Member: MaryLupin

Cowan's writing is brilliant, her essay on hatred (the art of cursing) is one of the best, Michael
and @de lint I thought svaha was prophetic (in about 50 yrs)

posted by mjowen at 5:21 am (EST) on Aug 4, 2011

I wasn't familiar with 'embodied cognition' under that title, but after researching it I can see that it fits with many of my own ideas as well as those which I've been recently reading about. I'm excited to see that this perspective has enough proponents to warrant its own place in the current theoretical landscape. Any reading suggestions on this topic?

posted by AtticWindow at 4:23 pm (EST) on Feb 20, 2011

Not read Cowan yet; just Googled her and checked out a few pages of White Rabbit and am intrigued enough to borrow thru library. Re Hillman, something always sticks in my craw when reading his stuff, and I can't seem to put in words what that something is. I just checked my collection on LT and I've got 7 of his books (not Anima, though). Mind you, I never deliberately hunted out his works, just stumbled across them at an irresistable price and thought what the hey... But I always end up sputtering in disagreement with either what he says or---and I think this is closer to my gut feelings of distrust of the man---am turned off by the textural tone of his voice and all that this implies. There's a character on "This Hour has 22 Minutes", an Ozzie guy who's taken it upon himself to become a female liberationist...because while the little ladies are cute and all, it takes a man to get the job done. I can't help but feel Hillman's works are riddled with that vibe, a sort of condescending undertone. Am I just a crank or what?

posted by EAG at 10:55 am (EST) on Feb 2, 2011

Hey, Mary
Unfortunately, I can't offer you much of a commentary about Alchemy just now. My entire collection is boxed up while I build the study of my dreams, so I have no handy means of accessing the book and refreshing my memory. I first read it in university but that's going back a ways....I've got several of her works and remember being more impressed with those in which she was tackling obscure topics (eg, mathematical correspondences between the structure of the I Ching and DNA) than those providing more conventional analyses of archetypes and other cornerstones of depth psychology. I recall her discussion of the dangers of being overwhelmed by too much unconscious information surfacing too soon as being terribly relevant to my own circumstances back in the day...but that nugget probably came from one of her other books. If nothing else, I think von Franz's prose is far more straightforward that Jung's own dense and turgid one, so her value (for me) is more as a translator of his theories (including alchemical symbolism) rather than someone proferring something new. Which is unfortunate since, as a female acolyte of his, I had hoped she would offer a more critical, proto-feminist reading of how gender is structured in Jungian psychology. I've always struggled with the concepts of animus and anima as originally conceived and feel analytic theory would be better served if they were either thoroughly revised/updated or done away with. But that's a rant for another day... Are you familiar with the works of Marion Woodman?

posted by EAG at 4:19 pm (EST) on Feb 1, 2011

Well, after hopping over here, via Happy Heathens group and subsequently the "Bat Poet" profile; and exploring your home page (http://tailfeather.ca); I spent a good deal of time reading about Simone Weil on the "mysticism and religion link. Now, I'll go through the rest of the day trying to smooth out the kinks in my head.

posted by Naren559 at 3:05 pm (EST) on Jan 30, 2010

Hi, MaryLupin, sorry it's taken so long to respond. (Haven't been on-site in a while!) In answer to your question, we're both interested mainly in Christianity and its history, and Anglicanism more specifically.

posted by catalogingjointly at 12:54 pm (EST) on Oct 8, 2009

MaryLupin, if you love the topics of poetry and writing, then you will cherish The Bat Poet and story within.

Even though this is a "children's" book, which my own son and daughter loved dearly, it provides a wonderful message for anyone with writing aspirations.

I hope you will find as much delight in its pages as I did when I first discovered it.

Thank you for your post and I look forward to browsing your collection.

posted by batpoet at 8:47 pm (EST) on Sep 27, 2009

I'm happy to see that you're reading Michael Heffernan. We share some other authors, too, like Linda Hasselstrom and Patricia Limerick. Thanks for making my library an interesting one.

posted by firstcitybook at 1:55 am (EST) on Sep 19, 2009

No, I have a lot of de Lint! but I haven't read that one.

posted by the_red_shoes at 3:26 pm (EST) on Sep 12, 2009

Aww, thanks!

Yeah that was OMG SOME LIBRARY. As if I weren't in love with Neil enough already....

posted by the_red_shoes at 12:52 am (EST) on Sep 9, 2009