Greece Conference, 1998 and
Italy Symposium, 2002
Bios of Presenters
Kristina Berggren, Ph.D. is a Swedish archaeologist who has been a member of the Swedish Institute of Classical Studies in Rome, Italy since 1958. Her published articles include: “Naturarum res culturam fiant, or the Goddess as a symbol of transformation,” Journal of Mediterranean Studies 1 (1991); “Spindle whorls: their symbolism in the Villanovan cemetery of Quattro Fontanili, Veii,” Current Swedish Archaeology 1 (1993); “Paddles, androgyne containers, protection in times of transformation?” Proceedings of the Valcamonica Symposium 1993; “Why embroider pottery,” Journal of Prehistoric Religion 7, 1993: 8-25; “The Thesmophoria: why did citizens allow it?” in Ultra Terminum Vagari. Scritti in Onore di Carl Nylander (1997); and “The Capestrano Warrior, Marija Gimbutas and the Chinese Merciful Mother” in From the Realm of the Ancestors: An Anthology in Honor of Marija Gimbutas, J. Marler, ed. (1997). She earned a Ph.D. in Mythology from Pacifica Graduate Institute in California with the dissertation: “Prehistoric Symbols of Transformation: The Case of the Bell-Shaped Figurines.”
Cristina Biaggi, Ph.D. is a sculptor, writer, and teacher living in Palisades, New York whose work has been exhibited in galleries and sculpture parks throughout the United States and in Europe. She is the author of Habitations of the Great Goddess (1994) and editor of In the Footsteps of the Goddess (2000) and The Rule of Mars: The History and Impact of Patriarchy (2005). Her articles include, “The Significance of the Nudity, Obesity and Sexuality of the Maltese Goddess Figure” in Archaeology and Fertility Cult in the Ancient Mediterranean, A. Bonanno, ed. (1986); “The Priestess Figure of Malta” in The Meaning of Things, Material Culture and Symbolic Expression, Ian Hodder, ed. (1989); and “Temple-Tombs and Sculptures in the Shape of the Body of the Great Goddess,” in From the Realm of the Ancestors: An Anthology in Honor of Marija Gimbutas, J. Marler, ed. (1997). Cristina is also a mountain climber, environmental activist and was recently awarded her Fourth Degree Black Belt in the Korean Martial Arts of Tae Kwon Do. Visit website.
Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum, Ph.D., a cultural historian, teaches in the Doctoral Program in Feminist Spirituality at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. She is the author of Liberazione della donna: Feminism in Italy (1986); Black Madonnas: Feminism, Religion, and Politics in Italy (1993); and Godmothers and Others of Colors: Le Comari. A Sicilian Story (forthcoming). She has published numerous articles including “African Origins of Italian and Other European Americans – and of All Peoples of the Earth,” in MultiAmerica: Essays in Cultural War and Culural Peace, I. Reed, ed. (1997); and “Marija Gimbutas and the Change of Paradigm,” in From the Realm of the Ancestors: An Anthology in Honor of Marija Gimbutas, J. Marler, ed. (1997). In 1996 Dr. Birnbaum was inducted into the International African American Multicultural Educators Hall of Fame. She is included in the 13th edition of Who’s Who of Intellectuals (1998) and in the international edition of Five Hundred Notable Women (1998).
Valgerdur H. Bjarnadottir, M.A., earned a degree in social work from Social Högskolen Bærum, Norway, and a B.A. and MA in integral studies from CIIS. She is a free-lance teacher, consultant and writer who, for the last twenty years, has worked as an equality and educational consultant through various Icelandic, Nordic and international projects. Valgerdur served on the editorial board for The Golden Riches in the Grass – Lifelong Learning for All (1995) and on several other publications for the Nordic Council of Ministers.
Mary Brenneman, M.A. (University of Chicago) is a cultural anthropologist specializing in the study of symbol, myth and ritual. She has taught in the field of death and dying at Johnson State College in Vermont where she served on the faculty in the Department of Anthropology. She is a Fellow in the Center for Research on Vermont at the University of Vermont and is co-author of Crossing the Circle at the Holy Wells of Ireland (1995). She lives with her husband Ted Brenneman on a farm in East Montpelier, Vermont.
Walter L. Brenneman, Jr., Ph.D. is Professor Emeritus in the Department of
Comparative Religion at the University of Vermont where he specializes in
the study of symbol, myth and ritual and Celtic studies. He was trained as an historian and phenomenologist of religion at the University of Chicago under Mircea Eliade, and is the author of Spirals: A Study in Symbol, Myth and Ritual (1974); The Seeing Eye: Hermeneutical Phenomenology in the Study of Religion (with Stanley Yarian, 1982); and Crossing the Circle at the Holy Wells of Ireland (with Mary Brenneman, 1995).
Bogdan I. Brukner, Ph.D., is a full professor in the Philosophy Faculty of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Novi Sad. He graduated from the Philosophy Faculty in Belgrade and his doctoral thesis, Neolithic in Vojvodina was published in 1968. Prof. Brukner’s principal works are: Prehistory of Vojvodina (with N. Tasic and B. Jovanovic, 1974); Die Illustrierte Weltgeschichte der Archaelogie (co-authored, 1979); Zum Problem der Auslong der Fhruneolitischen kulturen in Sudpanonnien (1983). He studied in Israel (Claims Conference grant, 1955/66), Germany (Humbolt Foundation grant, 1971-72), Berkeley, New York and Los Angeles (Study Explorations 1985 and 1988), and has lectured at the Universities of Berlin, Frankfurt, and Heidelberg. Prof. Brukner has excavated numerous Neolithic sites in Vojvodina, in the Iron Gate region and in other regions of the former Yugoslavia and is a respected scholar on the Neolithic Vin(missing character)a culture.
Peter Camarotto is a dancer with Mirramu Dance Company, Canberra, Australia and is an MA student in Cultural Psychology (Jungian Studies) at the University of Western Sydney.
Dorothy Cameron (paper read in absentia) is an artist and prehistorian who has studied the symbolism of ancient art throughout Europe and the Near East for over twenty years. During the 1970s she worked as an artist on archaeological excavations which included the site of Teleliat Ghassul near the Dead Sea. She is the author of The Ghassulian Wall Paintings (1981); Symbols of Birth and Death in the Neolithic Era (1981). Her articles include, “The Minoan Horns of Consecration,” in From the Realm of the Ancestors (1997); and “The Symbolism of the Ancestors,” in ReVision vol. 20, no. 3 (winter 1998).
Janine Canan, M.D., is a poet and psychiatrist who graduated from Stanford University with distinction and earned her M.D. degree from New York University School of Medicine. She is the author of five books of poetry, Of your Seed (1977); Daughter (1981); Who Buried the Breasts of Dreams (1981); Shapes of Self (1982); Her Magnificent Body: New and Selected Poems (1986); Star in My Forehead: Songs by Else Lasker-Schueler (translation from German by J. Canan), Changing Woman, and a collection of short stories, Journeys with Justine. Janine Canan is the editor of the anthology She Rises Like the Sun: Invocations of the Goddess by Contemporary American Women Poets (1989), recipient of the 1990 Koppelman Award.
Joan Cichon, M.A., holds Masters degrees in History and Library Science. She has been a history professor and reference librarian at a Chicago-area community college for over twenty years. A student of archaeomythology and feminist spirituality, she lectures throughout the Chicago area. She is working on a doctorate at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco.
Glenda Cloughley, Ph.D., is a Jungian analyst and psychotherapist in private practice in Canberra, Australia. She has a long standing interest in mythology and the relevance in culture of Jungian thought, as reflected in her post-graduate studies the field of Social Ecology. She teaches postgraduate students in Cultural Psychology (Jungian Studies) at the University of Western Sydney, is a consultant on mythology and archetypal process to artists and arts organizations, and is a founding member of A Chorus of Women.
Elizabeth Cameron Dalman, Director of “Dreaming the Deep,” is Creative Director of Mirramu Dance Company, New South Wales, Australia. Ms. Dalman, an international choreographer, dancer and teacher, founded the Australian Dance Theatre, the first national professional modern dance company in Australia, and worked as its Creative Director for many years. She teaches in the Performing Arts Department at University of Western Sydney, has had along interest in myth and Jungian psychology, and is studying for a Ph.D. in Psychology at the University of Western Sydney. Visit website.
Michael Dames is a writer, artist, and prehistorian. He was a senior lecturer on the history of art at Birmingham Polytechnic 1971-76, and town artist of Rochdale Metropolitan Borough 1977-82. He is the author of The Silbury Treasure (1976, 1992), The Avebury Cycle (1977), Mythic Ireland (1992), and Merlin and Wales (2002).
Miriam Robbins Dexter, Ph.D., holds a B.A. in Classics and a Ph.D. in Indo-European Studies (comparative linguistics, archaeology and mythology), both from the University of California, Los Angeles. For thirteen years, she taught courses in Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit language and literature in the department of Classics at the University of Southern California, and is presently teaching at both UCLA and Antioch University in Los Angeles. She has authored several journal and encyclopedia articles on ancient female figures and wrote a new Introduction to O.G.S. Crawford’s seminal work, The Eye Goddess (1991). She is the author of Whence the Goddesses: A Source Book (1990), and co-edited two collections of articles: Varia on the Indo-European Past: Papers in Memory of Marija Gimbutas (1997); and a monograph of Dr. Gimbutas’ own collected articles, The Kurgan Culture and the Indo-Europeanization of Europe:Selected articles from 1952 to 1993 (1997). She edited and supplemented The Living Goddesses by Marija Gimbutas (UC Berkeley Press, 1999).
Rose Wognum Frances, M.F.A. is the former director of the Women’s Spirituality Programs at New College of California and the California Institute of Integral Studies, both in San Francisco. She is a nationally recognized artist working in mixed media, including painting, metalwork, textiles, and woodwork. Her artwork has been shown since 1970 in numerous museums and galleries, including the American Craft Museum, New York, N.Y., the Corcoran Gallery and Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. From 1975-1985 she was faculty in the Fine Arts Department of Florida International University. Her research and teaching integrates the creative process, the language of myth and symbol, art history, and shamanism.
Starr Goode is a founding member of “Goddess Project LA” and is the producer of the cable TV series The Goddess in Art. This series has been used in university courses on the Goddess throughout the country and is cited in Megatrends for Women. Starr Goode is a poet whose work has appeared in We’Moon, High Performance, Return of the Goddess, and other publications. She is co-author (with Miriam Robbins Dexter) of “Sexuality, the Sheela-na-gigs, and the Goddess in Ancient Ireland,” ReVision 2000, vol. 23, n. 1.
Heide Göttner-Abendroth, Ph.D. taught Philosphy and Theory of Science for 10 years at the University of Munich where she co-founded Women’s Studies. In 1986 she established the International Academy Hagia in Bavaria and continues as its director. Heide is well known as a pioneer in “matriarchal” studies and is the author of Die Göttin und ihr Heros (1980, 1996); Die Tanzen Göttin (1982, 1991); Für die Musen (1988); Das Matriarchat I (1988, 1995); Das Matriarchat II,1 (1999); Das Matriarchat II, 2 (2000), among other works. Visit website.
Harald Haarmann, Ph.D. earned his doctorate at Bonn University in 1970, and held a professorship at Trier University where he gained his Habilitation in 1979. From 1982-85 he was a visiting scholar at Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo, Japan, as a guest of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. Since 1985 Dr. Haarmann has worked as an independent scholar living in Finland doing research in the fields of language and culture studies, archaeomythology, and archaeolinguistics. He is the author of some 40 books in German, English, Spanish and Japanese including Early Civilization and Literacy in Europe: An Inquiry into Cultural Continuity in the Mediterranean World (1996) and Die Madonna und ihre Töchter: Rekonstruktion einer kulturhistorischen Genealogie (1996), as well as a five volume series on the languages of the world. He is editor and co-editor of some 20 volumes; author and co-author of some 200 articles in scientific journals and essays in newspapers in several languages. In 1999 he was awarded two prestigious prizes: “Prix logos 1999” (France) and “Premio Jean Monnet 1999” (Italy), and is included in “The Lifetime of Achievement One Hundred, 2005” compiled by the Biographical Centre in Cambridge, England.
Anna Hueneke is a performance painter, visual artist, psychotherapist, and Director of The School of Creativity in Canberra, A.C.T. She is a Ph..D. student in Psychology at University of Western Sydney. She received a grant from Arts ACT and the University of Western Sydney to be an “artist in residence” at the Bogliasco symposium.
Mara Lynn Keller, Ph.D., earned a doctorate in Philosophy at Yale University, and is the Director of the Women’s Spirituality Program at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. She has lectured on Philosophy and Religion, Women’s Studies, and Global Peace Studies at San Francisco State University and is a certified Rosen Method Bodywork Practitioner. She has recently completed a book on the Eleusinian Mysteries. Visit website.
Ivan Marazov, Ph.D. graduated from the Institute of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg in 1967, and earned a doctorate in 1976 (thesis: “The Anthropomorphic Style in Thracian Art”) and Dr. Habil. 1986 (thesis: “Myth, Ritual and Art in Ancient Thrace”). In 1988 he was appointed Director of the Institute of Art Studies by the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. In 1995 he became Head of the Department of History of Culture of the New Bulgarian University in Sofia, and in 1996-7 he served as Minister of Culture of Republic of Bulgaria and is a member of Academia Medici, Florence. His publications include: Rhytons in Ancient Thrace (1978), The Treasure from Iakimovo (1979), Myth, Ritual and Art in Ancient Thrace (1992), The Visual Myth (1992), Thracian Mythology (1994), Mythology of Gold (1994), The Rogozen Treasure (1996), Ancient Gold: The Wealth of the Thracians (1998), Thracians and the Wine (2000), and many articles in Bulgaria and abroad. He has been the editor of the Bulgarian art revue Izkustvo, as well as Orpheus: The International Journal of Palaeobalcan, Indoeuropean and Thracian Studies.
Susan Moulton, Ph.D.,is Senior Professor of Art History at Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, California. She earned graduate degrees in Art History from Stanford University and studied Art History and Archaeology at the University of Padua in Italy. She has received grants from the Carnegie Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities and was awarded the George Sarlo Teaching Excellence Award. She has lectured widely on art history and Archaeomythology and has published on a variety of topics, including the sacred feminine in history and pre-history, secular and Christian iconography in the Italian Renaissance, and cross-cultural topics in American and California art. She manages a small farm in northern California with horses, llamas, pigs, goats, exotic birds, gardens and fruit trees and is a practicing painter and sculptor.
Vicki Noble is an independent scholar, international lecturer and teacher with a twenty-five year focus on women’s history and religion. She is the co-creator of Motherpeace cards and is author of seven books relating to healing, female shamanism, and women’s spirituality, including Shakti Woman: Feeling our Fire, Healing Our World (1991); and The Double Goddess: Women Sharing Power (2003).
Alice Petrie is a grammer school teacher, artist and storyteller with a life-long passion for mythology and archaeology. She has studied at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco and lives in Oregon.
Adrian Poruciuc, Ph.D., is an Indo-European specialist for the Romanian Institute of Thracian Studies in Bucharest, and is Professor of Germanic Studies at Catedra de Engleza, Universitatea “Al. I. Cuza” in Iasi, Romania. As a Fulbright visiting scholar (1990-1992), he taught and did research (Indo-European and Balkan Studies) in association with the Department of Linguistics, University of Chicago. His publications include Archaeolinguistica: Trei studii interdisciplinare (1994); Confluente si etimologii (1998); A History of Medieval English (1999); “Lexical Relics (Rom. teafar, Germ. Zauber, Engl. tiver): A Reminder of Prehistoric Red-Dye Rituals” (The Mankind Quarterly, Vol. XXX, No. 3, 1990); “Problems and Patterns of the Southeast European Ethno- and Glottogenesis, ca. 6500 BC – AD 1500” (The Mankind Quarterly, Vol. XXXIII, No. 1, 1992); “On Indo-European and Egyptoid (Fertile-Crescent) Correspondents of Thracian -poris” (Thraco-Dacica, Tome XX, Nos. 1-2, 1999); “The Shape of Sacredness: From Prehistoric Temples to Neo-Byzantine Churches” (ReVision, vol. 23, no. 1, 2000); among other works.
Vivienne Rogis is a dancer with Mirramu Dance Company, Canberra, Australia.
Virginia Beane Rutter, M.A. is a Jungian Analyst practicing in Mill Valley, California and is on the teaching faculty of the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco. She holds Masters degrees in Art History and in Counseling Psychology and received her analytic training in Zurich and San Francisco. Virginia Beane Rutter lectures widely on the archetype of initiation in feminine psychotherapy and is the author of Woman Changing Woman: Feminine Psychology Re-Conceived Through Myth and Experience (1993); Celebrating Girls: Nurturing and Empowering Our Daughters (1996); and Celebrating Young Women: The Mother-Daughter Relationship in the Teenage Years.
Lydia Ruyle, M.A. is an artist/scholar on the visual arts faculty of the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, Colorado. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder, a Master of Arts from UNC and has studied in Italy, France, Spain, and Indonesia. She works regularly at Santa Reparata Graphic Arts Center in Florence, Italy and Columbia College Center for Book and Paper in Chicago. Her research into sacred images of women has taken her around the globe. She exhibits her art and does workshops internationally. Her distinctive Goddess banners are hung at conferences and gatherings throughout the world. Visit website.
William Ryan, Ph.D. is a Doherty Senior Scholar at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University where he received his doctorate in 1971. His principle areas of research include mapping and imaging the ocean floor, study of paleoclimate, the history of the earth at its oceans, and investigations of inland seas, estuaries and rivers. Dr. Ryan is co-author (with Walter Pitman) of Noah’s Flood: The New Scientific Discoveries About the Event that Changed History (1998). Visit website.
Giulia Battiti Sorlini M.A. is an Italian archaeologist who studied Maturita’ Classica at Collegio Reale delle Fanciulle in Milano. She has earned BA degrees in history at Marist College and Anthropology at Vassar College, both in Poughkeepsie, NY; and an MA in Mediterranean Archaeology at SUNY Albany, NY. Guilia has participated in archaeological excavations in Egypt, Malta, Yugoslavia, ancient Etruria, Calabria and Jordan. Her research represents a range of periods from proto-dynastic Egypt through the times of Medieval Crusaders as well as investigations on ancient Mediterranean religions.
Nanos Valaoritis is Professor Emeritus, San Francisco State University, where he taught comparative literature and creative writing between 1968 and 1995. He is considered one of Greece’s most distinguished contemporary writers, and was twice awarded the Greek National Poetry Prize. He studied law, literature and languages at universities in Athens, London and Paris and has been widely published as a poet, novelist and playwright since 1939. Literary work by Nanos Valaoritis frequently appears in Greek, French and English publications. In 1996 he received the National Poetry Association Award and in 2004 he received the prestigious Poetry Prize by the Athens Academy of Letters and the Gold Medal of Honour by the President of the Republic of Greece.