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Event Website
https://www.mythsoc.org/oms/oms-2023.htm
Start Date
8-5-2023 12:00 PM
End Date
8-5-2023 12:50 PM
Description
Hell is traditionally a place of torment, where the young heroine, like Persephone or Eurydice, is kidnapped by the patriarchy, leaving others to rescue her. The last few decades, however, have offered a model closer to Sumerian Inanna, in which the heroine is enlightened by hell or even conquers it. Angela, Queen of Hel: Journey to the Funderworld by Marguerite Bennett (2016) gives its heroine this path. Winning back her beloved, Angela, sister of Thor and Loki, becomes queen of the underworld but then prefers to bring Sera back to earth in a flip on Eurydice. The Xena episode “Fallen Angel” (5.01) has a similar arc. Xena, now an archangel, descends into hell to save Gabrielle. Saving Callisto makes Xena a vicious demon, one who glories in destruction. Only Callisto, like the good shadow within, can manage to redeem her. Likewise, the 2018 French graphic novel Persephone by Loïc Locatelli-Kournwsky shows the heroine discovering hell as her place of power. As Carol S. Pearson writes in Persephone Rising, “Persephone’s ease in moving back and forth between the worlds and the seasons can be a model for our gaining ease in shifting between multiple roles and adjusting to new life stages that require different things from us” (190). All these heroines gain enlightenment and might through claiming hell as their birthright or conquest—the true font of feminine power.
Included in
Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons, Comparative Literature Commons, Digital Humanities Commons, European Languages and Societies Commons, Literature in English, Anglophone outside British Isles and North America Commons, Literature in English, British Isles Commons, Literature in English, North America, Ethnic and Cultural Minority Commons, Medieval Studies Commons, Modern Languages Commons, Modern Literature Commons, Other English Language and Literature Commons
The Underworld as the Heroine’s Journey Home: Marvel, Xena, and Mythic Reimaginings
Hell is traditionally a place of torment, where the young heroine, like Persephone or Eurydice, is kidnapped by the patriarchy, leaving others to rescue her. The last few decades, however, have offered a model closer to Sumerian Inanna, in which the heroine is enlightened by hell or even conquers it. Angela, Queen of Hel: Journey to the Funderworld by Marguerite Bennett (2016) gives its heroine this path. Winning back her beloved, Angela, sister of Thor and Loki, becomes queen of the underworld but then prefers to bring Sera back to earth in a flip on Eurydice. The Xena episode “Fallen Angel” (5.01) has a similar arc. Xena, now an archangel, descends into hell to save Gabrielle. Saving Callisto makes Xena a vicious demon, one who glories in destruction. Only Callisto, like the good shadow within, can manage to redeem her. Likewise, the 2018 French graphic novel Persephone by Loïc Locatelli-Kournwsky shows the heroine discovering hell as her place of power. As Carol S. Pearson writes in Persephone Rising, “Persephone’s ease in moving back and forth between the worlds and the seasons can be a model for our gaining ease in shifting between multiple roles and adjusting to new life stages that require different things from us” (190). All these heroines gain enlightenment and might through claiming hell as their birthright or conquest—the true font of feminine power.
Comments
SESSION II
12:00 Noon—12:50 PM Eastern
11:00 AM—11:50 Central
10:00 AM—10:50 Mountain
9:00 AM—9:50 Pacific
4:00 PM—4:50 GMT