Mineke Schipper - Böcker

This study surveys a wide range of writings and ideas out of Africa by people of African descent on the various ways in which "insiders" and "outsiders", "self" and "otherness" have been imagined and defined from African perspectives. Attention is focused on identity issues regarding Africa, Panafricanism, American Black culture, Negritude and Black Consciousness, as well as on whiteness and otherness, black versus white cultures and gender matters in a racialized context. Some theoretical issues in the academic debate on insiders and intercultural dialogue are also discussed, with examples from various disciplines. Five interviews with leading writers conclude the book.

For centuries, wild and strange stories have been told about the female body. Some empowering, many absurd, these myths have not only endured but continue to shape perceptions of women today.The Shrinking Goddess explores this legacy, gathering global tales about the female form and revealing how and why generations of men have sought to interpret, control and ‘tame’ women. Mineke Schipper investigates the disappearance of the original creation figure, Mother Earth, from mainstream culture, and how women’s bodies have been imagined ever since: from the demon daughter of New Mexico with a toothed vagina, to the Japanese supermarkets and European festivals offering ‘breast puddings’ as delicacies.Drawing on an extraordinary archive of art, literature and folklore, Schipper reclaims the female body as a place of power, creativity and possibility.

For centuries, wild and strange stories have been told about the female body. Some empowering, many absurd, these myths have not only endured but continue to shape perceptions of women today.The Shrinking Goddess explores this legacy, gathering global tales about the female form and revealing how and why generations of men have sought to interpret, control and ‘tame’ women. Mineke Schipper investigates the disappearance of the original creation figure, Mother Earth, from mainstream culture, and how women’s bodies have been imagined ever since: from the demon daughter of New Mexico with a toothed vagina, to the Japanese supermarkets and European festivals offering ‘breast puddings’ as delicacies.Drawing on an extraordinary archive of art, literature and folklore, Schipper reclaims the female body as a place of power, creativity and possibility.

In Japanese, the word for widow – a woman who has outlived her husband – literally translates as ‘she who has not yet died.’ For millennia, widows have lived on the margins of society: banished to the wilderness, silenced, and shrouded in black or white. Across cultures, laws and local customs have maligned them as witches, dependants or objects of pity.In some traditions, widows are expected to remarry within the husband’s family, or even – in extreme cases – commit self-immolation – expectations not placed on men. Yet widowhood has also brought unexpected freedoms: financial, social and sexual autonomy denied to married women. In medieval Europe, widows owned property and ran businesses; in India’s Maratha courts, they wielded political influence long before married women could.Drawing on sources from Ancient Egypt and Greece to Africa, the Americas and beyond, cultural historian Mineke Schipper explores widowhood as both oppression and liberation. Widows reveals one of feminism’s last great taboos, and the story of women the world has long refused to see.

Imagining Creation is a collection of views on creation by noted authors from different disciplines. Topics include creation accounts and iconography from Mesopotamia and Egypt, and cosmologies from India and Africa. Special attention is devoted to creation in the Scriptures (Bible and Koran) and related oral traditions on Genesis from Slavonic Europe, as well as Kabbalah. Some of the creations myths are earlier and some later than the Bible, while a number of the discussed texts offer alternative approaches to the beginnings of the universe. The contributions provide many new perspectives on the origins of man and his world from diverse cultures. The volume is the proceedings of a symposium on creation stories held at University College London.

Imagining Creation is a collection of views on creation by noted authors from different disciplines. Topics include creation accounts and iconography from Mesopotamia and Egypt, and cosmologies from India and Africa. Special attention is devoted to creation in the Scriptures (Bible and Koran) and related oral traditions on Genesis from Slavonic Europe, as well as Kabbalah. Some of the creations myths are earlier and some later than the Bible, while a number of the discussed texts offer alternative approaches to the beginnings of the universe. The contributions provide many new perspectives on the origins of man and his world from diverse cultures. The volume is the proceedings of a symposium on creation stories held at University College London.

How did the world begin? How were the first people created and which specific roles were they supposed to play in the cosmos? Like other mythologies worldwide, China’s creation and origin myths explain how man created order out of chaos and imposed culture on nature. Cross-cultural approaches to myth make us aware of the limitations of our own familiar classifications. This book makes a provocative case for the comparative study of the hidden treasures of China’s oral and written myth traditions in different languages and cultures, a legacy generously left behind by singers, storytellers, poets, and writers. This book opens new doors to the study of Chinese mythologies, a surprising and so far almost unknown world outside China.