Traditional Myths Research Articles

Sappho's Mythic Models for Female Homoeroticism

This paper contends that Sappho draws upon the mythic tradition to represent female homoeroticism as queer in her poetry. First, I show how Sappho's invocation of Tithonos and Helen as erotic paradigms in fragments 58 and 16 figures female same-sex love as non-normative and shadowed by loss, while also symmetrical and idealized. Then I propose that the Homeric Andromache also informs Sappho's representation of her speakers' desires in fragments 16 and 31, and I argue that recognizing Andromache's latent example helps us to understand how Sappho, in these songs, positions female homoeroticism in painful opposition to conventional marriage.

Commemorative Fictions: Athens (480 B.C.E.), Jerusalem (168 B.C.E.), and Alexandria (38 C.E.)

This article examines the link between narratives transposing traumatic events into fictional story worlds and commemorative settings. The case-study of Athens serves to establish that wartime episodes could indeed be memorialized through fictional narratives and the reinterpretation of traditional myths, which were associated with such settings. Next, it is argued that alongside their recounting in texts referencing the events in a direct (mimetic) way, the inter-ethnic clashes in Alexandria (38 C.E.) and Antiochos IV's storming of Jerusalem (168 B.C.E.) spawned fictional narratives that reshaped the sources into stories of divine salvation in which massacres exist only as threats that are eventually averted, while the Judeans triumph over their enemies. As argued here, it is through this narrative transmogrification that the traumatic episodes were commemorated in festivals, which ostensibly celebrated victories. The texts discussed are Philo's In Flaccum, 3 Maccabees, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Masoretic Text Esther, and Judith, and as complements, the Acta Alexandrinorum and Chairemon's and Apion's Exodus Stories.

Faustus. The mythical memory

The figure and story of Faustus is part of the European cultural heritage, and as it usually, even inevitably happens with legends, it lives further in the adaptations of later periods and authors . It is mainly linked to Goethe’s name, his figure became well known and immortal in his works. Ever since Goethe, all authors – who respect themselves – in German literature must write a new Faustus, while in other nation’s literatures newer and newer paraphrases were born, which on their turn gave rise to further adaptations, and the scientific, aesthetic etc. literature also has gotten richer. However the canonized, more precisely, classicisized framework of interpretation is not transgressed by any of the newer writers and poets of the past centuries, moreover it is only the form of the legend that is rewritten – naturally with the aim of modernization. All of that as part of the literary heritage. As far as the problem of original sources is concerned: what can be regarded as a source and what is adaptation, which are the works that motivated writers, are just a matter of the preliminary work of the interpretation. On the other hand the problem that within the ancient, mythical tradition there is an original, ancient Faustus legend, does not raise any attention as that is “mere raw material”. The truth is ... that the beginning that has been preliminarily, yet directly definitory for centuries, is that original force that is given in the topic and thus it is difficult to bring it to the surface, preferably independently from the heritage that was built upon it. As far as the time dimension is concerned, we are searching in an undefineable, open past, moreover it is most probable that the legend itself is not entirely original, so to say, but it is the adaptation of a more ancient idea or topic. And by this its symbolism and hidden semantics lose their European characteristics.

Eracle in Magna Grecia: una porta verso l’eroizzazione?

The paper presents the first part of a wider study on Herakles’ religious relevance both mythical traditions and documentary evidence concerning Greek cities of Magna Graecia. In this part some myths and material evidences will be investigated which show how in Magna Graecia, between the late 6th and the 5th centuries BC, Herakles becomes an active agent in some rituals of heroization. The hero-god appears indeed to be an important and recurrent presence in some regional myths and cults, whose peculiar aspects are connected to processes of change towards the heroic condition. Herakles represents here a fundamental – divine – agent which leads other figures to the heroic status. He gives opportunity and tools, in religious and cultural terms, to these actual processes, also hinting at ideologies that suggest the possibility of a transformation in the direction of the super-human.

Viaje a un mito de autor a través de los géneros en El muerto y ser feliz (Javier Rebollo, 2012)

At a time when the concept of auteur cinema is being deeply questioned, the cinematographic work of Spanish director Javier Rebollo (1969-) can be understood as a sample of formal characteristics and experimental narratives leading to a reaffirmation of director as an auteur. In Rebollo’s third film, El muerto y ser feliz (The Dead Man and Being Happy) (2012), Santos, a dying hitman, goes on a journey from Buenos Aires to Northern Argentina that progressively acquires a symbolic meaning, as it is a journey from civilization to nature, from life to death, and, ultimately, from history to myth. The physical decline of Santos and his overcoming of physical death–and of linear time–through his transformation in myth, is parallel to a deconstruction of traditional cinematic language in the movie. Through a meta-reflective articulation of the road movie genre and through the distancing effect caused by the existence of two narrators who, competing with each other, simultaneously construct and deconstruct Santos’ story with their ironic and polysemic words, Rebollo attempts to reaffirm his position as a director-auteur, as the sole creator of an auteur myth (“mito de autor”) versus the traditional myth, oral and collective by nature.

Traditional Beliefs and Practices Among Pregnant Women In Javanese Communities: A Systematic Review

Background: The Javanese community is one of the largest ethnic groups in Indonesia. This culture influences people's behaviour in daily life, including maternal care. Some people still believe in traditional myths and practices related to pregnancy. Even it can threaten the pregnancy. Purpose: This systematic review aims to describe the behaviour of people related to practices and beliefs in Javanese culture. Method: This review used a systematic review method. A systematic and relevant search for scientific articles through Google Scholar with a publication period between 2010-2020. Result: There are still many people who obey the traditional beliefss that has no scientific basis. They hope by believing this can make the pregnancy run smoothly and avoid unwanted events. Conclusion: Traditional beliefs and practices have positive and negative impacts on pregnant women. Health workers must provide evidence-based interventions or health education about pregnancy to the community to prevent behaviour that is contrary to health values and can be harmful to the mother and fetus. Information about pregnancy care is not only conveyed to pregnant women but can also be shared with her husband or parents.

Colloquium 4 Commentary on Garrocho

Abstract This commentary examines Diego Garrocho’s paper, “Mythological Sources of Memory and Oblivion.” I argue that Garrocho’s thesis hinges on the assumption that two historical continuities exist between myth and philosophy. First, it supposes a continuity of understanding: between the mythical conception of memory and oblivion, and the philosophical reformulation of the same, there lies no essential difference; both the mythical and philosophical traditions share a univocal, or at least analogical, concept of memory and oblivion. Second, it supposes a continuity of appreciation: memory and oblivion are valued at various stages in the history of thought in univocal or analogical ways. I go on to see whether these continuities have taken place within the work of Plato, who, I argue, is an axial figure between myth and philosophy.

Early Identifications of Apollo with the Physical Sun in Ancient Greece

Abstract It appears that Apollo’s identification with the physical sun is predominantly understood in modern scholarship as a philosophical interpretation of a traditional religious belief. More precisely, it is often understood as an application of physical allegoresis on the tenets of traditional religion and thus attributed to a later stratum of Greek thought. A new evaluation of ancient evidence presented here reveals that the Apollo-sun identification was present in Greek ethnographic context from the earliest period and cannot be reduced to a philosophical reinterpretation of traditional myth and religion. At the same time, the authors interested in the interpretation of traditional religion in terms of natural philosophy were especially prone to use the Apollo-sun identification in their works, since it was able to provide substantial support for their hermeneutic approach.

“Sometimes It Seems You’re in Another World”

This article traces the development of Afrocentric feminist aesthetics within the LA Rebellion, a film movement made up primarily of Black film students at UCLA from 1970 to the late 1980s. It argues that these aesthetics are integral to the movement’s heterogeneous but radical politics, even as the filmmakers express them through widely different means. The article focuses primarily on three films that span the final decade in which Rebellion filmmakers were active at UCLA: Barbara McCullough’s Water Ritual #1: An Urban Rite of Purification (1979), Alile Sharon Larkin’s A Different Image (1982), and Zeinabu irene Davis’s Cycles (1989). Each of these films’ renderings of Afrocentric feminist aesthetics—through attention to African oral and mythical traditions, African and Pan-African-inflected mise-en-scène, rich col-oration and film stock, and play with nonlinear, nonteleological time—register at once the sedimented condition of patriarchal anti-Blackness in the United States and Black feminists’ ongoing projects of freedom that perdure within and despite that condition. In many ways, such representations anticipate contemporary Black feminist grapplings with recent Black studies scholarship that orbit around Afro-pessimist theories of Black ontology and social death. Through their expressions of Afrocentric feminist forms of communal, caring, and creative living, the films represent a form of Black social life that expresses value systems and ways of being that are incompatible with social death, even when they are inevitably moored within its ontological structure.

The Myth of Islamic Heritage versus Authentic Tradition

In the last few decades, Islamic urban heritage has emerged as a concept associated with notions of national and cultural identity. However, if we distinguish between heritage, in its contemporary sense, and the inherited, the question is, does all the inherited constitute heritage? Can we form heritage by selecting from history? As argued in this article, the contemporary notion of Islamic urban heritage was manufactured in a selective, politicized manner to serve, among its objectives, the process of instituting a national identity that embraces capitalist mechanisms and aims to maintain its power structure. It is a politicized process that empties history and tradition from their authenticity to create an image of the past, one that has never existed. It is simply a falsification of the past, or a simulacrum.

The Flying King: the novelistic Alexander (Pseudo-Callisthenes 2.41) and the traditions of the Ancient Orient

The story of Alexander’s flight is preserved in early Byzantine versions of the Alexander Romance (codex L, recensions λ and γ) but is already mentioned by Rabbi Jonah of Tiberias (4th century AD) in the Jerusalem Talmud. The narrative must have been created between the late Hellenistic period and the early Imperial age. Although there are differences in details, the main storyline is common in all versions. Alexander fabricates a basket or large bag, which hangs from a yoke and is lifted into the air by birds of prey; Alexander guides the birds upwards by baiting them with a piece of meat fixed on a long spear. The same story-pattern is found in oriental tales about the Iranian king Kai Kāūs and the Babylonian Nimrod. Kai Kāūs’ adventure was included in the Zoroastrian Avesta and must have been current in the Iranian mythical tradition during the first millennium BCE. It is then transmitted by Medieval Islamic authors (Ṭabarī, Bal‘amī, Firdausī, Tha‘ālibī, Dīnawarī), who ultimately depend on Sasanian historical compilations, in which the early mythology of Iran had been collected. The story of Kai Kāūs’ ascension is earlier than Pseudo-Callisthenes’ narrative and contains a clear indication of morphological priority: in some versions the Persian king flies while seated on his throne, which reflects a very ancient and widespread image of royal iconography in Iran and Assyria. Probably Alexander’s aerial journey was derived from an old oriental tradition of tales about flying kings, to which the stories of Kai Kāūs and Nimrod also belonged. The throne had to be eliminated from Alexander’s story, because the episode was set during Alexander’s wanderings at the extremities of the world. The Macedonian king had therefore to fabricate his flying vehicle from readily available materials. Later, after the diffusion of Pseudo-Callisthenes’ romance in the Orient, the tale of Alexander’s ascension might have exercised secondary influence on some versions of the stories of Kai Kāūs and Nimrod, regarding specific details such as the use of the bait.

A Cycle in a Cycle: “Rizdvo” and “Koliada” in the Context of B.-I. Antonych’s “Try Persteni” Collection

The article analyzes the main symbols, chronotop, and the implicit subtexts of the “Rizdvo” and “Koliada” diptych in the context of the collection as a lyrical cycle. A remarkable feature of the poetry of Bohdan Ihor Antonych is the interaction and interpenetration of heterogenous motifs that unfold in an integral organic text. The deep senses of this text (the diptych in particular) are revealed through its compositional organization as well as through a variety of symbolism and imagery. The article depicts the main motifs and symbols of “Rizdvo” and “Koliada”, which correlate with mythical heritage, Ukrainian folklore, and Christian tradition. Among them are the birth of God, the Virgin, solar and lunar symbolism (the moon, the sun), the seasons (winter, spring), the motif of a road to the Unknown (to the future). The chronotope of this poem is also special, because time – the past and the present – exist in parallel and create a unique time paradigm that is peculiar in its combination of day and night and spring and winter changes. The location of the mini-cycle affect on the general semantics of the cycle, creating new meaning, is traced. It is shown that the leading motifs of “Try persteni” and the diptych are closely related with each other and constitute a unity that is common for a particular type of poetic integrity (a cycle).

Tradition and Ambiguity: Heroic Action and Δόλος in Lines 1–85 of Sophocles’Electra

The pre-Sophoclean mythical tradition about Orestes and his revenge for his father’s murder is ambiguous. On one hand, he is presented as winning fame as a warrior, and his revenge as a heroic act. On the other, the revenge is treated as more morally dark, particularly when Orestes uses guile to commit matricide. In ll. 1–85 of the prologue of Electra, Sophocles plays on this ambiguity to frame his handling of the plot and to show how heroic action stands in opposition to deceit as a vehicle of revenge.

FROM FAIRY TALES TO ACTION ADVENTURE MOVIE: THE MAINTENANCE OF WOMEN AS VICTIM OF VIOLENCE IN THE MOVIE SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN (2012)

Gender representation is one of the most prominent subjects of discussion in American society. Fairy tales as one of the first cultural products consumed by the American society are a medium with an influential presence in the issue. They provide gender representations and convey the idea of masculine and feminine- myths of how to be men and women. However, in 20th century, many movies are changing the perspective by presenting women and action and break the traditional myth. In the same year, a movie entitled Snow White and the Huntsman appears as the remake of the written fairy tale Snow White in the form of an action-adventure movie. To move the discussion further, this research examines how the idea of women as victims of violence in the movie is maintained. A number of disciplines in the forms of theory and approach are used to analyze the data. It also applies gender theories and Barthes's semiotic theory in answering the research question. As a result, it is found that the character Snow White and a number of other women characters still become victims of violence. The representations are also still associated with the traditional ideas of women.

«Look Who's Gone!» Chester Bennington as a Media Hero of <i>Our</i> Time

The article is devoted to the memory of the outstanding American rock musician, singer, poet, charity man, frontman of Linkin Park – Chester Charles Bennington. The text is the first attempt to consider the phenomenon of creativity and personality of Bennington as a media hero on a global scale, aesthetically, mentally and ethically influenced on the mental health of several generations in the first two decades of the new century. Using the fragments from the huge stream of comments in the Network for the musician's departure, the author analyzes some semantic blocks of these messages, revealing in them functional and typological coincidences with the heroes from traditional myths. In particular, the analysis of some semantic blocks of intertext on the death of Chester Bennington, suggests that similar to the heroes of traditional myths, Chester as a media hero performed paternalistic and soteriological functions, acted as an object of adoration (idol), was a role model, his departure marked for millions of fans keen sense of the passage of time. Also in the article, an attempt was made identify the specific features of the media hero, which are due to the special sphere of its existence, namely, media reality. Short, full of incredible turns, hard work, harmful tragic passions, love and compassion, the fate of Chester Bennington during his life began to acquire legendary features.

MYTHOLOGICAL MEANING OF TV SERIES AS AN IMPLEMENTATION OF THE FUNCTIONALITY OF MODERN MEDIA

The article is devoted to the problem of ambiguity in the assessment of the mythological characteristics of the TV series. The purpose of the article is to establish functions inherent in the TV series, which reveal its mythological potential. Methodological approach of post-structuralism was applied to various cultural forms as texts to be interpreted, therefore, TV series were considered as signifiers representing mythological significance. The audience usually perceives TV series as the traditional myth, emotionally experiencing it as a holistic semantic system in which meaning is inextricably linked to the form, therefore it is perceived as a reality. It is established that the regular repetition of the series in the broadcast TV networks demonstrates its paradigmatic level of signification and gives it a normative function. The novelty of the study is to identify the functional strength of the mythology of TV series, which consists not only in creating an atmosphere of aesthetic exchange of values in the communicative process but also in the norming of living space (symbolic-normative function), creating a virtual space for fantasy experience of unconscious meanings and desires (social-compensatory function) and socialization of individuals (integration function). We can conclude that the mythology of the series can be enhanced in two ways – due to the normative-ritual function of series, which is achieved by regular repetition, and, in turn, affects the integrative function and due to the fantasy content of the TV series. This feature largely reveals the socio-compensatory function of the TV series, which is most realized in fantasy series, and given that the spectator is experiencing their own desires, we can talk about the experience of individualized myth.

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'oThe Perfect Nine: The Epic of GÄ©kÅ©yÅ© and MÅ©mbi

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o The Perfect Nine:The Epic of Gĩkũ̃yũ and Mũmbi Trans. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o. New York. New Press. 2020. 240 pages. NGŨGĨ WA THIONG’O’s first venture into epic poetry is a triumph of the form, which resounds with the lyrical heartbeat of the Gĩkũyũ people in Kenya as Ngũgĩ chronicles their mythic history. An origin story told in flowing verse narration, The Perfect Nine: The Epic of Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi tells the tale of the Perfect Nine—the ten daughters of Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi—who become the mothers of the ten Gĩkũyũ clans. The epic recounts their parents’ efforts to find, from among ninety-nine suitors, the proper partner for each daughter. These efforts lead to a perilous, ogre-filled adventure to the Mountain of the Moon as the daughters and their potential husbands retrace Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi’s original journey to Mũkũruweinĩ, their home. Ngũgĩ retells this epic story from a strongly feminist perspective, with the Perfect Nine being the heroines of their own legend. Ngũgĩ composes a wisdom-dense narrative with a rhythm befitting the swirling motion of mythos: “Now is Now and it is not Now because Time does not stop. / Yesterday is Yesterday and it is not Yesterday because Time did not stop. / Tomorrow is Tomorrow and it is not Tomorrow because Time will not stop.” The pulsing cadence of Ngũgĩ’s writing imitates ripples on the surface of a pond—smooth undulations that carry the reader further and further, deeper and deeper into the story while never forgetting their point of origin in Kenyan mythic tradition. It is this rhythmic progression of the narrative that lends The Perfect Nine a certain dreamlike quality. The story feels both ancient and immediate as the chronicle drifts seamlessly between reverie and suspense. This simultaneous temporality reminds the reader of the history of the Gĩkũyũ people—recorded in ancient tales but still very much alive. This history lives within every verse of the epic, as, along with the fantastical adventures of the Perfect Nine, Ngũgĩ’s epic poem records ancient Kenyan customary practices , such as those ceremonies surrounding a Gĩkũyũ wedding. In this way, The Perfect Nine not only immortalizes the myth of the ten daughters of Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi but also acts as a document that preserves Gĩkũyũ cultural traditions and breathes a vibrant gust of passion and verve into Gĩkũyũ history. Ngũgĩ crafts a beautiful retelling of the Gĩkũyũ myth that emphasizes the noble pursuit of beauty, the necessity of personal courage, the importance of filial piety, and a sense of the Giver Supreme—a being who represents divinity, and unity, across world religions. All these things coalesce into dynamic verse to make The Perfect Nine a story of miracles and perseverance; a chronicle of modernity and myth; a meditation on beginnings and endings; and a palimpsest of ancient and contemporary memory, as Ngũgĩ overlays the Perfect Nine’s feminine power onto the origin myth of the Gĩkũyũ people of Kenya in a moving rendition of the epic form. Alex Crayon University of Oklahoma Kapka Kassabova To the Lake: A Balkan Journey of War and Peace Minneapolis, Minnesota. Graywolf Press. 2020. 416 pages. EURASIA’S MOST TUMULTUOUS chapters are preserved in the waters of two prehistoric lakes. In 2017 Kapka Kassabova ’s Border examined the cultural conflux of Turkey, Greece, and Bulgaria along the latter’s southern border. Her ability to extrapolate historical context and modern implications through the people living and working along the eponymous divide gave the novel an unparalleled spark of life. With her most recent outing, To the Lake, Kassabova shifts her focus to her childhood home of Ohrid, whose namesake, alongside the neighboring Lake Prespa, marks the crossroads of Albania, Greece, and North Macedonia. The changed setting yields a text that feels somehow more autobiographical without detracting from Kassabova’s exceptional characterization. Ohrid and its adjacent lake, Prespa, serve as a thesis to...

Trazas del mito y la tradición clásica en la cantiga profana gallego-portuguesa

This article goes through some of the coincidences between the classical literary tradition and the Galician-Portuguese lyric, which provide sometimes a new signification to the Greco-Roman mythical tradition. In this sense, certain classical myths are reworked from a moral perspective. Additionally, the resource to erotic topics from the Greco-Roman tradition in the Galician-Portuguese love lyric is exemplified, such as the love at first sight, the madness of love, the judgment loss, the evasive lover, irrisor amoris and servitium amoris

Kapka KassabovaTo the Lake: A Balkan Journey of War and Peace

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o The Perfect Nine:The Epic of Gĩkũ̃yũ and Mũmbi Trans. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o. New York. New Press. 2020. 240 pages. NGŨGĨ WA THIONG’O’s first venture into epic poetry is a triumph of the form, which resounds with the lyrical heartbeat of the Gĩkũyũ people in Kenya as Ngũgĩ chronicles their mythic history. An origin story told in flowing verse narration, The Perfect Nine: The Epic of Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi tells the tale of the Perfect Nine—the ten daughters of Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi—who become the mothers of the ten Gĩkũyũ clans. The epic recounts their parents’ efforts to find, from among ninety-nine suitors, the proper partner for each daughter. These efforts lead to a perilous, ogre-filled adventure to the Mountain of the Moon as the daughters and their potential husbands retrace Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi’s original journey to Mũkũruweinĩ, their home. Ngũgĩ retells this epic story from a strongly feminist perspective, with the Perfect Nine being the heroines of their own legend. Ngũgĩ composes a wisdom-dense narrative with a rhythm befitting the swirling motion of mythos: “Now is Now and it is not Now because Time does not stop. / Yesterday is Yesterday and it is not Yesterday because Time did not stop. / Tomorrow is Tomorrow and it is not Tomorrow because Time will not stop.” The pulsing cadence of Ngũgĩ’s writing imitates ripples on the surface of a pond—smooth undulations that carry the reader further and further, deeper and deeper into the story while never forgetting their point of origin in Kenyan mythic tradition. It is this rhythmic progression of the narrative that lends The Perfect Nine a certain dreamlike quality. The story feels both ancient and immediate as the chronicle drifts seamlessly between reverie and suspense. This simultaneous temporality reminds the reader of the history of the Gĩkũyũ people—recorded in ancient tales but still very much alive. This history lives within every verse of the epic, as, along with the fantastical adventures of the Perfect Nine, Ngũgĩ’s epic poem records ancient Kenyan customary practices , such as those ceremonies surrounding a Gĩkũyũ wedding. In this way, The Perfect Nine not only immortalizes the myth of the ten daughters of Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi but also acts as a document that preserves Gĩkũyũ cultural traditions and breathes a vibrant gust of passion and verve into Gĩkũyũ history. Ngũgĩ crafts a beautiful retelling of the Gĩkũyũ myth that emphasizes the noble pursuit of beauty, the necessity of personal courage, the importance of filial piety, and a sense of the Giver Supreme—a being who represents divinity, and unity, across world religions. All these things coalesce into dynamic verse to make The Perfect Nine a story of miracles and perseverance; a chronicle of modernity and myth; a meditation on beginnings and endings; and a palimpsest of ancient and contemporary memory, as Ngũgĩ overlays the Perfect Nine’s feminine power onto the origin myth of the Gĩkũyũ people of Kenya in a moving rendition of the epic form. Alex Crayon University of Oklahoma Kapka Kassabova To the Lake: A Balkan Journey of War and Peace Minneapolis, Minnesota. Graywolf Press. 2020. 416 pages. EURASIA’S MOST TUMULTUOUS chapters are preserved in the waters of two prehistoric lakes. In 2017 Kapka Kassabova ’s Border examined the cultural conflux of Turkey, Greece, and Bulgaria along the latter’s southern border. Her ability to extrapolate historical context and modern implications through the people living and working along the eponymous divide gave the novel an unparalleled spark of life. With her most recent outing, To the Lake, Kassabova shifts her focus to her childhood home of Ohrid, whose namesake, alongside the neighboring Lake Prespa, marks the crossroads of Albania, Greece, and North Macedonia. The changed setting yields a text that feels somehow more autobiographical without detracting from Kassabova’s exceptional characterization. Ohrid and its adjacent lake, Prespa, serve as a thesis to...

Seeing Indonesian Ghost Films through Document Theory

Hantu (in Bahasa Indonesia), or ghosts, are portrayed as the incarnation of monstrous or evil souls wishing to harm humans (Amin et al., 2017). Most modern Indonesians still believe in ghosts, proven by an outgrowing number of ghost films. From the 1970s until the present, more than 320 ghost films have been made and can be differentiated according to each culture, custom, and religion in Indonesia. Indonesian people believe that ghost films in Indonesia are scarier than ghost films from abroad because of a symbolic bond between ghosts and traditional myths represented in the films. For example, one of the ghost films in Indonesia titled Pengabdi Setan or “Satan’s Slaves” that has been watched by 4.2 million moviegoers was using gender (e.g. the fertility of women), occupation (e.g. the profession of artists), and religion (e.g. the role of religious leaders) as the conservative narratives’ symbols. However, based on scientific consensus, the existence of ghosts is not a valid concept and is classified as pseudoscience (Regal, 2009). Yet the existence of ghosts cannot be falsified because of the human belief besides the world’s end and the belief in the spirits of the dead has existed ever since humans embraced animism before humans began writing texts (Bunge, 1999; Briefs et al., 2010; and Nees, 2015). After humans knew letters, studying Indonesian’s belief in ghosts through document theory is almost as important as studying humans’ development in writing. Previous studies on ghost films have been identified from the fields of cinematography, culture, and film criticism, yet they have not been examined through the lens of document theory. This paper aims to understand ghost films in Indonesia through concepts in document theory such as materiality, productivity, and fixity. The results discuss the material aspect of ghost films as documents with informative material regardless of the film’s genre, based on document theory (Otlet, 1934; Briet, 1951). Our findings also show productivity and fixity; for example, ghost films are creatio ex materia as information creation and use are the materials from which ghost films are created (Gorichanaz, 2017) and have the ability to tell the same story over different places and times (Levy, 1994; Narayan, 2015). For instance, ghost-type such as Pocong and Kuntilanak has indicated the concept of ghosts that passed down by previous Indonesian ancestors. This study, however, does not discuss recent efforts to perpetuate those memories through the film, but rather the film as a material is important to analyze through document theory. In terms of productivity, ghost films have the added value of releasing ghosts as materials, triggering the human imagination and our ability to provide evidence of changing epistemic perspectives over space and time. In terms of fixity, our study opens opportunities for further research, such as fluidity, floating fixity, authenticity, and other aspects with which to analyze ghost films as (digital) documents. As an additional result, drawing from Foucault’s panopticon concept (Foucault, 1970; Wood, 2003), we found that perpetuating the power from which people have unconsciously been mentally controlled is a kind of panopticism. Since documents function as panopticons, ghost films have provided power and will “discipline” people because these ghost stories can be haunting and frightening. Thus, the panopticon metaphor in ghost films emphasizes the internalization of external surveillance rationales so that people have accepted these rationales as part of the self-practices because they can never be sure the hidden others are watching them (Lupton, 2016).