamorphosis, and sexual excess are central. Zorach looks at the cultural, political, and individual roles that played out in these artistic themes and how, eventually, these aesthetics of exuberant abundance disintegrated amidst perceptions of decadent excess. Throughout the book, abundance and excess flow in liquids-blood, milk, ink, and gold-that highlight the materiality of objects and the human body, and explore the value (and values) accorded to them. The arts of the lavish royal court at Fontainebleau and in urban centers are here explored in a vibrant tableau that illuminates our own contemporary relationship to excess and desire. From marvelous works by Francois Clouet to oversexed ornamental prints to Benvenuto Cellini's golden saltcellar fashioned for Francis I, Blood, Milk, Ink, Gold covers an astounding range of subjects with precision and panache, producing the most lucid, well-rounded portrait of the cultural politics of the French Renaissance to date.




The Irresistible Fairy Tale


Book Description

Drawing on cognitive science, evolutionary theory, anthropology, psychology, literary theory, and other fields, Zipes presents a nuanced argument about how fairy tales originated in ancient oral cultures, how they evolved through the rise of literary culture and print, and much more.