Max Dashu
| Max Dashu | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Maxine Hammond 1950 (age 66–67) West Chicago, Illinois |
| Residence | Richmond, California |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | Harvard University |
| Occupation | Feminist historian, author, artist |
| Years active | 1970–present |
| Notable work | Witches and Pagans: Women in European Folk Religion, 700–1100 |
| Partner(s) | Nava Mizrahhi |
| Website | Suppressed Histories Archive |
Maxine Hammond (born 1950), known professionally as Max Dashu, is an American feminist historian, author and artist. Her areas of expertise include female iconography, mother-right cultures and the origins of patriarchy.
In 1970, Dashu founded the Suppressed Histories Archives to research and document women's history and to make the full spectrum of women's history and culture visible and accessible. The collection includes 15,000 slides and 30,000 digital images. Since the early 1970s, Dashu has delivered visual presentations on women's history throughout North America, Europe and Australia.
Dashu is the author of Witches and Pagans: Women in European Folk Religion, 700–1100 (2016), the first volume of a planned 16-volume series called Secret History of the Witches.
Dashu grew up in West Chicago, Illinois. In 1968, she earned a scholarship to Harvard University, where she began her research in women's history. Facing "entrenched resistance" to feminist scholarship, she chose to leave the university to become an independent scholar. After founding the Suppressed Histories Archives in 1970, she began presenting on women's history in 1973, sharing slides of her research at feminist bookstores, cafe and women's centers. Dashu's slide presentations offered visual history at a time when lesbian history and art was not easily accessible.
In 1976, Dashu was involved in the Inez García defense committee. In the early 1980s, Dashu worked in the Household Workers' Rights organization, a Union WAGE project established in 1979 for working women.
Dashu's decades-long work has focused on women's history around the world, including Europe, Asia and Africa. Areas of focus include women shamans and priestesses, witches and the witch trials, folk religion and pagan European traditions. Her work has cited evidence in support of egalitarian matrilineages, and she authored a critique of Cynthia Eller's The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory (2000). Her article Knocking Down Straw Dolls: A Critique of Cynthia Eller's The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory was reprinted in the journal Feminist Theology in 2005. Dashu has also published in the 2011 anthology Goddesses in World Culture, edited by Patricia Monaghan.
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