Goddesses: Mysteries of the Feminine Divine


Joseph Campbell - 2013
    His bestselling books, including The Power of Myth and The Hero with a Thousand Faces, are the rare blockbusters that are also scholarly classics.While Campbell’s work reached wide and deep as he covered the world’s great mythological traditions, he never wrote a book on goddesses in world mythology. He did, however, have much to say on the subject. Between 1972 and 1986 he gave over twenty lectures and workshops on goddesses, exploring the figures, functions, symbols, and themes of the feminine divine, following them through their transformations across cultures and epochs.In this provocative volume, editor Safron Rossi—a goddess studies scholar, professor of mythology, and curator of collections at Opus Archives, which holds the Joseph Campbell archival manuscript collection and personal library—collects these lectures for the first time. In them, Campbell traces the evolution of the feminine divine from one Great Goddess to many, from Neolithic Old Europe to the Renaissance. He sheds new light on classical motifs and reveals how the feminine divine symbolizes the archetypal energies of transformation, initiation, and inspiration.

The Great Mother: An Analysis of the Archetype (Bollingen)


Erich Neumann - 1955
    Appearing as goddess and demon, gate and pillar, garden and tree, hovering sky and containing vessel, the Feminine is seen as an essential factor in the dialectical relation of individual consciousness, symbolized by the child, to the ungraspable matrix, symbolized by the Great Mother.

Goddesses in Everywoman


Jean Shinoda Bolen - 1984
    Psychoanalyst Jean Bolen's career soared in the early 1980s when Goddesses in Everywoman was published. Thousands of women readers became fascinated with identifying their own inner goddesses and using these archetypes to guide themselves to greater self–esteem, creativity, and happiness.Bolen's radical idea was that just as women used to be unconscious of the powerful effects that cultural stereotypes had on them, they were also unconscious of powerful archetypal forces within them that influence what they do and how they feel, and which account for major differences among them. Bolen believes that an understanding of these inner patterns and their interrelationships offers reassuring, true–to–life alternatives that take women far beyond such restrictive dichotomies as masculine/feminine, mother/lover, careerist/housewife. And she demonstrates in this book how understanding them can provide the key to self–knowledge and wholeness.Dr. Bolen introduced these patterns in the guise of seven archetypal goddesses, or personality types, with whom all women could identify, from the autonomous Artemis and the cool Athena to the nurturing Demeter and the creative Aphrodite, and explains how to decide which to cultivate and which to overcome, and how to tap the power of these enduring archetypes to become a better "heroine" in one's own life story.

The Letters of Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf


Vita Sackville-West - 1985
    Their revealing correspondence leaves no aspect of their lives untouched: daily dramas, bits of gossip, the strains and pleasures of writing, and always the same joy in each other’s company. This volume, which features over 500 letters spanning 19 years, includes the writings of both of these literary icons.DeSalvo and Leaska established the chronological order of the letters and placed them in sequence, and they have also included relevant diary entries and letters Vita and Virginia wrote to other friends where they add context and illumination to the narrative. Annotations throughout the text identify peripheral characters, clarify allusions, and provide background. As the New York Times noted, "the result is a volume that reads like a book, not just a gathering of marvelous scraps."In his introduction Mitchell A. Leaska observes, "Rarely can a collection of correspondence have cast into more dramatic relief two personalities more individual or more complex; and rarely can an enterprise of the heart have been carried out so near the verge of archetypal feeling."

The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess


Starhawk - 1999
    This bestselling classic is both an unparalleled reference on the practices and philosophies of Witchcraft and a guide to the life-affirming ways in which readers can turn to the Goddess to deepen their sense of personal pride, develop their inner power, and integrate mind, body, and spirit. Starhawk's brilliant, comprehensive overview of the growth, suppression, and modern-day re-emergence of Wicca as a Goddess-worshipping religion has left an indelible mark on the feminist spiritual consciousness.In a new introduction, Starhawk reveals the ways in which Goddess religion and the practice of ritual have adapted and developed over the last twenty years, and she reflects on the ways in which these changes have influenced and enhanced her original ideas. In the face of an ever-changing world, this invaluable spiritual guidebook is more relevant than ever.

The Trouble with Normal: Sex, Politics, and the Ethics of Queer Life


Michael Warner - 2000
    In place of sexual status quo, Warner offers a vision of true sexual autonomy that will forever change the way we think about sex, shame, and identity.

Perv: The Sexual Deviant in All of Us


Jesse Bering - 2013
    Whether it’s voyeurism, exhibitionism, or your run-of-the-mill foot fetish, we all possess a suite of sexual tastes as unique as our fingerprints—and as secret as the rest of the skeletons we’ve hidden in our closets.Combining cutting-edge studies and critiques of landmark research and conclusions drawn by Sigmund Freud, Alfred Kinsey, and the DSM-5, Bering pulls the curtain back on paraphilias, arguing that sexual deviance is commonplace. Bering confronts hypocrisy, prejudice, and harm as they relate to sexuality on a global scale. Humanizing so-called deviants while at the same time asking serious questions about the differences between thought and action, he presents us with a challenge: to understand that our best hope of solving some of the most troubling problems of our age hinges entirely on the amoral study of sex.

The Greeks & Greek Love: A Bold New Exploration of the Ancient World


James Davidson - 2006
    Now classics scholar James Davidson offers a brilliant, unblushing exploration of the passion that permeated Greek civilization. Using homosexuality as a lens, Davidson sheds new light on every aspect of Greek culture, from politics and religion to art and war. With stunning erudition and irresistible wit–and without moral judgment–Davidson has written the first major examination of homosexuality in ancient Greece since the dawn of the modern gay rights movement. What exactly did same-sex love mean in a culture that had no word or concept comparable to our term “homosexuality”? How sexual were these attachments? When Greeks spoke of love between men and boys, how young were the boys, how old were the men? Drawing on examples from philosophy, poetry, drama, history, and vase painting, Davidson provides fascinating answers to questions that have vexed scholars for generations. To begin, he defines the essential Greek words for romantic love–eros, pothos, philia–and explores the shades of emotion and passion embodied in each. Then, exploding the myth of Greek “boy love,” Davidson shows that Greek same-sex pairs were in fact often of the same generation, with boys under eighteen zealously separated from older boys and men.Davidson argues that the essence of Greek homosexuality was “besottedness”–falling head over heels and “making a great big song and dance about it,” though sex was certainly not excluded. With refreshing candor, humor, and an astonishing command of Greek culture, Davidson examines how this passion played out in the myths of Ganymede and Cephalus, in the lives of archetypal Greek heroes such as Achilles, Heracles, and Alexander, in the politics of Athens and the army of lovers that defended Thebes. He considers the sexual peculiarities of Sparta and Crete, the legend and truth surrounding Sappho, and the relationship between Greek athletics and sexuality.Writing with the energy, vitality, and irony that the subject deserves, Davidson has elucidated the ruling passion of classical antiquity. Ultimately The Greeks and Greek Love is about how desire–homosexual and heterosexual–is embodied in human civilization. At once scholarly and entertaining, this is a book that sheds as much light on our own world as on the world of Homer, Plato, and Alexander.

First Person Queer: Who We Are (So Far)


Richard Labonté - 2007
    These are the stories of contemporary gay and lesbian life—and by definition, are funny, sad, hopeful, and truthful. Representing a diversity of genders, ages, races, and orientations, and edited by two acclaimed writers and anthologists (who between them have written or edited almost one hundred books), First Person Queer puts the “personal” back into “queer.”

Epistemology of the Closet


Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick - 1990
    What is at stake in male homo/heterosexual definition? Through readings of Melville, Nietzsche, Wilde, James and Proust, the author argues that the vexed imperatives to specify straight and gay identities have become central to every important form of knowledge of the 20th century.

Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War Two


Allan Bérubé - 1990
    Here is a dramatic story of these people, revealing the history of the anti-gay policy pursued by the U.S. military authorities in World War II. Two 8-page photo inserts.

Wide-Open Town: A History of Queer San Francisco to 1965


Nan Alamilla Boyd - 2003
    Bringing to life the striking personalities and vibrant milieu that fueled this era, Nan Alamilla Boyd examines the culture that developed around the bar scene and homophile activism. She argues that the communities forged inside bars and taverns functioned politically and, ultimately, offered practical and ideological responses to the policing of San Francisco's queer and transgender communities. Using police and court records, oral histories, tourist literature, and manuscript collections from local and state archives, Nan Alamilla Boyd explains the phenomenal growth of San Francisco as a "wide-open town"—a town where anything goes. She also relates the early history of the gay and lesbian civil rights movement that took place in San Francisco prior to 1965.Wide-Open Town argues that police persecution forged debates about rights and justice that transformed San Francisco's queer communities into the identity-based groups we see today. In its vivid re-creation of bar and drag life, its absorbing portrait of central figures in the communities, and its provocative chronicling of this period in the country's most transgressive city, Wide-Open Town offers a fascinating and lively new chapter of American queer history.

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit


Jeanette Winterson - 1985
    Zealous and passionate, she seems destined for life as a missionary, but then she falls for one of her converts.At sixteen, Jeanette decides to leave the church, her home and her family, for the young woman she loves. Innovative, punchy and tender,Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is a few days ride into the bizarre outposts of religious excess and human obsession.

Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR): Survival, Revolt, and Queer Antagonist Struggle


Sylvia Rivera - 2013
    Johnson. Introduction by Ehn Nothing. Fantastic zine! -EF

We Are Everywhere: Protest, Power, and Pride In The History of Queer Liberation


Leighton Brown - 2019
    A rich and sweeping photographic history of the queer liberation movement from the creators of the massively popular Instagram account @lgbt_history, released in time for the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. Through the lens of protest, power, and pride, We Are Everywhere is an essential introduction–told through stunning photographs and thoroughly researched narrative–to the history of the modern queer liberation movement. Tracing queer activism from its late nineteenth century European roots to the homophiles who made Stonewall possible and the gender warriors who continue the struggle today, this beautifully packaged book contains hundreds of photos and pieces of ephemera that allow the reader to see history as they read. With photography from some of the best-known queer photographers alongside the work of unknown activists, the vintage and contemporary images cover every aspect of queer life and liberation, including marches, protests, family life, personal snapshots, celebrations, reactions to important legal decisions, and Pride.