PARW 7520 - Matriarchal Elaboration of Matrixial Consciousness

Institution:

California Institute of Integral Studies

Subject:

Description:

There has been a recent surge in interest among women scholars around the world in matriarchal studies, which focus on the one hand on the need to redefine the definition of matriarchy in anthropological studies, and on the other hand on the desirability of bringing ethnographic and historical research on matricentric, matrifocal, matristic, matriarchal, gender-balanced, and/or gender-equity cultures into the mainstream of academic studies. One of the leaders in this field is anthropologist Peggy Reeves Sanday, whose classic text Female Power and Male Dominance: On the Origins of Sexual Inequality served to promulgate an environmentally situated study of 156 contemporary tribal societies and their correlated features of inner/outer psychospiritual orientations, gendered distributions of power, worship of female and/or male deities, and the relative incidence of violence against women and children within the group. Sanday's long-term fieldwork among the Minankgabau of Sumatra in Indonesia (the largest existing matrilineal society in contemporary times) led to her redefinition of the term matriarchy in Cultures in Balance: Women at the Center: Life in a Modern Matriarchy. Her most recent work (in manuscript) is on the matriarchal cultural and symbolic elaboration of matrixial consciousness in regions such as ancient Ireland and Scotland, Greece, and the Phrygians of Anatolia. The work of Genevieve Vaughn on The Gift Economy is also an important part of this new area of studies, and of this course.

Credits:

1.00 - 3.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.ciis.edu

Phone Number:

(415) 575-6100

Regional Accreditation:

Western Association of Schools and Colleges

Calendar System:

Semester

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