Week One

08/24

• Introduction; visit Computer Lab, Grubbs 100

PREHISTORIC GODDESSES

08/26

• Baring: Ch. 1 Paleolithic Mother Goddess 3-26

08/28

• Baring: Ch. 1 Paleolithic Mother Goddess 26-45
• Baring: Ch. 2 Neolithic Great Goddess [Old Europe/Gimbatus] 53-58
• Video: The Goddess Remembered (54 min.)

Week Two

08/31

• Video: The Goddess Remembered (54 min.)
• Baring: Ch. 2 Neolithic Great Goddess (Old Europe) 58-69; 82-88; 93-101

09/02

• Baring: Ch. 3 Crete 110-28 (Bee Goddess 118-20); Legend of the Minotaur 137-44

09/04

• Baring: Ch. 4 Bronze Age 145-48; 155-171
• REPORT #1: What Is Myth?

Week Three

09/07

• No Class (Labor Day Holiday)

GODDESSES OF ANCIENT MIDDLE EAST AND EGYPT

09/09

• Baring: Ch. 5 Inanna-Ishtar [Sumeria] 175-78
• Online Text: Inanna and the Huluppu Tree": One Way of Demoting a Great Goddess
• Jaffar: Lit. Texts--"Courtship of Inanna and Dumuzi" 23-8 and "Descent of Inanna" 28-40
• Baring: Ch. 5 Inanna-Ishtar (Descent 216-222)
• Online Text: Inanna's Descent to the Underworld

09/11

• Baring: Ch. 6 Isis of Egypt 225-44; 264-66
• REPORT #2: Adrienne Rich, When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision

Week Four

09/14

• Baring: Ch. 7 Tiamat of Babylon 273-4
• Jaffar: Ch. 3 Tiamat 42-45. Lit. Text: “Babylonian Creation” 46-65
• Baring: Ch. 7 Hero Myth 290-6

PRE-HELLENIC AND HELLENIC GODDESSES [GREEK/ROMAN]

09/16

• Baring: Ch. 8 Goddesses of Greece [Gaia, Hera, Artemis] 299-332. Lit. Texts: Homer, “Hymn to Gaia” 303-4 and “Hymn to Artemis” 320-1
• TAKE-HOME EXAM ASSIGNED

09/18

• Baring: Ch. 8 Goddesses of Greece [Athena] 332-40; Medusa 340-44. Lit. Text: Homer, “Hymn to Athena” 343-44
• Online Texts: The Serpent-haired Queen Medusa; Louise Bogan, Medusa
• Online Art: Medusa head; Medusa Running; Medusa head frieze; Medusa statue; Ruben, Medusa painting; Cellini, Perseus Holding the Head of Medusa; Caravaggio; Delville
• REPORT #3: Helene Cixous,"The Laugh of Medusa"

Week Five

09/21

• Baring: Ch. 9 Goddesses of Greece [Aphrodite] 349-64. Lit. Text: Homer, "Hymn to Aphrodite" 349-51
• Online Texts: Sappho, Prayer to Our Lady of Paphos; To Aphrodite; Words; Sara Teasdale, Sappho
• Online Art: Venus de Milo ; Botticelli, Birth of Venus

09/23

• TAKE-HOME EXAM DUE (no class). Submit as an email attachment (.doc file), if possible, or slide under my office door, Grubbs 450.

09/25

• Aeschylus, Oresteia: Agamemnon

Week Six

09/28

• Aeschylus, Oresteia: The Libation Bearers

09/30

• Aeschylus, Oresteia: The Eumenides

10/02

• Kate Chopin, The Awakening--read 1/4 of the novel.

Week Seven

10/05

• Kate Chopin, The Awakening--read 1/2 of the novel.
• REPORT #4: Carol P. Christ, Why Women Need the Goddess

10/07

• Kate Chopin, The Awakening--read 3/4 of the novel.

10/09

• Kate Chopin, The Awakening--finish the novel.

Week Eight

10/12

• Jaffar: Demeter and Persephone 66-70. Lit. Text: “Homeric Hymn to Demeter” 70-82.
• Online Texts: Orphic Hymn to Persephone; Orpheus, Hecate; and Hecate's History
• Online Art: Demeter; Bernini, Hades and Persephone; Leighton, Return of Persephone; Evelyn de Morgan, Flora
• PAPER #1 ASSIGNED (5-6 pp. See Paper Directions.)

10/14

• Online Text: The Narcissus and the Pomegranate: A New Look at Demeter and Persephone
• Online Text/Art: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Proserpina (poem) and image Proserpina (image)
• Online Texts: Edna St. Vincent Millay, A Prayer to Persephone
• REPORT #5: Ken Hiltner, "Because I, Persephone, Could Not Stop for Death," Emily Dickinson Journal 10.2 (2001): 22-42.
• Online Lit. Texts: Dickinson, #712 Because I could not stop for death. Also read #722 Sweet Mountains; #1068 Further in Summer; #337 I know a place; #339 I tend my gardens; #280 I felt a funeral; #341 After great pain, and this short Dickinson biography.

10/16

• Mid-term Break (no class)

Week Nine

JUDAISM, ISLAM, CHRISTIANITY: WHERE ARE THE GODDESSES?

10/19

• Baring: Ch. 13 Eve 492-501; Lilith, Pandora 510-18
• Online Art: Flemish; woodcut; Collier, Lilith; Waterhouse, Lamia; Anna Lea Merritt, Lamia, the Serpent Woman --scroll down the page.
• Online Lit. Text/Art: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Lilith (image) and Lilith ["Body’s Beauty"] (poem)

10/21

• Baring: Ch. 13 Eve 522-29; 537-43
• Jaffar: Hawwa 227-32

10/23

• PAPER #1 DUE. Place it in my mailbox or slide it under my office door (Grubbs 450).
• No Class (PSU Inauguration Day)

Week Ten

10/26

• Baring: Ch. 12 Hidden Goddesses of the OT [Asherah/Astarte] 454-66
• Online Lit. Text/Art: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Astarte Syriaca (image) and Astarte Syriaca (poem)
• Baring: Ch. 12 [Sophia/Hokhmah/Song of Songs] 470-84

10/28

• Baring: Ch. 15 Gnosticism [Sophia] 617-24; 627-34. Lit. Text: “The Thunder, Perfect Mind” 630-31
• Baring: Ch. 15 Shekinah 638-43
• Online Lit. Text: Marge Piercy, Wellfleet Sabbath
• TAKE-HOME EXAM ASSIGNED

10/30

• Baring: Ch. 10 Cybele 391-415

Week Eleven

11/02

• Baring: Ch. 14 Mary: Return of the Goddess 556-72; Black Virgin 543-47
• Jaffar: Maryamm 238-40
• Online Lit. Text: Priscilla Baird Hinkley, Our Mother Who Art in Earth

11/04

• TAKE-HOME EXAM DUE (no class)

11/06

CELTIC GODDESSES

• Online Texts: Morrigan and Cailleach, the Ruler of Winter
• Online Lit. Text: The Adventures of the Sons of Eochaid Mugmedon
• Online Texts: Brigid: The Survival of a Goddess and Brighid's Mantle - History and Lore
• PAPER #2 ASSIGNED (see Paper Directions)

Week Twelve

NATIVE AMERICAN, AFRICAN, AND ASIAN GODDESSES

11/09

• Online Texts: Introduction to Native American Origin Tales and Introduction to Native American Goddess Tales
• Online Lit. Texts: Creation Myth (Hopi) and White Bead Woman (Navaho)
• Jaffar: Corn Mother 268-70; “Corn Mother” 272-74
• Online Lit. Text: Paiyatuma and the Corn Maidens (Zuni)
• Jaffar: White Buffalo Woman 257-61; “White Buffalo Woman” 262-66
• REPORT #6: Paula Gunn Allen, , “The Anima of the Sacred: Empowering Women’s Spirituality” in Off the Reservation and Where I come from, God is a woman.

11/11

• Online Texts: Chicomecóatl: Goddess of Sustenance and Tonantzin Guadalupe —'Our Mother'
• Online Texts/Art: Frieda Kahlo/Coatlalopeuh, She Who Has Dominion over Serpents and Coatlicue
• Online Lit. Text: Hymn to the Mother of Mortals
• Online Text: Demanding Social Equality: A Feminist Re-Interpretation of the Virgin of Guadalupe

11/13

• Online Text: Religion in the African Diaspora
• Jaffar: Oshun 249-53; Ifa Divination 254-56
• Online Texts: Orisha [Yemaya and Oshun] and Oya
• Online Text/Art: Mami Wata and Mami Wata: Arts for Water Spirits

Week Thirteen

11/16

• Jaffar: Sita 150-3; Ramayana 154-60
• Jaffar: Kali 161-5; from Devi-Mahatmya 166-72
• Online Texts/Art: Shaktism and The Many Faces of Kali
• Online Lit. Text: Ramprasad, short biography and Conquer Death with the Drumbeat Ma! Ma! Ma!, and Kamalakanta, short biography and The black bee of my mind is drawn in sheer delight

11/18

• Jaffar: Amaterasu 173-76; Kojiki 177-84
• Jaffar: Kuan Yin 185-89; Legend of Miao-shan 190-93
• Online Text: The Divine Feminine in China

11/20

• Leslie Marmon Silko, Gardens in the Dunes

Week Fourteen

11/23

• Leslie Marmon Silko, Gardens in the Dunes--finish at least 1/4 of the novel.
• PAPER #2 DUE

11/25 - 11/27

• No Class (Thanksgiving Vacation)

Week Fifteen

11/30

• Leslie Marmon Silko, Gardens in the Dunes

12/02

• Leslie Marmon Silko, Gardens in the Dunes--finish at least 1/2 of the novel.

12/04

• Leslie Marmon Silko, Gardens in the Dunes

Week Sixteen

12/07

• Leslie Marmon Silko, Gardens in the Dunes--finish at least 3/4 of the novel.

12/09

• Leslie Marmon Silko, Gardens in the Dunes

12/11

• Leslie Marmon Silko, Gardens in the Dunes--finish novel.
• ENGL 755 PAPER DUE by Mon., Dec. 14, at the latest.

FINALS: TAKE-HOME EXAM #3 due Fri., Dec. 18 (or earlier).