Wise woman Radio

Celebrating Women's Hidden History with
Max Dashu

Kris Steinnes

Susun Weed interviews Max Dashu,
writer, artist and teacher
"Restoring Women to Cultural Memory - Exposing Our Suppressed Histories"



MP3 File

 


Max Dashu founded the Suppressed Histories Archives in 1970 to research and document women's history from an international perspective. She has photographed some 15,000 slides and created 100 slideshows on female power and heritages transhistorically, including Women's Power, Rebel Shamans, Female Rebels and Mavericks, Art by Max DashuTaming the Female Body, and Racism, History and Lies.

For nearly 40 years, Dashu has presented hundreds of slide talks at universities, community centers, bookstores, schools, libraries, prisons, galleries, festivals and conferences around North America.

Her work bridges the gap between academia and grassroots education. It foregrounds indigenous women passed over by standard histories and highlights female spheres of power retained even in patriarchal societies.

Dashu is known for her expertise on ancient female iconography in world archaeology, goddess traditions, and women shamans. She has also done extensive research on mother-right cultures and the origins of domination.

Art by Max DashuHer critique of Cynthia Eller's The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory (2000) has been influential in opening up space for consideration of egalitarian matrilineages. (“Knocking Down Straw Dolls" (2000) republished in Feminist Theology 13.2 (2005), Sage Publications, UK)

The new Women's Power DVD has been screened in the US, Britain and Australia, and copies have been sold in many other countries.

Dashu is now completing a multi-volume sourcebook on women in European folk religion and legacies of the witch hunts.

Dashu has acted as historical consultant for a variety of projects, including Donna Deitch's film, Woman to Woman (1973-4) and the San Francisco Women's Building mural project (1994). Along with her writings, Max Dashu is an artist with bold paintings of the feminine essence and teaches online courses about women's spirituality.

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