[Author’s Note: In 2009, as a young Ph.D. scholar I was at a crossroad. I was losing interest in maintaining a part-time university lecturer’s position. Furthermore, I was getting tired of applying for a full time teaching job for a university. No one had told me those were too conventional for me. I did not enjoy being a university teacher but I wanted to remain in academia because I loved the academic environment; learning, researching, discussing, and studying the topics that mattered to me. Naturally, I enrolled in UCLA’s MA program in East Asian Studies. In 2009, I was contemplating the possibility of enrolling in the second Ph.D. program, this time in Korean Studies at UCLA, after the first one in Women’s Studies in Religion at Claremont Graduate University. It is good that I did not pursue that possibility in the long run. My path was to be a scholar but not an academic. I am thankful for Lise Weil, the main editor of the Trivia journal, who invited me to co-edit an issue dedicated to the topic of Goddesses. This essay was my editorial note to the issue of “Thinking about Goddesses” published Trivia: Voices of Feminism (Issue 9, 2009). In retrospect, my career as a journal editor began here, thanks to Lise Weil. Articles by familiar authors are found here. ]
After reading many submissions for this issue, I exclaimed to Lise [Weil] electronically:
“What I am realizing through the process of being co-editor on this Goddess issue is that the topic of Goddess creates a response which is amorphous and yet contagious. I myself do not know what the norm of writing or even thinking about Goddess is for an issue like this one. It is very personal, steeped in the takes or rejects of very common motifs like nature, nationalist symbol of the freedom statue, Native Indian and Afro-American perspectives, all too rich and complex to make a judgment which one is more important to us. My thinking cannot catch up with all those intricate workings of images, events, and thoughts.”
The crisscrossing of topics and perspectives patterned in the essays has enchanted me. The voice that shapes these patterns in each piece has allowed me to see the working of Goddess within the female self. I swell with the creativity, sensitivity, and commitment embodied in this issue.
It is my honor and privilege to co-edit the present issue dedicated to Goddess with Lise Weil, whose zeal and commitment to the editorial work I admire and appreciate dearly. Thanks to her understanding of my ridiculously overwhelming schedule during the past six months, I am still here to write an editorial. I thank Harriet Ellenberger who has supported me to go forward with this work. I appreciate Susan Kullmann for her wonderful work of web-designing and publishing this issue as well as her previous work for my piece in Trivia #6.
“Goddess” is a word that is problematic and yet necessary for lack of a better word. It is problematic because it is linguistically derivative of “god.” The term “goddess” therefore fails to convey the original and encompassing nature of the Female, she-reality. Equally problematic are “female” and “she” because they too are linguistically indicative of “male” and “he.” In short, the language we use works against the notion that we seek to convey. Languages have been hijacked by patriarchal builders and the original sex/gender principle associated with pro/creation has been taken hostage. Or so I thought. Quite pessimistic, I would say now. I now suggest that we transform the language by stipulating a new meaning for the word “goddess”: a norm from which “god” is not only derived but in which it is included. Likewise, by calling Her “Female,” we mean that the male is derived from and included in Fe/male, as is he in s/he. She is the Origin, the Creatrix, from whom both he and she are derived and in which they are included. The Fe/male principle is asymmetrical with the male principle. “She” antecedes and embodies “he.” “He” is an extending and often distorted reflection of “She.” Wo/man is a human norm from which man originates. Only with such a semantic device is it possible for us to discuss Goddess. How else can I present Mago, the Goddess I know from East Asia, who is the Origin, the Way, and the Heaven? The term “Mago” means the Great Goddess. Sex/gender dualism is deemphasized in the tradition of Mago that I call Magoism. In fact, the triadic principle of Mago Samsin (Triad Deity) overrides the dualistic scheme of yin/yang. The Fe/male Triad is the creative mechanism devised by the ancients to cope with dualistic reductionism. I am pleased to see my understanding of Goddess has proven to be real and effective in a variety of ways expressed in these essays. The cross-cultural working of Goddess is evident. (As a Korea-born fe/male, my presence in the West is cross-cultural by default.)
The earliest solicitation of the essays partially included in this issue came about after the 2008 conference of the American Academy of Religion in the Western Region (AAR/WR) held in Pasadena, CA. (I with the support of others have convened at least two special sessions in this conference under the rubric of Goddess Studies. We have formed a planning committee for this task.) We held a pre-conference workshop and two sessions of “Goddess Studies” last year and will be holding a third this year. Out of “Pure Lust,” to borrow Mary Daly’s words, it was a natural next step for us to encourage the participants to redesign their papers into more personal narratives so that their scholarship could reflect women’s experiences as well. Then, I asked Trivia about the possibility of publication.
To convene sessions in the name of Goddess Studies was no small fruition given that a female scholar’s work on Goddess is still taken lightly in mainstream academia. Women scholars whose research is primarily grounded in Goddess face a dead end in their pursuit of an academic career. This I have experienced. Thus, the very visualization of “Goddess Studies” in this conference, regional and colloquial, was not only a symbolic act. It was an act of realization; some of us combined our efforts to materialize our Goddess work in the form of an academic conference. The initial momentum was given in 2007 when we, out of necessity and desperation, called for a spontaneous and informal meeting among women scholars of the female divine during the conference of AAR/WR in Berkeley, CA. Nane Jordan, who was enthusiastic about the idea of these scholars getting together, has joined me in this project of publishing our essays in Trivia. Jordan, whose academic inquiry stems from her midwifery career, as inspirationally told in this issue, recalls our initial meeting as follows:
“We sat around this table and shared about our work and what we saw as the challenges of doing Goddess scholarship in the academy. So many themes emerged: the sense of isolation experienced by those working outside of the San Francisco Bay area, outside of one of the women’s spirituality graduate degree programs, coupled with difficulties of entering the academic and religious studies “job market” when pursuing Goddess scholarship. There were stories of how pursuing Goddess-based scholarship can still be anathema to a paid scholarly path. We talked of the pivotal role of independent scholars in forging this field, due to its emergence from within feminist and non-institutionalized agendas. Thus, finding one’s ‘place’ in this work calls us from heart-felt passion, as a path with no definitive ends. There was desire voiced to be mindful of representing the Goddess field from non-Eurocentric views, sharing our experiences and working to build multiple locations in which our work can be represented. Also, there was the question of what this term ‘Goddess’ really means – does it fit the work we are all doing?”
I am delighted to be reconnected with Luciana Percovich, Judy Grahn, and Betty Meador, whose essays are included in this issue. I thank Dianne Jenett and Annie Lapham for their cherished interest in and support for this issue. I owe my thanks to Patricia Monaghan, Miranda Shaw, and Laura Truxler who enriched this circle of Goddess Scholars in the Western Region; I thank Patricia and Miranda who flew from the mid-west and east to join the conference in 2008. Laura Truxler has shown us her unflagging support by being an active member of the planning committee. I extend my thanks also to Marguerite Rigoglioso, Arisika Razak, Max Dashu, Susan Carter, Louise Pare, Mara Keller, Inhui Lee, Kahena Viale, and others whose names I cannot list here.