Riane Tennenhaus Eisler | |
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Born | Vienna, Austria |
Other names | Riane Eisler |
Alma mater | University of California |
Known for | The Chalice and the Blade (1988) |
Notable awards |
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Spouse | David Loye |
Website www |
Riane Tennenhaus Eisler (born July 22, 1931) is a cultural historian, systems scientist, educator, attorney, speaker, and author whose work on cultural transformation has inspired scholars and social activists. Her research has impacted many fields, including history, literature, philosophy, art, economics, psychology, sociology, education, organizational development, political science, and healthcare. Eisler was born in Vienna, fled from the Nazis with her parents to Cuba as a small child, and later emigrated to the United States. She obtained degrees in sociology and law from UCLA; taught pioneering classes on women and the law at UCLA; and now teaches in the graduate Transformative Leadership Program at the California Institute of Integral Studies. She is Editor in Chief of the Interdisciplinary Journal of Partnership Studies at the University of Minnesota and President of the Center for Partnership Studies, dedicated to research and education on the partnership model introduced by Eisler’s research.
Eisler proposes that new social paradigms are needed that transcend the limitations of conventional social categories such as religious vs. secular, right vs. left, capitalist vs. communist, East vs. West, and pre-industrial vs. industrial or post-industrial. She notes that societies in all these categories have been repressive and violent, and that none answer the question of what kinds of institutions and beliefs support more equitable and peaceful relations. In addressing this question, Eisler’s multidisciplinary, cross-cultural research resulted in a new conceptual framework for understanding and improving social systems: the partnership-domination continuum. The identification of the partnership model and the domination model as two underlying social configurations requires a new analytical approach that includes social features that are currently ignored or marginalized, such as the social construction of human/nature connections, parent/child relations, gender roles and relations, and the way we assess the value of the work of caring for people and nature.