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Christine Downing Papers
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Table of contents
Title: Christine Downing Papers
Physical Description: 32.5 linear feet (68 boxes)
Repository:
Opus Archives and Research Center
Santa Barbara, CA 93108
Language of Material:
English
Scope and Content Note
The Downing collection includes memento folders from 1955 through 2006, manuscripts,
personal and professional correspondence, lecture outlines and notes, syllabi, and
recordings of many of the courses she has taught over more than four decades.
Biography/Organization History
Christine Downing (1931-) is a scholar of religion, mythology, depth psychology, and
feminist studies. She married while attending college and was the first married
woman to graduate from Swarthmore. She wrote her dissertation on Martin Buber and
became the first woman upon whom Drew University bestowed a doctorate. Downing began
her exemplary teaching career at Rutgers University in 1963. She moved to California
in 1974 to teach at San Diego State University where she remained for eighteen
years, ten of which she served as chair of the Department of Religious Studies. In
1974, when Dr. Downing became the first woman president of the American Academy of
Religion, she gave her presidential address on "Sigmund Freud and the Mythological
Tradition," a presentation which marked an important early public expression of her
life-long scholarly emphasis on Freud.
During her years in San Diego, Dr. Downing also served as a core faculty member at
the California School of Professional Psychology. This assignment led her to return
to school to pursue a master's degree in family therapy. In 1994 she was asked to
assist in the development of the curriculum for what was then the newly established
Mythological Studies program at Pacifica Graduate Institute.
Throughout her professional career, Downing published nine books and edited five
others, mapping the changes in the field of religious studies over the last half
century. Significant works include
The Goddess: Mythological Images of the
Feminine
(1981),
The Myths and Mysteries of Same Sex Love
(1989), and
Psyche's Sisters: Reimagining the Meaning of Sisterhood
(1988). See the Opus Archives and Research Center website for a bibliography of Downing’s works.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Depth psychology
Women's studies
Religions