Jody’s presentation is called, “Hero Quests and Heroine Journeys Degendered“
Who embarks on the hero’s quest or the heroine’s journey, and why? Looking at these mythic patterns through the lens of such questions allows us to rename them in non-gendered language. In this presentation, Jody Bower recasts Joseph Campbell’s Hero as the Protector, Maureen Murdock’s Heroine as the Pathfinder, Kim Hudson’s Virgin as the Integrator, and her own Aletis as the Seeker. Bower discusses how the journeys differ in pattern and outcome, and how each allows the journeyer–whatever their gender identity–to heal what must be healed for true Selfhood.
About Jody:
Jody Gentian Bower earned her PhD in Mythological Studies with a Depth Psychology Emphasis from Pacifica Graduate Institute in 2012. She is the author of Jane Eyre’s Sisters: How Women Live and Write the Heroine Story, a nonfiction book that examines the Aletis (Greek for “wandering heroine”) story that has been told by women—and a few visionary males including Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, and J.R.R. Tolkien—for centuries.
