Artists Residency with the Monica Sjöö Curatorial Collective

I’m doing an artist residency with the Monica Sjöö Curatorial Collective in February 2025. The purpose of the residency is to explore themes that feminist Swedish artist Monica Sjöö was interested in, such as women, goddesses, sacred landscape, and peace, and to promote Sjöö's work and legacy to a wider audience. I don’t know exactly what I’m going to do for the residency, probably some sort of weaving, but I have not decided on the topic yet.

The above image is Monica Sjöö’s painting “Cosmos Within Her Womb” (1971).

 

Against Nature: Tree-Shaking Action in Minoan Glyptic Art as Agonistic Behaviour

 

I’m very pleased that my chapter, “Against Nature: Tree-Shaking Action in Minoan Glyptic Art as Agonistic Behaviour” has been published in the conference proceedings of the Aegean Gestures conference. Gesture, Stance, and Movement: Communicating Bodies in the Aegean Bronze Age. Acts of the International Conference at the University of Heidelberg, 11–13 November 2021, edited by Ute Günkel-Maschek, Céline Murphy, Fritz Blakolmer, and Diamantis Panagiotopoulos.

Description

Gestures, posture and facial expressions are central to conveying meaning through action and physical communication. In works of art, they represent active or communicative aspects of the figures and relate them to one another in coherent narratives. This is particularly important for understanding ancient contexts of meaning, especially in the study of societies with a limited corpus of deciphered texts, such as those of the Aegean from the Neolithic to the Late Bronze Age. The volume, which emerged from a conference in Heidelberg in 2021, deals in 29 contributions with old hypotheses and new approaches to interpreting 'body language' in Minoan Crete and Mycenaean Greece.

The whole book is open access. See the complete Table of Contents and download the book for free from Propylaeum Ebooks

 

 

Three new chapters

 

I am very pleased to have three chapters in this new book:

5. What is the Relationship Between Ancient and Contemporary Paganism?

16. Can a Pagan Follow More Than One Path or Tradition?

43. Is There A Difference Between Magic and Magick?

See the full Table of Contents and buy the book here at Equinox Publishing.

Description

Pagan Religions in Five Minutes provides an accessible set of essays on questions relating to Pagan identities and practices, both historically and in contemporary societies as well as informative essays on different Pagan groups, such as Druidry, Wicca, Heathenry and others. The book includes answers to a range of questions such as: How many Pagans are there? What do Pagans believe? Is Paganism a real religion or is it just made-up? Is Satanism a type of Paganism? Do all Pagans celebrate the solstices? Why is it written “Pagan” and other times “pagan”? Do they have sacred texts? Is Druidry the indigenous religion of Europe? What does the pentagram symbol mean? Can anyone be a witch? Are Pagans anti-Christian? The book also covers issues with terminology, including the labelling of ancient, non-Western and indigenous groups as ‘pagan’, common assumptions and misconceptions about Pagans, and more.

Each essay is by a leading scholar in the field, offering clear and concise answers along with suggestions for further reading. The book is ideal for both the curious and as an entry book for classroom use and studying Paganism.

Because each chapter can be read in about five minutes, the books offer ideal supplementary resources in classrooms or an engaging read for those curious about the world around them.

Another New Book - Plague in Antiquity

This volume came about based on the recognition that the rise and spread of Covid-19 has led contemporary scholarship to consider the possibility that there will be an increasing acceleration of new and highly transmissible plagues, viruses and other diseases linked to the mass travel and trade that characterizes hyper-globalisation. As historians and archaeologists studying the civilisations of the most distant past, we felt that we had something to contribute to this conversation through providing a historical perspective, with the twin goals of relieving the social anxiety caused by pandemics and taking advantage of our present experiences to see how we might view our own research in a fresh, new light. Archaeologists and scholars of ancient history know that epidemic plagues and other environmental catastrophes are nothing new: disease and illness are clearly represented in the archaeological and historical record. The chapters in this volume focus on plague in antiquity, centred primarily on the ancient Near East. Chronologically, they span the Bronze Age to Late Antiquity, and regionally they cover Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Levant, Cyprus, Anatolia and the Indus valley. The contributors discuss a range of topics related to plague—its causes and transmission, environmental factors, responses and treatments, disruptions and social effects—drawing on ancient texts, modern sociology, archaeological evidence and cultural material remains. The variety of contributions demonstrates that rather than being anomalous, various forms of illness were normal, recurring and prevalent within the ancient world. The authors refer to the current Covid-19 pandemic, which was also inspiration in producing this work. This volume contributes to the contextualisation of plague, pestilence, disease and disability within wider and deeper human history. See the Table of Contents and buy the book here at Peeters Publishers.