From Girl to Goddess

From Girl to Goddess
Author: Valerie Estelle Frankel
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 377
Release: 2014-01-10
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0786457899

Many are familiar with Joseph Campbell's theory of the hero's journey, the idea that every man from Moses to Hercules grows to adulthood while battling his alter-ego. This book explores the universal heroine's journey as she quests through world myth. Numerous stories from cultures as varied as Chile and Vietnam reveal heroines who battle for safety and identity, thereby upsetting popular notions of the passive, gentle heroine. Only after she has defeated her dark side and reintegrated can the heroine become the bestower of wisdom, the protecting queen and arch-crone. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

Sword Stone Table

Sword Stone Table
Author: Swapna Krishna
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 481
Release: 2021-07-13
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0593081900

From the vast lore surrounding King Arthur, Camelot, and the Knights of the Round Table, comes an anthology of gender-bent, race-bent, LGBTQIA+ inclusive retellings. Featuring stories by: Alexander Chee • Preeti Chhibber • Roshani Chokshi • Sive Doyle • Maria Dahvana Headley • Ausma Zehanat Khan • Daniel M. Lavery • Ken Liu • Sarah MacLean • Silvia Moreno-Garcia • Jessica Plummer • Anthony Rapp • Waubgeshig Rice • Alex Segura • Nisi Shawl • S. Zainab Williams Here you’ll find the Lady of the Lake reimagined as an albino Ugandan sorceress and the Lady of Shalott as a wealthy, isolated woman in futuristic Mexico City; you'll see Excalibur rediscovered as a baseball bat that grants a washed-up minor leaguer a fresh shot at glory and as a lost ceremonial drum that returns to a young First Nations boy the power and the dignity of his people. There are stories set in Gilded Age Chicago, '80s New York, twenty-first century Singapore, and space; there are lesbian lady knights, Arthur and Merlin reborn in the modern era for a second chance at saving the world and falling in love—even a coffee shop AU. Brave, bold, and groundbreaking, the stories in Sword Stone Table will bring fresh life to beloved myths and give long-time fans a chance to finally see themselves in their favorite legends.

Women’s Agency in the Dune Universe

Women’s Agency in the Dune Universe
Author: Kara Kennedy
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2022-01-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 3030892050

This book undertakes the first large-scale analysis of women’s agency in Frank Herbert’s six-book science fiction Dune series. Kara Kennedy explores how female characters in the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood—from Jessica to Darwi Odrade—secure control and influence through five avenues of embodied agency: mind-body synergy, reproduction and motherhood, voices, education and memory, and sexuality. She also discusses constraints on their agency, tensions between individual and collective action, and comparisons with other characters including the Mentats, Bene Tleilaxu, and Honored Matres. The book engages with second-wave feminist theories and historical issues to highlight how the series anticipated and paralleled developments in the women’s liberation movement. In this context, it addresses issues regarding sexual difference and solidarity, as well as women’s demand to have control over their bodies. Kennedy concludes that the series should be acknowledged as a significant contribution to the genre as part of both New Wave and feminist science fiction.

Goddesses and Heroines

Goddesses and Heroines
Author: Xanthe Gresham-Knight
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2020-06-09
Genre: Goddesses
ISBN: 9780500651919

Illustrated stories from around the world that celebrate female characters in ancient myths and legends.

The Giant Book of Myths and Legends

The Giant Book of Myths and Legends
Author: Mike Ashley
Publisher: MetroBooks (NY)
Total Pages: 576
Release: 2002
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9781586636104

-- Star maids, serpent-gods, dragons, and kings have captivated the imagination from beginning of time. And whether it is the word of classical Greek mythology, the rich folklore of King Arthur and Robin Hood, or the mythical offerings of the Native Americans, traditional stories hold the key to unlocking the magic and the mystery of the past. -- Gathered together in this volume are more than fifty spellbinding tales of ancient wonder from over twenty cultures, reflecting the full range of human experience.

The Giant Book of Myths and Legends

The Giant Book of Myths and Legends
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 580
Release: 1995
Genre: Legends
ISBN: 9781566199018

Presents traditional tales from Celtic, Indian, Ancient Greek, Persian, Japanese, African, Scandinavian and other mythologies.

Food for Thought

Food for Thought
Author: Simona Stano
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 192
Release: 2021-09-18
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 3030811158

This volume offers new insights into food and culture. Food habits, preferences, and taboos are partially regulated by ecological and material factors - in other words, all food systems are structured and given particular functioning mechanisms by specific societies and cultures, either according to totemic, sacrificial, hygienic-rationalist, aesthetic, or other symbolic logics. This provides much “food for thought”. The famous expression has never been so appropriate: not only do cultures develop unique practices for the production, treatment and consumption of food, but such practices inevitably end up affecting food-related aspects and spheres that are generally perceived as objectively and materially defined. This book explores such dynamics drawing on various theoretical approaches and analytical methodologies, thus enhancing the cultural reflection on food and, at the same time, helping us see how the study of food itself can help us understand better what we call “culture”. It will be of interest to anthropologists, philosophers, semioticians and historians of food.

The Mythology of the Night Sky

The Mythology of the Night Sky
Author: David E. Falkner
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2020-09-28
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3030476944

This book is for amateur astronomers who would like to know the mythology behind the names of astronomical objects in the night sky. It covers the lore and legend behind Ptolemy’s 48 constellations, along with significant asterisms, the planets and their moons, the brightest named asteroids and dwarf planets. The revised second edition includes a host of new moons and dwarf planets discovered since 2011. In addition, it now features a new section on major asteroids and their associated myths. While still primarily focused on Greco-Roman mythology, the book now branches out to cover more recently named objects from other cultures, such as Hawaiian, Rapanui, Tongva and Inuit. To assist practical observers, the book gives the location and description of each constellation, including named stars and deep-sky objects. A host of helpful astronomy tips and techniques, as well as a brief introduction to astrophotography, are included to encourage direct observation and imaging of these mythical objects in the night sky.

The Villain's Journey

The Villain's Journey
Author: Valerie Estelle Frankel
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2021-11-08
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1476684308

The villain's journey is rare in popular culture--most characters are fully-formed tyrants with little to no story arc. However, a few particularly epic series take the time to develop complex villains, including Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Smallville, Babylon 5, Game of Thrones, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Increasingly, villains' origin stories have found new popularity through films like Wicked, Maleficent, and Despicable Me, alongside shows starring serial killers and Machiavellian schemers. This book examines the villain's decline and subsequent struggle toward redemption, asking why these characters are willing to cross moral lines that "good" characters are not. The first half follows characters like Loki, Jessica Jones and Killmonger through the villain's journey: an inverse or twisted version of scholar Joseph Cambell's hero's journey. The remainder of this book examines the many different villainous archetypes such as the trickster, the outcast, the tyrant, or the misunderstood hero in greater detail. Written for writers, creators, fans, and mythologists, this book offers a peek into the minds of some of fiction's greatest villains.

Tarot for Change

Tarot for Change
Author: Jessica Dore
Publisher: Hay House, Inc
Total Pages: 386
Release: 2021-10-26
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 1788177126

Unlock the transformative power of tarot with this unique investigation into the psychology of its secrets, symbols and stories. Symbols have been used in modern psychology for generations, from the interpretation of fairy tales to inkblot tests. Though tarot is often thought of as a tool for divination and fortune-telling, it too contains a set of symbols that hold the potential to unlock secrets of the human experience, from the esoteric to everyday life. With beautiful illustrations based on the traditional Rider-Waite deck, this book will inspire you, awaken your curiosity and show you how to cultivate a deep connection with the cards. In Tarot for Change, Jessica Dore divulges profound insights about how to work with tarot to better understand ourselves and live in alignment with our life values. You'll discover: · The importance of choosing the right deck and how to find it · How the mythic imagery of tarot supports evidence-based therapeutic concepts such as mindfulness and acceptance · The skill of interpreting specific images and symbols · How to build a meaningful relationship with the cards Jessica's reflections on each of the 78 cards weave together ideas from the fields of psychology, behavioural science, spirituality and old stories, breathing new language into ancient wisdoms about what it means to be human.