Categories Of Myth Research Articles

“The Last Time” by Guillermo Martinez: Latin American boom and its assessment after 60 years

The article attempts to trace the general dynamics of the development of Latin American literature before and after the Latin American boom through the prism of Guillermo Martinez’s recently published novel “The Last Time” (2022). Well learned Latin-American literature of “boom” in some sense eclipses the following generations. The purpose of the article is to show the general picture of the development of Latin American literature before and after, to comprehend the processes taking place in Spanish American literature over the past 60 years and to summarize them. The recent novel by argentine writer Guillermo Martinez “The last time” represents some kind of farewell, an attempt of looking to the “golden generation” from long distance and appreciate it in the terms of postmodern poetic. From the Martinez’s point of view the writers of boom were conspirators, and there books were passwords. These conspirations and passwords could ne comprehended as confirmation of their specific reality described throw unique code, precisely mythopoetic. The article deals with the story of search for Latin-American identity and the way towards mythopoetic, witch is analyzed as connected with archaic mentality and archaic categories of myth and magic. The following generations of Latin-American writers gradually returned to plain reality of human world: magic realism turns into naked and dirty. Simultaneously the tradition of Borges and Cortazar brings the literature of continent into the configuration of western postmodern.

Myth and History in Shin Buddhist Thought

The categories of myth and history do not fit easily within Shinran's "true essence of the Pure Land way." Mythopoetic narratives in Shin Buddhism are circumscribed within the broader themes of teaching, practice, shinjin, and realization, which comprise that path. Pure Land narratives do not play the type of cosmogonic or etiological role accorded generally to myth. Some religious concerns associated with myth and history are addressed in Shinran's understanding of the dynamics of upāya. The retrieval of mythos in Shin Buddhism may yield a surplus of meaning in the realization of shinjin at the coalescence of myth and history.

Q přijíždí na bílém koni: konspirační teorie u mormonů, aneb, Proč 16 milionové americké náboženství inklinuje ke QAnonu?

This text deals with Mormon conspiracism, the belief in conspiracies among members of the Mormon religion. I examine how conspiracy theories are reflected in Mormon culture, history, and faith and how they were influenced by the emergence of Denver Snuffer's modern neo-fundamentalist movement. Using the example of the new age movement and Mormon preppers, I show the growing influence of conspiracy thinking and its connection to Donald Trump and the QAnon theory. Using the story of Nathan Wayne Entrekin, one of the participants in the January 6, 2021, insurrection who came dressed as a warrior from the Book of Mormon, I elaborate on the fundamentalist and conspiracy roots of early Mormonism in the times of Joseph Smith. That is combined with multiple testimonies from John Dehlin's Mormon Stories Podcast as it reflected the apocalyptic Mormon milieu from 2010-2020. In the final part, I analyze Mormon neo-fundamentalism through the social myth theory of Radek Chlup, who describes three categories of myth (political, fictional, and conspirator) and how they affect the popularity of these myths.

Analysis and Insights for Myths Circulating on Twitter During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The current COVID-19 pandemic and its uncertainty have given rise to various myths and rumours. These myths spread incredibly fast through social media, which has caused massive panic in society. In this paper, we comprehensively examined the prevailing myths related to COVID-19 in regard to the diffusion of myths, people's engagement with myths and people's subjective emotions to myths. First, we classified the myths into five categories: spread of infection, preventive measures, detection measures, treatment and miscellaneous. We collected the tweets about each category of myths from 1 January to 7 July in the year 2020. We found that the vast majority of the myth tweets were about the spread of the infection. Next, we fitted myths spreading with the SIR epidemic model and calculated the basic reproduction number n}{}R_0 for each category of myths. We observed that the myths about the spread of infection and preventive measures propagated faster than other categories of myths, and more miscellaneous myths raised and quickly spread from later June 2020. We further analyzed people's emotions evoked by each category of myths and found that fear was the strongest emotion in all categories of myths and around 64% of the collected tweets expressed the emotion of fear. The study in this paper provides insights for authorities and governments to understand the myths during the eruption of the pandemic, and hence enable targeted and feasible measures to demystify the most concerned myths in due time.

НЕКОТОРЫЕ АСПЕКТЫ ЛИНГВИСТИЧЕСКОГО АНАЛИЗА РАССКАЗА Х. КОРТАСАРА «НЕПРЕРЫВНОСТЬ ПАРКОВ»

This research is devoted to H.Kortasar’s short story «Сontinuity of parks». The relevance of the topic is connected with the possibility to make a multidimensional analysis. The aim of the research is to demonstrate great importance of linguistic analysis of a short story for the revealing of its meaning. In the Introduction a short description of the structure of the story is given. There are two plans, two realities which exist parallel to each other and at the end they meet. The main character of the story «Сontinuity of parks» is the victim of the character of the novel read by him. The second part of the article is devoted to the short view of the literature criticism of this piece of work. The main attention is given to the phenomenon of metallepsis, the notion of chronotope, the category of myth and connection of this piece of work with H. L. Borhes’s works. The author of the article also pays attention to H. Kortasar’s aesthetic concept connected with the phenomenon of «reader-female» and the author’s view on a literature piece of work from the viewpoint of «play». The relevance of «interaction between key moments of the text» and a reader’s experience. The third part of the article gives a linguistic analysis of some elements of the story including nominalization and ontological metaphor. The author gives a detailed analysis of lexeme and phrase dibujo (drawing, outline), el dibujo de los personajes (outline, character sketch), ilusióni (illusion), intrusion (intrusion), continuidad (continuity). As a result the author makes following conclusions. As in many other stories H. Kortasar in «Continuity of parks» involves the reader in the narration, gives a riddle to him which can’t be solved from the viewpoint of formal logics. The intrigue of the narration, its «its inner structure» is implemented because of great opportunities of Spanish. The interpretation of an open end in some literature works of postmodern period is the main task of the reader who becomes а «co-author» of the text.

МИФ, МИРОВОЕ ВРЕМЯ И МОДЕЛИ ПРОСТРАНСТВА В ПОСТМОДЕРНИСТСКИХ ПРОИЗВЕДЕНИЯХ В. ПЕЛЕВИНА

В данной статье рассматривается одна из тем творчества Виктора Пелевина – миф. Исследуется миф с учетом всех его форм, вариаций и трансформаций от классической мифологии (Бог Ра), современной социальной, политической до вампирской мифологии. Миф, в силу тематизированной возможности многократной повторяемости, модифицирует категорию времени в развертывании сюжета в произведениях постмодернистов. В статье изучается проблема определения статуса и роли мифа в творчестве В. Пелевина. Делается вывод о том, что миф является фундаментальной категорией многих романов Пелевина. Писатель использует в романах такую особенность своей поэтики, как «неомифологизм» – межтекстовое заимствование некоторых элементов архаических структур мифов или мета-историй. Объективное историческое время заменяется мифологическим временем, поскольку действия и события представлены в романе как прототипы.

"ТЕКСТЫ ПИРАМИД" И ПРОБЛЕМА НЕ-"КЛАССИЧЕСКОГО" МИФА

This article analyses several approaches to the study of myth in the Old Kingdom of Egypt. The recent works on the Pyramid Texts by H. Hays and A. Morales seem to regard the category of myth as somewhat irrelevant to this subject. Despite being mentioned in the introduction, the term is not used in analysis and interpretation of the Pyramid Texts as such. Since this corpus of religious texts forms the most important base for any discussion on myth in the Old Kingdom, it seems to be a practical implementation of J. Assmann’s hypothesis of the absence of myth in the age of pyramids. The present author reconsiders the main points of Assmann’s evaluation of myth in relation to the theory of myth proposed by E.M. Meletinsky. There seem to be a notion of ‘classical myth’, characterized by narrative organization and etiological function, which is usually regarded as myth par excellence. Assmann’s argumentation highlights aspects of early Egyptian texts which prevent them from being regarded as ‘classical myth’. Usually this results in avoidance of this category altogether as mentioned above. There is however another attitude to myth, developed by K. Goebs, who suggests a very useful model for integral description of Egyptian religion and ritual practice.

Between Similarity and Non-similarity. The Nature of Theological Language in the Thought of Peter Abelard

the aim of this paper is to answer to the following question: How should theological propositions, originating from the language used to describe creatures, be understood so as to avoid idolatry, that is reducing God to the category of contingent entities?Using the theory of similarities formulated by Peter Abelard, I pointed out that the risk of committing theological errors decreases when language formulas are treated as models, and their meaning is understood in a figurative way. Such an attitude enables us to acknowledge the fact that language can be only partially adequate to the subject under discussion, and makes us aware that we describe only one aspect of a given theological phenomenon, as the chosen model may not correspond to other aspects.Such understanding of the theological language calls for a constant reinterpretation of theological propositions. If images used in theology are linked to the structure of the world, each change in the scientific understanding of this structure brought by empirical sciences, should lead to changes in the language used by theology. Lack of such changes in the system of religious beliefs will lead to a decrease in the credibility of theology and push its truths towards the category of myths and fables.

Государство: истина и мифы

The article is devoted to the investigation of the category of truth and the category of myth in the sciences of state. The phenomenon of the state was analyzed as a specific sphere of the science integration. Despite the considerable achievements of the modern juridical science, many questions on the real essence of state and the methods of its research sill do not hane any answers. Modern explanatory state-legal theory has essential faults. Dealing with these questions, the author proposes their solving in the context of the informational and systematic approach. The author paid a particular attention to the problems and prospects of integration of the latest philosophical, epistemological and methodological achievements in the sciences of state. The author appeals to some works by Plato, who studied the problems of truth and myths. Relevant fragments of the dialogues were found in “Theaetetus”, “Republic” and “Statesman”. The article deals with Plato’s (mathematical) version of state organization which looked forward to ideas of modern natural sciences. Etymology of the concepts “truth” and “myth” was analyzed in present article.

National Dances in the Canon of Polish Culture

Abstract The following dances are most commonly considered nowadays as national dances (or emblems of Polish national culture): the polonaise, the mazur, the krakowiak, the oberek and the kujawiak. These dances form the cultural canon as defined by Andrzej Szpociński (i.e. a constantly revised part of tradition which carries significance outside the domain of dance and is obligatory for all the community members). In Polish musicological studies it has been emphasised that the phenomenon of stereotypisation of native folklore has played a major role in the formation and emergence of emblematic national phenomena. However, some of the phenomena and processes that have taken place during the formation and revision of the national canon cannot be reduced to the idea of creating a stereotype. The author of this paper draws on Maria Janion’s treatment of the categories of myth and phantasm, which can be much more useful for the interpretation especially of borderline or clearly alien phenomena that have frequently found their way into the Polish national dance canon and played a very important role in that canon. The author also discusses the changing functions of dances from the canon, which resulted from external circumstances determined by political events and social processes.

Mit i oralność w świetle diagnoz kryzysu kultury nowoczesnej

A category of secondary orality appeared in debate over the condition of contemporary culture by dint of Walter Jackson Ong’s research on influence of technology of word over an awareness of western man. Its concept designates a specific type of communicational situation, which is created by a twentieth-century ways of transmission of informations, like radio, television, telephone and another electronic voice-devices. In Ong’s works the perspective of secondary orality functions in context of the model of Greek culture, which preceded a beginning of the characterstic type of mentality, connected with the interiorization of script. The original oral awareness was dipped in world of mythical stories, which was created a cultural identity by dint of the acts of memorization and oral transmission of poetic experience. Analogies and differences between secondary and primary orality tease to ask about function and understanding the category of myth in perspective the first of them, which didn't appear in Ong’s works. A response to this question must connect with consideration of understanding the myth in contemporary reflection about the culture and with a search of symptoms of its presence in middle-class and consumerist societies, in which have appeared the technology of secondary orality. In my paper I'd like to try to recreate this elements of cultural background of contemporariness, which relate the age of twentieth-century orality to its ancient mythical grounding but equally indulge in transformations by dint of evolution of human condition in western culture.

The Myth of the Multitude: “The displeased commons of the citie”

Heiner Muller observed that in The break-in of time into play constitutes mythos - by which I understand him to have meant that one possible response to social, political and psychological demands of Shakespeare's context. In 1600 times would press on text and performance of play at many points: politically, succession crisis which faces Denmark haunted Elizabeth's reign for decades; personally, death of playwright's son Hamnet (aged only 11) in 1596 may have felt like a prefiguration of end of Danish Prince. Hamlet's transformation of both social history and individual experience into myth is of its nature tragic: James I and VI (the philosopher king?) and Fortinbras (the soldier) succeed, but Hamnet, like Hamlet, dies, although he, too, was likely, had he been put on,/ To have proved most royal. (5.2.404-405) This is a reminder that the category of myth [even in perhaps special sense suggested here] reflects interests of those who employ it. Myths are imagined rather than revealed. In light of these and further observations, this paper sets out to examine whether or not image and action of crowd in a sequence of Shakespeare's works can be said to achieve anything like dimensions of myth. This project has been inspired and given traction by Peter Titlestad's Hamlet Populist Politician and Kai Wiegandt's Crowd and Rumour in Shakespeare.

Academic myths of tourism

Myths play a critical role in the development of any field of study. They act as the central point for coalition, and differentiate disciplines from each other. The absolute truthfulness of some myths, therefore is less important than their symbolic truth. Other myths, though, can be damaging, promulgating falsehoods and inhibiting the development of a field. This paper examines the roles myths have played in establishing the cult of tourism scholarship. Senior academics were surveyed to identify what they believe to be myths about tourism. Six broad categories of myth emerged: self interest; foundation; reactive stakeholder; convergent; too good not to be true; and myths inherited from other disciplines. Promulgation of these myths has been abetted by methodological inertia.

CUCULANO

Cuculano, a vernacular term in the Cia-cia language of Buton, Indonesia, is based on the root cula (story) and is a mixed local genre. It does not fit within western categories of myth or fable and there is no such equivalent in Cia-cia. This hybrid nature is an opportunity to question western interpretations about such stories. The exploration of western categories reveals their fuzziness affecting the criterion of belief. Focusing on the question of transmission, I highlight the problems with the neo-Darwinian framework proposed by Boyd and Richerson (1985). I develop an alternative approach that is more phenomenological and ecological, inspired mainly by Merleau-Ponty's approach of learning as ‘co-naissance’ (1945). Within this perspective, cuculano can be considered as tools (what Vygotsky (1987) calls ‘signs’) for the reproduction of a perception; cuculano are actors in the process of transmission of a particular ‘being-in-the-world’.

The Shipwreck of Odysseus: Strong and Weak Imagery in Late Geometric Art

The once-popular interpretation of a well-known scene on a Late Geometric oinochoe in Munich as shipwreck of Odysseus is now regularly dismissed: like other ambiguous scenes of late eighth-century art, it has been banished from ranks of early mythological narratives. I propose that scene be restored to ranks of possible mythological images and defend premise that was subject of some Late Geometric artists. I also suggest that most important thing we can do with a Late Geometric scene is not to assign it to one of standard categories of myth (Sagenbild), genre (Lebensbild), or the generalized but to new categories that transcend those distinctions. Images may be defined as strong or weak depending on their uniqueness, complexity, and especially concreteness of description, whether they depict scenes of myth, genre, or real (as opposed to universalized) life—a subject that may be more common and significant than is usually thought. This approach emphasizes exceptionalism, variety, and originality of Late Geometric imagery, and Late Geometric artist's interest in description of both heroic and real worlds.*.

Of myth and mantra: The slippery taxonomy of printed and oral Vrat Kathas

This paper examines how printed vrat kathas (stories associated with Hindu women's domestic rituals) present categories of myth, mantra and their internal "oral logic." The paper will articulate three things: (1) that vrat kathas deserve to be included in the more elevated category of "myth" because of the way they function within the Hindu women's ritual structure and world-view; (2) these stories are modeled on an understanding of mantra as a speech act; and (3) even when printed, these stories maintain an "oral logic" in structure, presentation of narrative and intention. Thus, printed pamphlets can also qualify, ironically, as "speech" acts. All of this indicates the difficulty inherent in creating a water-tight taxonomy of genres and suggests that a more appropriate understanding is as localities on a continuum.

Old Norse Myths, Literature and Society (review)

Reviewed by: Old Norse Myths, Literature and Society Katrina Burge Clunies Ross, Margaret, ed., Old Norse Myths, Literature and Society (The Viking Collection: Studies in Northern Civilization, 14), Viborg, University Press of Southern Denmark, 2003; cloth; pp. 312; RRP DKK260; ISBN 8778387949. Behind the rather generic title of Old Norse Myths, Literature and Society, there lies an extraordinary range of papers which broadly interpret the category of myth from interdisciplinary perspectives. Based mainly on selected revised offerings from the International Saga Conference in Sydney 2000, these 13 papers explore diverse approaches to myth and mythography. In her comprehensive introduction to the volume, Margaret Clunies Ross describes the collection as 'attempt[ing] to show what kinds of evidence exist for Norse myth and attendant beliefs and what types of analytical methods can legitimately be applied to our sources' (p. 8). A reader expecting a conventional survey of the Eddaic mythological texts will be agreeably surprised to find much more, with reference to such diverse material [End Page 204] as boat burials, Roman gods in Old Norse hagiography, and Russian annals. The emphasis throughout the collection is on praxis, the elusive rituals and everyday realities that might have accompanied the surviving mythology of pre-Christian Scandinavia. The variety of topics addressed does not readily lend itself to categorization but they are organized into four sections which helps draw out some of the parallels and tensions between the works. These sections are 'Archaeological and historical perspectives' (three papers), 'Magic, death and the other in medieval Scandinavia' (four) 'Old Norse-Icelandic Literature and Mythography' (four) and 'Myth and Ritual in Old Norse-Icelandic Traditions (two). As with the volume as a whole, some extremely stimulating material lurks behind quite non-committal titles. 'Myth and Reality: The Contribution of Archaeology' by John Hines (pp. 19-39) is an unexpected but fascinating analysis of the occupation 'smith.' Hines approaches the Eddaic texts as social histories which hint at tensions over the increasing influence of craftsman, and compares them with the confident self-declaration of a runestone patron as 'smith.' Of course any engagement with Old Norse mythological texts must acknowledge the vexed questions of dating and origins, as Hines does, but fortunately none of these papers let that rather stagnant debate stultify their discussion. The papers do not confine themselves to the conventional ethnicity of the Scandinavian world. The Saami people feature in several papers as an important influence on the ritual practice and mythic content of the Norse-speaking Scandinavians. Saamis are generally referred to as 'finns' in the Old Norse texts, and are typically associated with magic, sorcery and shamanism (though I note John Lindow's comment that some scholars have reservations over the use of that term, p. 99). 'Cultures in Contact' is Lindow's discussion of the changing perceptions of the geographical spread and cultural influence of the Saami. He follows Inger Zachrisson in positing a 'two-culture-area' of mingled Saami/Norse ethnicity. This inevitably presented the newly and loosely Christian Scandinavians with a persistently non-Christian Other, which, Lindow argues, left clear and specific traces in Old Norse myth, and quite possibly also in ritual. This theme is taken up in two other papers in the section 'Magic, Death and the Other,' by John McKinnell and Stephen Mitchell. Elena Melnikova explores a different and reverse ethnic influence, that of the Norse on Russia. The ideological shift signaled by glasnost has revivified this area of Norse studies which for generations was hampered by doctrinal emphasis on the Slavic origins of the Russian empire. Melnikova contrasts the readily discernible [End Page 205] traces of Norse influence on material culture, evident from such artefacts as Thor's hammer amulets in burials, with its deeply obscured presence in even the earliest Russian written texts. The section 'Old Norse literature as Mythography' is similarly wide-ranging. One example of the material here is Simonetta Battista's exploration the differences in the Old Norse treatments of Roman gods, and the shifting associations between specific Roman and Norse deities. The final and shortest section, 'Myth and ritual in Old Norse-Icelandic Traditions' makes explicit the search for practice that has been implicit in much of the preceding...

The hegemony of hegemony

A distinctive characteristic of Laclau and Mouffe’s theory of hegemony is its insistence on the denial of an essence or ground of the subject. This element of their theory is derived from their notion of antagonism, in which a relation with a ground is brought into question by revealing its contingency. This article argues that the political dimension of this argument makes sense only in the context of Laclau and Mouffe’s notion of modernity. However, the universalizing of modernity as the form of hegemony reduces the ontological notion of antagonism to a dialectical or empirical notion of contradiction. This article examines two key moves in this process: first, the reduction of the subject to Lacan’s account of the subject; and second, the reduction of modernity to an ontotheologicalpolitical structure derived from Lefort as the support of the hegemonic subject. From this the article examines Laclau’s response to the exhaustion of political modernity in the figure of complexity, from which antagonism is evacuated through the hegemony of the category of myth. Finally, the article discusses a nonhegemonic approach to antagonism derived from the work of Foucault, Wolin and Rancière.

MYTH, TOTEMISM AND THE CREATION OF CLANS

This paper considers the relationship between two component types or categories of myth from the Yirrkala region of north‐eastern Arnhem Land, which I define respectively as those of inheritance and creation. I argue that the existence of the two components of myth reflects conceptual problems associated with the transfer of power from the ancestral past to the present, in these clan‐based societies in which the structure of the clan system is believed to be ancestrally preordained, yet the creation of clans is part of a continuing political process. The paper places Yolngu totemism in the context of the politics of group relations, and focuses on the tension between autonomy and exchange which provides much of the underlying dynamic to Yolngu social organisation. The totemic/mythological system has the flexibility to enable ancestral precedence to apparently underlie group organisation despite the latter's inherently imminent and contextual nature. The structure of the mythological system, and the particular way in which it articulates with the politics of group organisation, enables the network of ancestral tracks associated with the myths of creation to be perpetuated in a way that makes them both distal and protected from the disorderly changes of the present, yet an integral part of the process of social reproduction.

Milton's Use of Classical Mythology in Paradise Lost

There are three categories of myth in Paradise Lost, each of which is essential to the epic's proleptic structure: first, those myths identifying the pagan gods with the fallen angels; second, those myths used in comparisons with Eden, Adam, and Eve; finally, in Book xi, those myths that are types of the Old and New Testament revelation that Adam will receive. The first and third categories are evidences of God working in history, and these myths are consequently “fabled”, set in story form by the pagans; the second group have no historical reality and are only “feigned”, or fabricated. Milton uses these two words carefully. From another perspective, the first and second uses lead from the timelessness of prelapsarian existence to history. The third moves in reverse, from history to eternity, not of the world before the Fall but of the Christian glory to come.