Form Of Myth Research Articles

Exception, decision and philosophic politics

Walter Benjamin’s writings are often read in terms of their emphasis on undecidability. This article focuses on Benjamin’s view of decision as a philosophic capacity to suspend recognizable myth. Myth is recognizable as closure. Myth becomes recognizable as myth when exceptions and extremes arise in relation to it. Without necessarily following the specific exception or extreme (which may itself be mythic), philosophy is a politics that is attuned to the capacity of an exception or extreme to perform the limit of a specific mythic form. In elaborating philosophically impelled decision as a capacity to take exception to myth, the article compares Benjamin’s works with writings by Agamben, Schmitt, Hiller, Sorel, Derrida and others. At various points in the article, and especially towards the end, the discussion of the notion of philosophic decision includes consideration of ways in which aspects of Benjamin’s enmity to myth might themselves become mythic, unphilosophic.

Myths and Narratology

This essay presents narratology as a strategy for analysis of written myths. It analyses the narrative form of a written religious narrative from ancient Mesopotamia known as The Epic of Anzû, suggesting that the narrative form of myths is a necessary object of inquiry for historians of religion; one that has consequences for our understanding of the meaning and functions of myths, of the religions that make use of them, as well as for broader discussions of religious narrative.

The Aesthetic Foundations of Romantic Mythology: Karl Philipp Moritz

AbstractLargely neglected today, the work of Karl Philipp Moritz was a highly influential source for Early German Romanticism. Moritz considered the form of myth as essential to the absolute nature of the divine subject. This defence was based upon his aesthetic theory, which held that beautiful art was “disinterested”, or complete in itself. For Moritz, Myth, like art, constitutes a totality providing an idiom free from restriction in the imitation of the divine. This examination offers a consideration of Moritz’s aesthetics and mythography, before turning briefly to consider his influence on the authors of Early German Romanticism. An understanding of the role of Moritz’s thought supports a number of recent claims (Frank, Beiser, Bowie) that challenge the conventional reading of Romanticism. At the same time it allows us to see Romanticism’s unconventional realist theological programme, permitting us to overcome the problematic secularising readings of the movement. I would like to thank Kurt Mueller-Vollmer (Stanford), as well as Fredrick Beiser (Syracuse) and Lars Fischer (Cambridge) for their help with this project.

The Types, Interpretations and Functions of Myth

In this article, the author analyses the phenomenon of myth—a significant element of culture—by presenting miscellaneous types of myths that have accompanied human beings from the dawn of time to the present, interpreting them from the point of view of (for example) philosophy or psychoanalysis, the functions of myths, and their ways of influencing human beings in the contemporary world. Myths are complex cultural phenomena, difficult to assess unambiguously. One of the main reasons is the fact that they are not only holy tales having some religious background; we can also talk about secular myths, for example in art or in sport. As far as our contemporary world—brazenly hi-tech and filled with the spirit of logos—is concerned, it is an interesting fact that myths do not surface but remain hidden, as it were; they are in many cases a subconscious way of seeing things. It depends on the individual whether he or she somehow notices those wisdoms existing somewhere under the mask of the world, industrialized and permeated by unemotional technology as it is. Without a shadow of a doubt, myths fulfil many important functions—they are a wonderful source of wisdom, teach people humility, and give hope and strength in difficult periods. Undoubtedly, they are not—as some people would probably prefer—mere relics of a distant past. The forms of myths may, however, evolve. Looking closely into this phenomenon, one can notice that myths may occur (in different realms of life) in somewhat changed, modernized forms. The author of this article has based his analysis on numerous works of a group of illustrious researchers who specialize in exploring the phenomenon of myth, e.g., among others: Bronisław Malinowski (a Polish anthropologist, one of the most important anthropologists of the 20th century), Mircea Eliade (a Romanian historian of religion, one of the leading interpreters of religious experience), and Sigmund Freud (an Austrian neurologist, founder of the discipline of psychoanalysis).

Da ficção científica para a ficção religiosa: ideias para pensar o cinema de ficção científica como o culto da religião vivida From Science Fiction to Religious Fiction: ideas to think on Science Fiction cinema as the cult of lived religion

This article aims at reflecting about the so-called lived religion as a way of rethinking the role of theology and religion in contemporary society. The study of the lived religion will investigate the relationship between the cinema of science fiction and religion, suggesting that, in this relation, there is particular and intensive form of lived religion. The present article suggests that cinema today is a form of cult and ritual which performs part of the role that sacred rites play in the lives of people along the time. The article contains four parts: introduction about the lived religion; lived religion in the specific case of cinema; the cinema of science fiction as a form of religion; the application of theory in the movie “Contact” (Robert Zemeckis, USA 1997); conclusions on the religious experience in the form of myth and rite in science fiction movies as well as the consequences for theology and religious studies.

Chto znachat Varmiia i Mazuriia dlia sovremennykh poliakov? | What Do the Warmia and Masuria Mean to the Contemporary Poles?

By considering what Warmia and Masuria Regions mean to contemporary Poles, the author tries tofind an answer by identifying two levels of acquaintanceship with the region: narrative constructionsthat acquired the forms of myths and scientific cognition. He analyzes the maintenance of two mythsaround which the images relating to the comprehension of the said regions concentrate: the myth of theRecovered Lands and the myth of Arcadia. Simultaneously, he discusses the meanings of Warmia andMasuria disclosed by scientific studies of the last two decades in contemporary Poland and the changingconceptions of the past of the region resulting in unique forms of identifying oneself with the past ofWarmia and Masuria Regions. KEY WORDS: Warmia and Masuria, myth of the Recovered Lands, Arcadian myth, post-immigrantcommunity, identity. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/ 10.15181/ahuk.v24i0.293

From the ‘Stranger King’ to the ‘Stranger Constitution’: Domesticating Sovereignty in Kenya

ConstellationsVolume 19, Issue 2 p. 248-266 From the ‘Stranger King’ to the ‘Stranger Constitution’: Domesticating Sovereignty in Kenya Mateo Taussig-Rubbo, Mateo Taussig-Rubbo Associate Professor of Law at the University at Buffalo School of Law, State University of New York and a Fellow at the Schell Center for International Human Rights at Yale Law SchoolSearch for more papers by this author Mateo Taussig-Rubbo, Mateo Taussig-Rubbo Associate Professor of Law at the University at Buffalo School of Law, State University of New York and a Fellow at the Schell Center for International Human Rights at Yale Law SchoolSearch for more papers by this author First published: 19 July 2012 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8675.2012.00681.xCitations: 2Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume19, Issue2June 2012Pages 248-266 RelatedInformation

“I’m Just a Cowboy”: Transnational Identities of the Borderlands in Tommy Lee Jones’ The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada.

As a problematic in-between space of racial antagonisms, liminal identities, and violence, the borderlands of the American Southwest prove fertile grounds for scrutinising Anglo-America’s national frontier mythology and, therefore, its own sense of history and cultural identity. This article explores the extent to which the “contemporary” border Western, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005),challenges Hollywood’s cinematic hegemony in this regard. It argues that with Three Burials comes a sophisticated challenge to the cinema’s characteristic and mythic forms and to the racial assumptions that have traditionally bedevilled relations between Mexico and the USA. Transnational themes bring these issues to the fore and modify the terms in which they are represented and, therefore, imagined.

On psychiatric wills and the Ulysses clause: The advance directive in psychiatry

Byline: Alok. Sarin Poised as we are, with new Mental Health Care Bill very much on cards and waiting to go Parliament, it may be wise to reflect on at least some of provisions of Bill which may not have received thought or consideration that they have deserved. While much has been written about how proposed legislation is different, and what this difference entails, some aspects of this I would think are worthy of a larger discussion. One such provision is planned introduction of use of advance directives in psychiatry. An advance directive is a mandate that specifies a person's preferences for treatment, should s/he lose capacity to make treatment decisions in future. The use of advance directives in terminal illness has been in place for some time, but its use in psychiatry is a rather recent phenomenon. Any reflection on use of advance directive in psychiatry raises some rather interesting issues. This also remains an area on which there remains paucity of both literature and of discussion despite some existing reviews. [sup][1],[2],[3] The first issue is that while use of advance directive in terminal illness is rather straightforward, as expression of intent for a time when individual may be incapable of expressing intent, in psychiatry this is different. It is an expression of intent of expected treatment for a time when expressed intent may actually be saying completely opposite. It is an attempt to reconcile facts of patient autonomy and choice, with possibility of involuntary treatment that has been agreed upon in advance. It is thus an attempt to reconcile seemingly irreconcilable issues, namely, those of choice and involuntarity. Proposed first by Thomas Szasz, [sup][4] influential and vocal critic of psychiatry, advance directive was proverbial to psychiatry. It offered a means of breaking logjam that often appeared when somebody who was diagnosed as violent or psychotic and deemed to be in need of treatment by profession refused it. It was originally hailed by both activists and professionals alike, but has subsequently been characterized by a rather dichotomous and often contentious debate. So, position on one hand is that since advance directive gave user of system autonomy, it is unquestionably a good idea. The counter position is that both conceptually and practically there are many difficulties with use of advance directives, which have not been adequately thought about. In a well-argued article, Szasz recognizes inherent differences between positions of those who accept reality of mental illness as a reality and those who view this as a form of myth and metaphor - an individual dealing with unacceptable circumstance - as a moral, not a issue. Identifying these as medical protectionistic positions as opposed to voluntaristic, he recognizes fact that as two groups speak different languages, a meeting ground appears impossible. He also accepts fact that this may not be a situation that is easily amenable to therapy by judiciary. To circumvent this, he offered psychiatric will as olive branch to psychiatry, where a person, in times of competence, may mandate a directive for treatment if he were ever to become psychotic. For this, use of a novel tool, the Ulysses clause, was suggested. Based on tale of Ulysses, who asks his crew to bind him to mast of his ship as he sails past isle of sirens so that he can both listen to song and not run his ship aground, clause says that person may mandate treatment for anticipated incompetence. On other hand, advance directive may actually say that person, if he ever were to be diagnosed as psychotic, would wish that he not be treated. So, situation is that what was offered by Szasz as a seemingly irrefutable argument for reconciliation actually depends on world view that individual espouses. …

Religious narrative and the literary fantastic: ambiguity and uncertainty in Ex. 1–18

This paper presents a perspective for the analysis of the literary form of myth drawn from literary-critical theories of the fantastic and fantasy. The aim is to demonstrate the value of such analyses for understanding what a religious narrative is and what it does – as an addition to existing approaches (phenomenological, historical, structuralist, formalist, and so on.) To achieve this aim, the paper presents a fantasy-theoretical case study of the Exodus narrative from the Hebrew Bible (Ex. 1–18). The analysis shows that this narrative of the fantastic events at Israel's exodus from Egypt confounds distinctions (natural/supernatural, benign/malign, self/other, hope/horror), generates varied reactions in the personae, foregrounds the uncertainty and ambiguity of the events, and points to its own artifice. The literary strategies are shown to have effects that are apt to unsettle, disturb and fascinate; effects that are both semantic and affective, mobilising the recipients in the interpretation of the status, veracity and meaning of the fantastic events. Proposals are then made about the literary fantastic as a fruitful analytical perspective specifically for narratives about metamorphoses and miracles, and about incorporating destabilisation, uncertainty and ambiguity more strongly into theories of what a religious narrative is and does in the study of religion.

La psychiatrie à l’ère des modèles

Based on an intuition by Gladys Swain, this article develops two paths in an epistemological research on modern psychiatry. We try to reinvestigate the concept of neuroleptic under it's most mythical form: the Largactil, not only as a molecule but as the very object of a discipline, founding a new notional cartography. A second path consists in interpreting this new epistemological deal and its structural patterns, mainly by questioning psychiatry as a “science of systems”; only then, can we ask the notion of meta-model the very problem it was basically meant to solve: a possible unification in psychiatric regions and areas.

Contemporary myth and its aesthetic consciousness

现代社会的实用理性和科技发展共同终结了古典神话，将之送入精神文化的历 史博物馆。然而，神话思维和神话意识则共时性地隐匿于人们的心理结构之中，对 文明和文化依然施加了重要影响。在现代和后现代的历史文化语境中，神话以变形 的方式潜藏于人类的精神文化活动里，演变为一种当代意义的神话形式，继续发挥 着强大的心理功能和扮演着意识活动与形态助产士的角色。当代神话的典型表现是 科技神话、消费神话、英雄神话等样式。它承袭了传统神话的符号和结构形式而又 有所发展和变异，尤其是借助于科技手段,它获得了更广泛、更丰富的社会内容和迅 捷密集的传播方式，对于社会的方方面面都产生了广泛而深刻的影响。 关键词: 当代神话 审美意识 科技神话 消费神话 英雄神话 Pragmatic rationality and scientific and technological developments in modern society have jointly put an end to classical myth and consigned it to the historical museum of the spiritual culture. However, mythical thinking and consciousness are synchronically hidden in our psychological structures and still exert an important influence on civilizations and cultures. In the modern and postmodern historical and cultural context, myth hides in our spiritual and cultural activities in various altered forms. Having evolved into a mythic form in the contemporary sense, it continues to play a powerful psychological role and to act as a midwife of conscious activities and forms. Contemporary myth typically comprises science myth, consumption myth and hero myth. It has inherited the symbols and structures of traditional myth, but with some developments and variations; in particular, by means of science and technology, it has acquired broader and richer social ingredients and swift and intensive modes of transmission, producing a widespread and far‐reaching influence on various aspects of society.

Mediating Sport, Myth, and Masculinity: The National Hockey League’s “Inside the Warrior” Advertising Campaign

This study examines the development and production of the National Hockey League’s (NHL) 2005–2006 “Inside the Warrior” advertising campaign. Three aspects of the creative process are explored: (1) the context of the 2004–2005 NHL lockout season that led to the League’s ensuing relaunch and rebranding exercise for a new professional ice hockey product within the entertainment industry; (2) the promotional devices used in the campaign that accentuate its explicit hypermasculine “warrior” theme; and (3) interviews with executives from Conductor that offer important insights on their construction of a warrior theme and the existent nature of the crisis of masculinity. Taken collectively, it is argued that the NHL’s “Inside the Warrior” campaign is exemplary for exploring the crisis of masculinity inasmuch as it highlights how one major sport-entertainment-media partnership created, produced, and (re)presented a mythical form of hegemonic masculinity, a contemporary hockey warrior hero, for public consumption.

The foreknowledge of extinction

We are, so far as we know, the first species that has foreseen its own extinction. In the distant past, this foreknowledge took the form of myths, including visions of...

MYTHIC RELIGIOUS NATURALISM

Abstract.In his book Religion Is Not About God, Loyal Rue presents an evolutionarily based explanation of religion as a means to further the personal and social fulfillment of human beings. Rue argues that religions in the form of myths, adaptive falsities, provide an account of the connection between what is (facts) and what matters (values). Myths are false because they attribute subjectively based values to valueless facts, but adaptive because they motivate personally and socially beneficial actions. He maintains that the current crises of humankind, evidenced by both social conflict and environmental degradation, indicate that the major religious traditions—all of which project values onto some transcendent reality—are failing to serve humanity. To overcome these crises, Rue maintains that we need a new, scientifically based naturalized religion, one that attributes subjectively based values to Nature instead of a transcendent reality. I accept Rue's naturalism about values but reject his subjectivist account of them. Contrary to Rue, I show that the naturalistic fallacy sets no barrier to the existence of objective moral values. Modeling my view on the selection theories used in biology and psychology, I offer a scientifically based explanation of the origin and existence of objective values and support it with empirical findings from developmental psychology. Whether this account can count as religious, I do not address.

Image, Myth, and Dialectic in Plato

This essay describes and illustrates the role that (verbal) pictures in general can play in the search for knowledge. Focusing on myth as a particular kind of verbal image, this essay examines the new form of myth that Plato creates and defines, and the role that this new form of myth can play in a philosophical logos.

The American Association of Anatomists and Stem Cell Research

This article proceeds to declare presumed Myths followed by presumed Facts and discussion. What it does is to erect straw men in the form of Myths, which, presumably, are supposed to be charges proffered by prolife advocates. This is followed by so - called Facts, which in reality are distortions, falsehoods and half-truths. Looking at this website selection as a Human Embryologist, I decided that the several errors included in this site ought to be challenged and corrected. Thus, what follows are statements within this option on the Website which I have included in bold, followed by my commentaries.

The Evidence of Things Not Seen: Critical Mythology and The Lord of the Rings

The Evidence of Things Not Seen:Critical Mythology and The Lord of the Rings John C. Hunter (bio) Having set myself a task, the arrogance of which I fully recognized and trembled at: being precisely to restore to the English an epic tradition and present them with a mythology of their own: it is a wonderful thing to be told that I have succeeded, at least with those who still have the undarkened heart and mind. —J. R. R. Tolkien, in a letter from 1956 (Letters 231) The mythic nimbus around The Lord of the Rings has been strongly insisted upon by its author, many critics, and thousands of ordinary readers. Together with the novel's mass appeal and the many-headed culture industry it has begotten, this would seem to make it a useful site for an analysis of what the "mythic" signifies in contemporary culture, especially given its historical appearance after the monuments of high modernism such as Ulysses but before "Magic Realism" and full postmodernity. With the exception of comparative religious studies, however, the question of how the mythic can be accommodated to the other categories of contemporary theory has never been satisfactorily addressed, at least partly because of lack of interest. From the high-water mark of Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism (1957), we have reached a point where at least one eminent scholar of religion can ask "Is Myth Obsolete?" (Ellwood). Any analysis of the mythic has to acknowledge that it is nowadays most often used as a means to mark the distance of a given text or phenomenon from its cultural context rather than any useful connections to it. Because it is "mythic," therefore, sympathetic critics can locate The Lord [End Page 129] of the Rings outside the familiar frameworks of post-war fiction. Because it is "mythic," its immense popularity can be read as a sign that it gives its readers access to something that contemporary culture usually represses. To study this novel in these terms is to analyze one of the most widely-articulated responses to it and, simultaneously, to leave the orthodox terms of critical analysis behind. This seems odd in a postmodern critical environment which is neither shy about commercial success nor subject to a restrictive hierarchy of critical methods, especially given that this disruptive power of the mythic was harnessed by many mid-century artists and intellectuals. Just a few years before The Lord of the Rings was published, Horkheimer and Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment appeared with the thesis that turning points in the intellectual history of the West often coincide with a futile repression of the mythic (Horkheimer and Adorno, Dialectic 24, 1–25). Though it would be hard to imagine two more dissimilar texts, they both share a fascination with myth and the historical forces that try to replace it with rational discourse. Read in this context, it becomes clear that The Lord of the Rings' tremendous staying power in mythic terms is derived from the way it appears to resist the repression of the mythic in modern life while actually embodying it. The seductive appeal of a naïvely "timeless" form of myth is very present in the text but, as all too few critics have realized, only as a temptation that we must either voluntarily or forcibly forgo. The main problem with the term "mythic" in general is its diffuseness. More than most categories, its definition is reinvented with each application. There is no general consensus about the limits of its signification and very little regret about this state of affairs. The term is applied to everything from the religious narratives of archaic societies to the ideological justifications for contemporary social arrangements to deliberate lies, and the contradictions inherent in this multiplicity do not seem to interfere with each specific use.1 There have been several unheeded calls to establish some terminological common ground but, for this issue, rigorously identifying the problem does not suggest any workable approaches to solving it. In any case, as Ivan Strenski has observed, too many scholars are content to remain "intentionally innocent of theory and satisfied to employ 'myth' [. . .] without necessarily having to probe conceptual foundations" (2...

Proto-Israelite Mythopoeics. A Perspective from Neuroscience on the Book of Joshua

This article contends that the Deuteronomic‐1 legend of the book of Joshua was formed into its mythical cyclical form through a process of oral transmission. As the oral stories told about an original source event were transformed into a community story it began to take on a liturgical form. This article explains the neuropsychological aspects of this natural process and also highlights how the cultural shift in the 12th century B.C.E. preserved the form of the Deuteronomic‐1 legend.

Engaging Bruce Lincoln

There is much to be said in appreciation for Bruce Lincoln's work. Among his contributions, two that stand out are his impressive mas tery of languages that makes most of us look linguistically feeble and his attention as early as the 1970's (in Emerging from the Chrysalis) to women's rituals.1 Even Lincoln's more recent regretful confession that he previously had been inattentive to issues of power, violence, and victimization (Lincoln 1999: 22, 188, 190-191) is, from a different per spective, praiseworthy: how many distinguished scholars would publicly reveal their idiocies and contradictions, as he calls them? His par ticular idiocy, he claims, lay in trying to reconstruct a prototype of an Indo-European myth that would account for all the attested vari ants, to assume an original that would recapture a primordial (and ahistoric) moment of unity, harmony, and univocal perfection. Such research, he came to think, is itself a form of myth, based on nostal gia for paradise (Lincoln 1991: 119-120, 123). It was not, to be sure, the mere quest for an Urheimat, an Ursprache, and an Urvolk that Lincoln came to deem foolish: the political dimensions of that quest—nationalist, colonialist, racist, Orientalist, and especially anti-Semitic—became increasingly apparent to him (Lincoln 1999: 74, 95, 212, 216). Both scholarship on, and revelations about, former giants in Indo-European studies, from Sir William Jones to Georges Dumezil2 and Mircea Eliade, uncovered their associations with right-wing, even