From the beginning, myths have told of women who lived apart from men - the Sirens who sang on the Aegean rocks, the Amazons of the Brazilian jungle, the self-reproducing women on islands in Polynesia, to mention only a few. As this theme emerged in her own fiction, Batya Weinbaum became intrigued by its persistence across time and cultures and began tracing it in literature and mythology, as well as in actual locales that are or were said to be islands of women. In this fascinating, interdisciplinary book, she explores how the myth of Amazons has served varying psychological needs in different cultures over time. Weinbaum first analyzes various historical interpretations and uses of the Amazon archetype, some designed to empower women, others created by men to disempower them. She next turns to the original Greek context, in Homer's epics and other aspects of Greek culture, and then traces how Amazons eventually evolved into negative representations of paganism. Moving from Rodriguez de Montalvo's fifteenth-century "Sergas de Esplandian", which imagined an island of women in the New World, Weinbaum concludes with revealing fieldwork she conducted on Isla Mujeres (Island of Women) off the Yucatan Peninsula, which included giving birth with the participation of a native Maya midwife. Batya Weinbaum is Assistant Professor of English at Cleveland State University.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
The first two parts of her study represent feminist myth scholarship at its very best. In the third part, she blends ethnographic fieldwork and social participation to arrive at a compelling account of the way contemporary inhabitants of Isla Mujeres reclaim the myth of their island's origin while serving the tourist industry. (Zina Vishnevsky Cleveland Plain Dealer 20001008)
Review
This book is a significant contribution. . . . It is encyclopedic, and I believe includes more information, theoretical and factual, than anyone else has ever written on this theme. (Ruby Rohrlich, editor of Women in Search of Utopia: Mavericks and Myth-Makers )
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