1st Edition

The Sleuth and the Goddess Hestia, Artemis, Athena and Aphrodite in Women’s Detective Fiction

By Susan Rowland Copyright 2020
    272 Pages
    by Routledge

    272 Pages
    by Routledge

    Rowland presents a detailed exploration of how the archetypes of ancient goddesses Hestia, Artemis, Athena and Aphrodite breathe into and shape female-authored detective fiction. Representing aspects of characterisation not bound by gender, the book examines how these archetypes emerge in themes like the home and hearth, hunting, survival and desire. Rowland assesses numerous examples from a range of works, providing a clear illustration of each archetype and illuminating aspects of femininity, psyche and being. This uniquely interdisciplinary work of literary analysis sheds light on the popularity and underlying mystique of the genre.

    Chapter 1: Introduction: Mythical Knowing and Detective Fiction;  Chapter 2: The Goddesses for Women Writers: Gendering the Genre;  Chapter 3: Hestia: Detecting Hearth and Home;  Chapter 4: Hunting with Artemis;  Chapter 5: Athena's Justice;  Chapter 6: The Mysteries of Aphrodite;  Chapter 7: The Nature of the Twenty-First Century: The Sleuth and the Goddess after 9/11;  Notes; Index

    Biography

    Susan Rowland, PhD, is Chair of the M.A. in Engaged Humanities and the Creative Life at Pacifica Graduate Institute, California. Author of many books on Jung, the feminine, literature, and literary theory, her recent work includes C. G. Jung in the Humanities: Taking the Soul’s Path (2010) and The Ecocritical Psyche: Literature, Evolutionary Complexity, and Jung (2012). She lives in California with her husband, the digital literary artist and poet Joel Weishaus.