Fierce Feminine Divinities of Eurasia and Latin America: Baba Yaga, Kālī, Pombagira, and Santa Muerte

ISBN-13: 9781137543547 / Angielski / Twarda / 2015 / 188 str.

Malgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba

Opis

In this provocative book, Oleszkiewicz-Peralba examines untamed feminine divinities from around the world. Although distant geographically, these divine figures are surprisingly similar-representing concepts of liminality, outsiderhood, and structural inferiority, embodied in the divine feminine. These strong, independent, unrestrained figures are connected to the periphery and to magical powers, including power over sexuality, transformation, and death. Oleszkiewicz-Peralba offers a study of the origin and worship of four feminine deities across cultures and continents: the Slavic Baba Yaga, the Hindu Kali, the Brazilian Pombagira, and the Mexican Santa Muerte. Although these divinities have often been marginalized through dismissal, demonization, and dulcification, they continue to be extremely attractive, as they empower their devotees confronting them with the ultimate reality of transience and death. Oleszkiewicz-Peralba examines how these sacred icons have been adapted and transformed across time and place.

Recenzje

"An impressive study that spans and connects continents, cultures, and religions through the elusive trope of the feminine divine. Based on the author's fieldwork in many countries, the book is full of specific details and images as well as critical understanding of each of the figures she describes. It is an invaluable addition to the growing field of goddess studies, but perhaps its special contribution is toward a feminist theology of the subaltern/non-Western world." (Neela Bhattacharya Saxena, Reading Religion, readingreligion.org, November, 2016)

O autorze

Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba is Professor of Latin American Literary and Cultural Studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio, USA. Her publications include The Black Madonna in Latin America and Europe: Tradition and Transformation (2007), and Teatro popular peruano: del precolombino al siglo XX (1995), as well as numerous scholarly book chapters and articles.