28th July: Introduction to myth - concepts

Dr MacAlister

Introduction

Important concepts:

distinction between collections of stories and a unified system of mythology; myth as malleable, as a cultural 'currency'.

Myth as transformation of culture's symbolic order; myths in which individuals could recognise/discover themselves as something; myth as paradigm of the right way of being in the world.

Cultural significance of myths over time - examined through processes of cultural contol and power. Not just message, but medium. Therefore to look at how processes operate within and between modes of:

(I) inscription - techniques such as drawing, painting, writing, etc.,

(2) recording - the myth-signs or narratives to be de-coded,

(3) storage and transmission - mode, place, time, etc., as mobile/moveable/exchangeable, as static/fixed - and the rules that govern all these.

Myth moving through processes of continual mutation and proliferation of variants; myth as 'currency' - questions of re-interpretation, re-presentation arising across different cultural groups.

30th July: Myth in image, image in myth

Mr Turner