When I was writing my Master’s thesis, I was asked to do the impossible: to define "myth." I had read enough of Joseph Campbell’s works to understand that "myth" in his use of the word is not definable. Further, to define it would destroy the very nature of mythology. Faced with this dilemma, I nonetheless set out to dream up a definition of "myth." My working definition came to me… Continue reading
The Great Debate: Myth Versus Fairy Tale in Joseph Campbell’s The Flight of the Wild Gander
Author: PriscillaJul 29
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Filed under: Essays, Fairy Tales, Joseph Campbell, mythology | Tagged as: fairy tales, Joseph Campbell, mythology
Re-Visioning Dionysus: A Modern Spin on a Ancient Diety
Author: PriscillaJul 28
l recently rediscovered my youthful love for Greek mythology. It came on suddenly while I was lecturing on Hellenic Greek culture for my community college students, and was reminded of the many legacies of Greek civilization and how they inspired all areas of literature, art, and philosophy to some extent in subsequent generations. The textbook I am using, which released its 6th edition early in 2008, stresses the follies of… Continue reading
The Moon in Mythology
Author: PriscillaJul 8
(This post is a response to Randy’s July Myth Café prompt.)
When I was younger than I am now, I worked with a bunch of ladies that always 
celebrated the full moon by drinking red wine and hanging out illegally in the public park after dark. I went along once, and we were asked to leave by the police, and… Continue reading
The Power of Myth: The Hero’s Adventure
Author: PriscillaJun 27
I constantly find myself revisiting this episode in the Power of Myth series. It’s one of the best interviews between Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers, probably because it plays into Campbell’s expertise much better than the other ones. Or maybe it’s because I’ve seen it so many times, it just seems this way because it is so familiar to me. So a bunch of us gather in the living room… Continue reading
Filed under: Joseph Campbell, mythology | Tagged as: hero, Joseph Campbell, mythology, Power of Myth
The Importance of Cultural Context
Author: PriscillaJun 15
After my last inspired post, I went semi-consciously offline for awhile – literally and figuratively. I’ve spent the last couple weeks delving into the core research for three dissertation chapters, and have come to the conclusion that too much reading is not conducive to either writing or blogging. But every now and then a question pops up that I feel a need to address, in large part because… Continue reading
Filed under: Culture Thinking, Disney, mythology | Tagged as: cultural context, Disney, myth, mythology
The Myth(s) of Tangaroa
Author: PriscillaMay 15
In honor of the first birthday of my kitten, I thought it would be interesting to
explore the myths of his namesake. One would think that – for a mythologist – this would be an easy task. Apparently, my myth collections gloss over Polynesian mythology. In these collections, Tangaroa is reduced to a player in the creation or the trickster’s (Maui) father… Continue reading