This is really powerful. The dialogue is more reflective, with more emotional, cultural, and linguistic nuance than anything else I’ve read. It’s hardThis is really powerful. The dialogue is more reflective, with more emotional, cultural, and linguistic nuance than anything else I’ve read. It’s hard to imagine a better set of characters for quietly expressing the social impact of modern India’s most epoch-changing events: the emergency rule of 1975-77, the crushing of Punjab’s independence movement, the assassination of Indira Gandhi and ensuing massacre of Sikhs in 1984, and the Hindu nationalist demolition of Ayodhya’s Babri Mosque in 1992. In this complex story, the depth and sophistication of India’s heritage stands alongside the ego-starved popular demand for ethnic supremacy....more
Guthke surveys literature from over the past few centuries, with a specific focus on stories featuring immortality -- who might get it, under what conGuthke surveys literature from over the past few centuries, with a specific focus on stories featuring immortality -- who might get it, under what conditions, if it could be optional, what it might be like, and whether it would be a blessing or a curse. The stories and plots are commonly complicated, and the verdict is very mixed. The authors imagine a lot of problems with immortality, and many reasons why mortal life would be preferable....more
This novel builds on remarkably detailed research into the world of enslaved people in the 1700s. Then it fills in the universe of personal experienceThis novel builds on remarkably detailed research into the world of enslaved people in the 1700s. Then it fills in the universe of personal experience with close to the greatest performance of empathetic imagination I've ever seen. I'm really glad to have read it....more
Noorian combines sensitive social analysis with scholarly expertise in classical Persian literature to produce a powerful tribute for one of modern IrNoorian combines sensitive social analysis with scholarly expertise in classical Persian literature to produce a powerful tribute for one of modern Iran’s greatest female poets. The author explores how Parvin E’tesami (1907–1941) captured a nationwide audience with her innovative artistry. For example, E’tesami revived a long-neglected genre of classical poetry, namely the “debate poems” that had been staged in the courts of medieval rulers. In the court of E’tesami’s mind, ordinary, powerless people (or other lowly creatures) spoke face-to-face with their supposed superiors, as they challenged each other over who or what had status, value, and spirituality. In such poems, E’tesami ridiculed the powers ruling her world, combining social, political, and mystical religious arguments all within the same lines.
Noorian also traces the traditionalist reaction to E’tesami’s work, which included efforts to deny her identity as a woman. Critics claimed that the intellect shown in her poems was utterly unlike the mind of a female. Such intellect was “manly,” “asexual,” or “cold and distant,” whereas a woman would be sentimental. Some accused that it must have been her father who wrote the poems, and Parvin had lied to claim herself the author. Even decades later, a critic named Fazlollah Garakani wrote a whole book trying to prove that E’tesami’s poetic masterpieces could not possibly have been written by such a “timid,” “cross-eyed” female. Seeming to sympathize with this poor woman, he claimed that she had been wrongly “accused” of being a poet.
Clearly, vast numbers of E’tesami’s female readers felt it obvious that, like E’tesami herself, they were intellectual, creative, hard-headed, and emotional, all at the same time. Noorian shows how this poetic genius helped to break the mould for modern Iranian women. ...more
I learned a lot. The team of 20 scholars produces detailed surveys on the female side of mythology in 15 regions of the world, which span five contineI learned a lot. The team of 20 scholars produces detailed surveys on the female side of mythology in 15 regions of the world, which span five continents (including Oceania). Then three more studies examine the rise of goddess-related religion and myth-making in the 20th century. Unfortunately, this collection has nothing on Africa, except the study of goddesses in ancient Egypt.
In general, the authors are very careful. They are meticulous and avoid exaggeration, as when Anette Hamilton warns of serious dangers in “extrapolating from myth to observed gender relations” [among Aboriginal Australians]. Some of the authors basically collect and present the mythical folklore on women and goddesses in each culture. Others analyze the evolution and influence of the myths.
I thought I knew a fair bit about world mythology, but I didn’t realize how common it is across the world (in Russia, China, New Zealand, Hawaii, etc.) for traditional myth to divide all creation into male–female polarities, such as light–dark, life–death, east–west, up–down, sun–moon, dry–wet, right–left, sacred–profane—with all the more “beneficial” or “positive” qualities regarded as male. I mean, that can seriously program your perception of everything. I also didn’t know how common it is that deities or cosmic principles are portrayed as dual beings, literally half male and half female, like the Hindu Shiva–Shakti “Lord who is half woman,” the Yin–Yang balance, or the Aztec deity Ometéol.
Concerning modern witchcraft, Rosemary Ellen Guiley gives a strictly objective examination of the claims, follies, and activities of witch covens since around WWI. She actually advises that communities seeking goddess-related spirituality should dump the word “witch,” because across the world this term has always meant “a person who harms others through sorcery.”
Maybe the most emotionally gripping study is Jane Caputi’s “On Psychic Activism: Feminist Mythmaking.” Caputi surveys the rise of “patriarchal myth-smashing and woman-identified myth-making,” as seen in the works of writer-activists such as Mary Daly, Starhawk, Barbara G. Walker, Paula Gun Allen, Alice Walker, or Gloria Anzaldúa. She cites Donna Haraway: “the boundary between science fiction and social reality is an optical illusion.” It gets powerfully creative.
In the last study, “Women’s Rewriting of Myth,” Diana Purkiss examines the possibilities, challenges, and limitations for recreating myth with a female perspective. To aspiring myth crafters, she cautions: “I want to close by suggesting that no possible strategy of rewriting myth … can really constitute the kind of clean, revolutionary break with discourse and order sought in these days of feminism and poststructuralism’s greatest confidence.” ...more
After a long career as a journalist, Holland finds a passion to uncover the roots and effects of the world’s oldest, most pervasive prejudice. He explAfter a long career as a journalist, Holland finds a passion to uncover the roots and effects of the world’s oldest, most pervasive prejudice. He explores misogyny’s influence in mythology, religion, history, philosophy, politics, science, and popular culture. Along the way he offers some excellent criticism of English literature through the centuries. I could try to give a summary, but maybe I’ll just quote two cogent points on reproductive freedom:
“around 70,000 women die each year because of unsafe abortions … This means that as many if not more women die each year because they are denied the right to choose than were murdered annually at the height of the European witch hunts …”
“All civilized societies accept that a woman’s consent is necessary in order to have intercourse with her. Not to seek that consent and to coerce her into intercourse is to commit rape, which is a serious crime. But yet according to the Church, in the vital matter of pregnancy, a woman’s consent is beside the point. She can be made pregnant against her wishes and without her consent. The inexorable law of God overrides her will and the fact that she is pregnant determines her fate. Her personal autonomy is denied her.” ...more
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