Mike Wesch's Bookmarks tagged no_tag → View Popular

You are here: Diigo Home > Mike Wesch's Bookmarks

Ads by Google

Expand All 1 - 20 of 55 Next › Last »

About EdTechtalk | EdTechTalk

Tags: no_tag on 2008-11-04 and saved by15 people -All Annotations (0) -About

more fromwww.edtechtalk.com

32Expand

The Structural Study of Myth

Tags: no_tag on 2008-10-21 -All Annotations (32) -About

more fromcourses.essex.ac.uk

traduttore,
tradittore
Add Sticky Note
- the translator is a traitor
  posted by mwesch on 2008-10-21
but should the actual data be conflicting, it would be as readily
claimed that the purpose of mythology is to provide an outlet for repressed
feelings.
Add Sticky Note
- vs. psychoanalytic (Freud, Jung, Campbell)
  posted by mwesch on 2008-10-21
it will be claimed that in such a society grandmothers are
actually evil and that mythology reflects the social structure and the social
relations
Add Sticky Note
- vs. structural-functionalism
  posted by mwesch on 2008-10-21
To
discover a suitable pattern of rows and columns for those cards, special devices
are needed, consisting of vertical boards about six feet long and four and a
half feet high, where cards can be pigeon-holed and moved at will. In order to
build up three-dimensional models enabling one to compare the variants, several
such boards are necessary, and this in turn requires a spacious workshop, a
commodity particularly unavailable in Western Europe nowadays. Furthermore, as
soon as the frame of reference becomes multi-dimensional (which occurs at an
early stage, as has been shown above) the board system has to be replaced by
perforated cards, which in turn require IBM equipment, etc. -
born from different or born from same?
born from one or born from two?
to find a satisfactory
transition between this theory and the knowledge that human beings are actually
born from the union of man and woman.
The myth has to do with the inability
the
persistence of the autochthonous origin of man
denial of the autochthonous origin of man
difficulties
in walking straight and standing upright.
third column refers to monsters being slain
blood relations which are overemphasized
But if we
want to understand the myth, then we will have to disregard one half of
the diachronic dimension (top to bottom) and read from left to right, column
after column, each one being considered as a unit.
Now for a concrete example of the method we
propose. We shall use the Oedipus myth
The true constituent units of a myth are not the isolated
relations but bundles of such relations, and it is only as bundles that
these relations can be put to use and combined so as to produce a meaning.
each gross constituent unit will consist of a
relation.
The technique which has been applied so far by
this writer consists in analyzing each myth individually, breaking down its
story into the shortest possible sentences, and writing each sentence on an
index card bearing a number corresponding to the unfolding of the story.
gross constituent units.
mythemes?
Myth, like the
rest of language, is made up of constituent units.
f there is a meaning to be found
in mythology, it cannot reside in the isolated elements which enter into the
composition of a myth, but only in the way those elements are combined
t is that
double structure, altogether historical and ahistorical, which explains how
myth, while pertaining to the realm of parole and calling for an
explanation as such, as well as to that of langue in which it is
expressed, can also be an absolute entity on a third level which, though it
remains linguistic by nature, is nevertheless distinct from the other two.
Saussure’s distinction between langue and parole,
one being the structural side of language, the other the statistical aspect
of it, langue belonging to a reversible time, parole being
non-reversible.
everybody will agree that the Saussurean principle of
the arbitrary character of linguistic signs was a prerequisite for the
accession of linguistics to the scientific level.
Let us
consider, for instance, Jung’s idea that a given mythological pattern—the
so-called archetype—possesses a certain meaning.
it is the
combination of sounds, not the sounds themselves, which provides the significant
data
Therefore the
problem: If the content of a myth is contingent, how are we going to explain the
fact that myths throughout the world are so similar?
From a theoretical point of view the situation remains very much the
same as it was fifty years ago, namely, chaotic. Myths are still widely
interpreted in conflicting ways: as collective dreams, as the outcome of a kind
of esthetic play, or as the basis of ritual. Mythological figures are considered
as personified abstractions, divinized heroes, or fallen gods. Whatever the
hypothesis, the choice amounts to reducing mythology either to idle play or to a
crude kind of philosophic speculation.