An intimate look at the transformative power of women's sexual experiences. Based on the stories of ordinary American women, Aphrodite’s Daughters explores the central role of sexuality in women's spiritual journey. Witty, wise, entertaining, and compassionate, Aphrodite's Daughters quickly became an underground classic, and has changed the lives of thousands of women.
The Harlem Renaissance was a watershed moment for racial uplift, poetic innovation, sexual liberation, and female empowerment. Aphrodite’s Daughters introduces us to three amazing women who were at the forefront of all these developments, poetic iconoclasts who pioneered new and candidly erotic forms of female self-expression. Maureen Honey paints a vivid portrait of three African American women—Angelina Weld Grimké, Gwendolyn B. Bennett, and Mae V. Cowdery—who came from very different backgrounds but converged in late 1920s Harlem to leave a major mark on the literary landscape. She examines the varied ways these poets articulated female sexual desire, ranging from Grimké’s invocation of a Sapphic goddess figure to Cowdery’s frank depiction of bisexual erotics to Bennett’s risky exploration of the borders between sexual pleasure and pain. Yet Honey also considers how they were united in their commitment to the female body as a primary source of meaning, strength, and transcendence. The product of extensive archival research, Aphrodite’s Daughters draws from Grimké, Bennett, and Cowdery’s published and unpublished poetry, along with rare periodicals and biographical materials, to immerse us in the lives of these remarkable women and the world in which they lived. It thus not only shows us how their artistic contributions and cultural interventions were vital to their own era, but also demonstrates how the poetic heart of their work keeps on beating.
In this fascinating book, Hubbell journeys into the remarkable lives of the little-known creatures that really run the world--the animals without backbones, including one of the most elusive and enigmatic of all, "Aphrodite" the sea mouse.
Greek women routinely wore the veil. That is the unexpected finding of this meticulous study, one with interesting implications for the origins of Western civilisation. The Greeks, popularly (and rightly) credited with the invention of civic openness, are revealed as also part of a more Eastern tradition of seclusion. Llewellyn-Jones' work proceeds from literary and, notably, from iconographic evidence. In sculpture and vase painting it demonstrates the presence of the veil, often covering the head, but also more unobtrusively folded back onto the shoulders. This discreet fashion not only gave a priviledged view of the face to the ancient art consumer, but also, incidentally, allowed the veil to escape the notice of traditional modern scholarship. From Greek literary sources, the author shows that full veiling of the head and face was commonplace. He analyses the elaborate Greek vocabulary for veiling and explores what the veil meant to achieve. He shows that the veil was a conscious extension of the house and was often referred to as `tegidion', literally `a little roof'. Veiling was thus an ingeneous compromise; it allowed women to circulate in public while mainting the ideal of a house-bound existence. Alert to the different types of veil used, the author uses Greek and more modern evidence (mostly from the Arab world) to show how women could exploit and subvert the veil as a means of eloquent, sometimes emotional, communication. First published in 2003 and reissued as a paperback in 2010, Llewellyn-Jones' book has established itself as a central - and inspiring - text for the study of ancient women.
Lots of people are talking about self-love and having a positive body image. Few are sharing exactly how to get there if we are currently living in a place of self-loathing and hating our body. For author, Lorrie Gray, concepts like self-love and a positive body-image didn't seem attainable until she met Aphrodite.Join her through her struggles with diet and weight, poor body image, multiple eating disorders, and a physical disability along a surprising path full of vulnerability, humor, and hope. Discover how she, in a final effort to overcome a lifetime of hate, used one simple question to find her way to genuine self-love.Out of one woman's inspiring story comes a delightfully unconventional and refreshingly simple method that any woman can follow on her own journey to genuine self-love.
According to the author, ecstasy is the spiritual food that nourishes the soul. She believes that many of society's problems--anorexia, depression, violence, drug addiction--exist because people do not know how to truly experience love and ecstasy in life. With anecdotes, examples, and exercises, Bonheim shows readers how to infuse their own lives with passion.
Prostitution in the ancient Greek world was widespread, legal, and acceptable as a fact of life and an unavoidable necessity. The state regulated the industry and treated prostitution as any other trade. Almost every prominent man in the ancient world has been truly or falsely associated with some famous hetaira. These women, who sold their affections to the richest and most influential men of their time, have become legends in their own right. They pushed the boundaries of female empowerment in their quest for self-promotion and notoriety, and continue to fascinate us. Prostitution remains a complex phenomenon linked to issues of gender, culture, law, civic ideology, education, social control, and economic forces. This is why its study is of paramount importance for our understanding of the culture, outlook and institutions of the ancient world, and in turn it can shed new light and introduce new perspectives to the challenging debate of our times on prostitution and contemporary sexual morality. The main purpose of this book is to provide the primary historical study of the topic with emphasis upon the separation of facts from the mythology surrounding the countless references to prostitution in Greek literary sources.
Cupid and Psyche Apuleius - Cupid and Psyche is a story from the Latin novel Metamorphoses, also known as The Golden Ass, written in the 2nd century AD by Apuleius. It concerns the overcoming of obstacles to the love between Psyche (Soul or Breath of Life) and Cupid (Desire), and their ultimate union in a sacred marriage.
The Derveni Papyrus: Unearthing Ancient Mysteries is devoted to this fascinating and challenging document, discovered in 1962 in a tomb in Derveni, near Thessaloniki, and dated c. 340-320 BCE. It contains a text probably written at the end of 5th c. BCE, which after some reflections on minor divinities and unusual cults, comments upon a poem attributed to Orpheus from an allegorical and philosophical perspective. This volume focuses on the restoration and conservation of the papyrus, the ideas of the anonymous author about Erinyes and daimons, the quoted Orphic poem in comparison with Hesiod’s Theogony and Parmenides’ poem, the exegetical approach of the commentator, his cosmogonic system, his attitude regarding mystery cults and his peculiar theology.
