Research


I am interested in early historic female figures — goddesses and heroines — as well as prehistoric female figurines. I translate mythological texts, folk tales, and folksongs from Indo-European (Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, Germanic, Celtic, Hittite, Slavic, Latvian, Lithuanian, Romanian, and others) and Semitic (Hebrew, Ugaritic, Akkadian/Babylonian, Sumerian, Phoenician, and others – with varying degrees of proficiency) languages, attempting to shed light upon the functions, attributes, and powers of early historic women, human and idealized. I am also interested in Indo-European and Neolithic Southeast European archaeology, and DNA studies which give us answers to questions of from where, to where, and when the Proto-Indo-Europeans migrated, the gender of the migrating Indo-Europeans, and why the Indo-European cultures became male-centered.

Courses


  • Fall 1981–Spring, 1993: University of Southern California, Lecturer, Department of Classics
    Latin grammar; readings in Ovid, Vergil, Latin Elegists; Greek grammar; readings in Homer; readings in Linear B; readings in Rigvedic Sanskrit; The Latin and Greek Elements in English; “Ancient Goddesses and Heroines”; Classical Mythology
  • Winter, 1997–Fall, 2010: UCLA
    Lecturer, UCLA Honors Collegium and Women’s Studies Program; ‘The Roots of Patriarchy: Ancient Goddesses and Heroines’; various Women’s Studies courses; Department of Theater Arts, ‘Acting Myth’
  • July, 2007: Guest Lecturer, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iaşi, Moldavia, Romania
  • June, 2005: Guest lecturer, New Bulgarian University, Sofia, Bulgaria
  • Various years:
    External PhD faculty for The Union Institute; Pacifica University; California Institute of Integral Studies
  • 1998–2023: UCLA Center for the Study of Women.  Research Scholar/Research Affiliate

Publications


Works Edited

  • Co-editor, Proceedings of the annual UCLA Indo-European conferences, 1997-2008
  • The Kurgan Culture and the Indo-Europeanization of Europe: Selected articles from 1952 to 1993, by Marija Gimbutas, edited by Miriam Robbins Dexter and Karlene Jones-Bley, Washington, DC: Institute for the Study of Man, (Journal of Indo-European Studies Monograph #18), 1997
  • Varia on the Indo-European Past:  Papers in Memory of Marija Gimbutas, edited by Miriam Robbins Dexter and Edgar C. Polomé, Washington, DC, The Institute for the Study of Man (Journal of Indo-European Studies Monograph #19), 1997
  • Signs of Civilization: Neolithic Symbol System of Southeast Europe, Joan Marler and Miriam Robbins Dexter, eds. Proceedings from the International Symposium Signs of Civilization, Novi Sad, Serbia, Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, May 25-29, 2004.  Novi Sad, Serbia: Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Novi Sad Branch; Sebastopol, California: Institute of Archaeomythology, 2009.
  • The Living Goddesses, by Marija Gimbutas (“edited and supplemented by Miriam Robbins Dexter”).  Los Angeles and Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.  Paperback edition 2001.

Encyclopedia Articles

  • Articles on Indo-European Female Figures for the Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, J.P. Mallory and Douglas Q. Adams, eds.  Garland Publishing, 1997
  • “Prehistoric Goddesses” In The Encyclopedia of Women and World Religion, New York: Macmillan, 1999
  • “Neolithic Goddesses;” “Upper Palaeolithic and pre-Neolithic Goddesses.” (2 articles)  The Encyclopedia of Women and World Religion.  ABC Clio: 2018.

For further publications, see Academia.edu.