| Kore in Conflict: Feminist Neo-Pagans Look the Other Way As the God Rapes the Goddess
Michelle will present her undergraduate senior thesis. In the essay, Michelle addresses the theological problem of rape for feminist Neo-Pagans. A core myth in the Neo-Pagan movement is that Goddess worship is inherently a feminist practice. However, many ancient and modern cultures in which people worship goddesses have often not been particuarly friendly to women.
Greek mythology in particular contains story after story, in which a god, most frequently Zeus, rapes a goddess, a mortal woman, a young boy, or an animal. Instead of directly dealing with the implications of a god's rape of a goddess, Neo-pagans retell the myths as pleasant stories, in which goddesses always have agency and are never victims of violence or rape. Michelle will discuss the earliest versions of the mythic rape of Persephone, and will then compare the original story to two modern authors' recreations.
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