Abstract
This paper investigates the elements in ancient Greek myths that refer to the 'other' in the recently reformed Greek Cypriot history curriculum's primary phase programmes of study (MoEd, 2016). The article's opening section analyses the conceptual nature of such myths and their presence in modern curricula. It goes on to identify in these myths the presence of any foreign, different or genderbased 'other', and whether they are included in Greek Cypriot textual or visual teaching material about myths and legends. The article also considers the extent to which this material refers to characteristic, dominant female figures who play a leading role in classical myths and local historical narratives – figures associated with numerous Cypriot place names, traditions, historical accounts and fiction. The paper builds on Said's (1989) concept of otherness, post-colonial theory and Foucault's discourse analysis (Given, 2002) to consider in particular how the myth of Aphrodite, the gendered woman 'other', was marginalized during Venetian, Ottoman and British colonial rule of Cyprus from 1489 to 1960. More generally, it examines the significance of teaching ancient Greek myths as an aspect of Greek Cypriot citizenship education.
Highlights
The relationship between myth and historyThe relationship between myth and history has been the subject of extensive research that suggests that despite the fairy-tale structure and fluid form of myths, they contain sufficient historical traces to legitimize them as historical sources (Burkert, 1993; Csapo, 2005; Dieter, 2011; Karakantza, 2004)
In the case of Cyprus, intense discussions on the history curriculum focused on the question of the threat to the teaching of national identity from adopting a multicultural, European and international approach
Curricular proposals accepted that ancient Greek mythology was a source of substantive special information about various aspects of the Greek past, including national identity, while highlighting the need to differentiate between the oral provenance of myths and reliable historical sources
Summary
The relationship between myth and history has been the subject of extensive research that suggests that despite the fairy-tale structure and fluid form of myths, they contain sufficient historical traces to legitimize them as historical sources (Burkert, 1993; Csapo, 2005; Dieter, 2011; Karakantza, 2004). Emerging from the Labyrinth, he escaped from Knossos and sailed for Athens with the 14 children and Ariadne Both the Daedalus and the Theseus and the Minotaur myths portray Minoan Crete as the ‘other’, a culturally underdeveloped and barbaric civilization. It teaches that moral imperatives underpin individual autonomy, which can result in a radically different perspective on the social position of women (Dossas, 2008: 160) Both Ariadne in the Theseus and the Minotaur myth, and Medea in the Jason and the Argonauts myth relate to the contentious issue of the marginalization of mythical female figures, who play a key role in prehistoric, ancient Greek, Roman and postRoman Cypriot history (Peristianis, 1995; Stavrides and Kyriazis, 2009: 28–37). The Cypriot Ministry of Education and Culture oversaw and distributed the only textbook that mentions her, but it excludes Aphrodite’s ‘voice’ and significance, only representing her pictorially
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