The term «neo-mythology» in the foreign humanities discourse of the XX-XXI centuries: the specifics of its existence

Abstract

The article is devoted to the specifics of existence of the term «neo-mythology» in the foreign humanities discourse of the XX-XXI centuries. The foreign texts, which contain the term «neo-mythology» as a key word, have become the focus of research for this article. The genesis and semantics of the idea of «neo-mythology» in foreign research papers are the subject matter of the research. The origin matters of the term «neo-mythology» in the Italian cinema of the 1950s-1960s are overviewed in detail. Special attention is paid to the analysis of the main tendencies of the development of the notion «neo-mythology». Russian and foreign researches touching upon contemporary mythology differ both in the content and in the usage of the term «neo-mythology» crucially. The following research was inspired by the necessity to find the terminological equivalents in Russian and foreign scientific works on modern mythogenesis. The research is based on structural-semantic and semantic-cognitive methods. Traditional methods of analysis, synthesis, comparison and generalization are used. The results of the research enabled us to make conclusions on the peripheral role of the term «neo-mythology» in foreign scientists’ works and conclude that their preferences lie within the terms «contemporary/modern mythology». The term «neo-mythology» in the foreign discourse is mostly used in works, which are either devoted to the research of some aspects of mass culture or closely connected with Russian humanities. The usage of the term «neo-mythology» in foreign research of mass/pop culture reflects the background of theoretical analysis of modern mass consciousness turning to myths. The conclusions made in the research are supposed to help Russian scientists work with foreign studies of contemporary mythology more productively.