Thank you all for this engaging discussion on several functions of Jungian
depth psychology in Academia.
Along with the functional value of depth psychology per se in clinical
therapy, included to greater or lesser degrees in Psychology departments at
large, Robert points out the discriminative exegetic, function of Jungian
depth psychology to currents within Religious Studies such as Gnosticism.
As well as within Psychology departments, depth psychology as an
epistemological, exegetic, hermeneutic tool--Critical Theory--has long been
available to scholars within many disciplines. For instance, within the
academic field of Literature, the Literary Critical Theories of
Archetypal-Myth and Phenomenology-Hermeneutics are well-established. As a
Literary scholar, I thus have purvue to use depth psychology as part of my
Critical Theory engagement with Literary material such as Myth. So depth
psychology is an interdisciplinary endeavor, used in the Subjective Practice
of Critical Theory. (Capitalizing some words herein for emphasis of
course.)
Ted, just as scholars of Western esotericism in the departments of Religious
Studies, History, Anthropology, Literature, Psychology and other academic
fields study Jungian depth psychology as a recent manifestation of Western
esotericism--as an Object of study--to which we apply chosen Subjective
Critical Theories appropriate to the academic discipline we belong to, . .
. just so, scholars of Jungian depth psychology working in various
disciplinary departments might study Gnosticism and other manifestations of
Western esotericism--as an Object of study--applying the Subjective Critical
Theory appropriate to our various disciplines. We're looking at two
different functions of Jungian depth psychology here: as Objectified
manifestation of or current in Western esotericism; and as Subjective
Critical Theory applied to academic material.
Part of the repertoire within the Critical Theory of Jungian depth
psychology is the archetypal psychology begun by James Hillman. Relative to
Robert's point (a), Hillman grounds Theory itself in Practice, in the sense
that Theorizing is a mental Practice, and one which we Practice on an Object
of study. Here again we have the two functions: Critical Theory is
Subjective; yet at the same time Critical Theory is what we Practice via the
Object Mind/Brain on an Object of study. This paradoxical functioning of
Theory becomes obvious, for instance, when I utilize both the Literary
Critical Theory of Archetypal-Myth and the Literary Critical Theory of
Phenomenology-Hermeneutics in the same academic paper. This combination of
exegetical tools is legitimate given the depth of the Literary material I
work with which is ITSELF interdisciplinary, crossing the boundaries of
Philosophy, Theology, Mythology, Cosmology, and Theoretical Mathematics and
Physics, and in fact ITSELF directly addresses and intentionally
transgresses the issue of Theory versus Practice in the Academy.
Some scholars of Western esotericism within various academic disciplines who
study depth psychology solely as an Object, defining it as "religionist," do
not have the purvue to preclude other scholars of esotericism from also
engaging depth psychology as a Subjective tool of Critical Theory. Those
factions also navigate Academia by applying their own Subjective Critical
Theory, whether or not they define their own Subjective approach publicly in
writing, and whether or not they are even aware of their own Subjectivity.
One example of my sources, from Literary Encyclopedia:
http://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1569
So this thread opens up some very fertile ground for interdisciplinary
discourse on Myth and Archetype. The discussion is relevant to the SASM
listserv in many ways, one of which is that depth psychology--when studied
as a recent manifestation of or current in Western esotericism--follows upon
a lineage that includes Magic.
Kathryn
Kathryn LaFevers Evans
Independent Researcher
705 W. Heather St.
Ojai, CA 93023
USA & Chickasaw Nation
home 805.649.4931
cell 805.212.6216
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http://independent.academia.edu/KathrynLaFeversEvans
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Segal, Professor Robert A." <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, October 15, 2010 5:36 AM
Subject: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] JUNG
Oct. 15
Dear Ted,
Many thanks for your earnest and sensible statement.
Ironically, I belong to the one Jungian group for academics, and I
continually get lambasted for attacking Jung. I have written lots about
Jung but am no Jungian. (In a forthcoming book from Oxford on TEACHING
JUNG IN RELIGIOUS STUDIES, I have contributed a chapter on teaching Jung on
myth.)
A few quick points:
(a) every theory, by definition, seeks the universal aspects of myth. To
refrain from waxing universally is to refrain from theorizing. Many
folklorists, like many in other fields, do pride themselves on their
attention to the particularities of a myth or a religion or a symbol or a
ritual or anything else. But they in fact presuppose a theory, often
without realizing it. There is no such thing as the study of a single myth
or set of myths. So I argue in "In Defense of the Comparative Method" in
NUMEN (2001).
(b) the context for Jung, as a depth psychologist, is the unconscious of the
culture or, better yet, individual whose myth it is. Asking for, e.g.,
social context is asking for sociology or anthropology instead of
psychologyy.
(c) when Jung analyzes a myth, yes, he seeks the archetypes operating in
them. But he then seeks the specific meaning of the archetypes in the
life--the present life, not the childhood--of the individual. That is why
the analysis of a myth, like that of a dream, operates most fully in the
"context" of analysis.
(d) I am not unaware of Jung's idiosyncratic take on Gnosticism. My PhD
was on an ancient Gnostic myth, to which I applied Jung. I also edited THE
GNOSTIC JUNG (Princeton and Routledge 1992). But Jung, while getting
Gnosticism wrong, is, for me, riveting in his psychologizing of it. Jung
was amazingly erudite in an array of specialties, but he was ineluctably an
amateur. I myself offered, in THE POIMANDRES AS MYTH (Mouton de Gruyter
1986--my revised thesis) and in THE GNOSTIC JUNG a more accurate Jungian
interpretation of Gnosticism than Jung himself offered. But I was merely
following in his wake.
Best,
Robert
________________________________________
From: Society for The Academic Study of Magic
[[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ted Hand
[[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, October 15, 2010 12:44 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] Fwd: CFP: Global Mythologies and World
Cinemas (edited collection)
Professor Segal,
Thank you for your defense of Jung, but I am unclear as to how you mean that
"Jung does not separate myth from its context." In your book "Theorizing
about Myth" you write a usefully succinct statement, "For Jung, myth
functions to reveal the unconscious." This strikes me as a universalizing
approach to myth that doesn't require the context of any particular myth.
Moreover, even when he's investigating particulars, isn't it the case that
Jung often plays fast and loose with his data? (I'm thinking especially of
the cases of Gnosticism and Alchemy, both of which
he--uncontroversially?--gets very wrong) I don't mean to make a straw-man
argument against Jung, but it seems to me that this is "what Jung actually
does with myth." I have yet to read an explanation from a Jung defender as
to how this model of myth takes the particular qualities of individual myths
into account. I have long been interested in Jung and haunted by his
theories, but I have not been able to find much useful material in the vast
world of Jungian studies on myth. The last thing I want to do is caricature
this guy, whom I respect and admire, but my problem with his work is that
after long sympathetic study of "what Jung does" I still don't think it's
very useful for approaching myth or religion. In any case I'll certainly be
re-reading your books (which I like!) with this discussion in mind.
thanks,
Ted Hand
MA student,
Graduate Theological Union
On Thu, Oct 14, 2010 at 4:05 PM, Segal, Professor Robert A.
<[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
Oct 15
Dear Sabina,
While I am hardly uncritical of either Jung or Campbell, you are wrong about
Jung, though not wrong about many Jungians or not wholly wrong about
Campbell. Jung does not separate myth from its context, which is that of
the culture or individual whose myth it is. That is why he tries to link
myth to analysis.
There were attempts by one or two folklorists decades ago to defend Jung for
folklorists. The best-known person was Carlos Drake, who wrote two
articles for the JOURNAL OF AMERICAN FOLKLORE. While he was a plodder, at
least he bothered to read Jung instead of caricaturing him.
Readers who actually want to know what Campbell or Jung actually does with
myth might look at my JOSEPH CAMPBELL: AN INTRODUCTION (Penguin 1990;
revamped version to be published by Oxford), which has a chapter on Jung
versus Campbell, and my edited JUNG ON MYTHOLOGY (Princeton and Routledge
1998).
Folklorists in general are skeptical of theories--Freudian as much as
Jungian.
Best,
Robert Segal
Professor of Religious Studies
University of Aberdeen
________________________________________
From: Society for The Academic Study of Magic
[[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>]
On Behalf Of Magliocco, Sabina
[[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>]
Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2010 10:00 PM
To:
[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] Fwd: CFP: Global Mythologies and World
Cinemas (edited collection)
Hi Kathryn,
Anthropologists and folklorists tend to interpret myth in context --
something neither Jungian nor Campbellian interpretations pay any attention
to. Jung's idea of archetypes has never met with much acceptance in the
ethnological world, largely because most of his archetypes are based in
myths from Western traditions. Campbell, on the other hand, sees all myths
as variants of one monomyth that traces the development of the individual,
and can empower the individual.
Anthropologists and folklorists are less interested in myths as templates
for individual development, or in comparative mythology, and more interested
in what sacred narratives reveal about the worldviews, social and power
relations of the cultures in which they are found.
Hope that clarifies things.
Best,
Sabina
Sabina Magliocco
Professor
Department of Anthropology
California State University - Northridge
[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
________________________________________
From: Society for The Academic Study of Magic
[[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>]
On Behalf Of Kathryn Evans
[[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>]
Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2010 9:44 AM
To:
[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] Fwd: CFP: Global Mythologies and World
Cinemas (edited collection)
Mikel,
It's interesting that the platform of your collection is primarily
anti-Jungianism and anti-Campbellianism. Is this the prevalent sentiment
among Folklorists and Cultural Anthropologists?
Sabina,
Any input on this?
Kathryn
----- Original Message -----
From: Mikel Koven<mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
To:
[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2010 2:12 AM
Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] Fwd: CFP: Global Mythologies and World
Cinemas (edited collection)
Mogg,
the omission was intentional. I'm working on a parallel volume looking at
more occidental mythologies. But thank you for pointing that out.
Mikel
On 13 October 2010 09:30, mandrake
<[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>>
wrote:
On 13/10/2010 08:43, Mikel Koven wrote:
seems to have missed out european and american cinema -
which also has indigenous cultural mythology?
was thinking Levannah Morgan might be interested
mogg
Apologies for cross posting ...
Global Mythology and World Cinema
A proposed edited collection by Mikel J. Koven (University of Worcester)
[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Global Mythology and World Cinema will be a collection of essays which
discuss how a variety of world cinemas use their own indigenous cultural
mythologies. The function of these myths and their filmic counterparts will
vary from culture-to-culture and from film-to-film. The collection will
argue against the extant paradigm of “mythic cinema”, wherein the term
“myth,” co-opted by Jungians and Campbellians, refers to any vague perceived
universal archetype. This collection will be about cultural specificity,
not universal generalizations, regarding the sacred and how that sacred is
manifested in world cinema.
In terms of a definition of “myth”, Global Mythology and World Cinema begins
with William Bascom’s 1965 definition (in “The Forms of Folklore: Prose
Narratives” in Journal of American Folklore 78: 3-20) and builds from there.
Bascom defined myths as “prose narratives which, in the society in which
they are told, are considered to be truthful accounts of what happened in
the remote past”. Bascom continues,
They are accepted on faith; they are taught to be believed; and they can be
cited as authority in answer to ignorance, doubt, or disbelief. Myths are
the embodiment of dogma; they are usually sacred; and they are often
associated with theology and ritual. Their main characters are not usually
human beings, but they often have human attributes; they are animals,
deities, or culture heroes, whose actions are set in an earlier world, when
the earth was different from what it is today, or in another world such as
the sky or underworld. (4)
While Global Mythology and World Cinema will not be limited to Bascom’s
definition, we use it here to make that distinction between the current
project and how other scholars have used the word “myth”, often in the same
generalized and universalized way that Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell have.
This current project seeks to rescue the genre from its use to refer to
(imagined) archetypes, and welcomes opportunities to bridge the
anthropological and folkloric definitions with more cultural studies
approaches (i.e. Levi-Strauss and Barthes).
We seek in-depth papers (approximately between 8000-10, 000 words) exploring
the indigenous mythic visions from the following cultural groups’ cinemas:
• Japanese cinema
• Chinese cinema
• Korean cinema
• Polynesian and South East Asian cinemas
• Oceanic cinemas (i.e. Maori and Australian Aborigine)
• Indian cinemas
• African cinemas (from many regions and groups)
• Middle-Eastern and Arab cinemas
• and the cinemas and mythologies of Native Ameicans
Other topics may also be suggested; the above list is intended as
illustrative, not definitive.
While an academic publisher has been approached, and interest in the
collection has been expressed, we are not yet at the stage to request
abstracts: We are currently looking for statements of “interest”.
If you have an idea which you would like to be considered for inclusion in
this book, please email Mikel J. Koven
([log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>)
with a brief (informal) description of what you would like to write on by 31
October 2010. The deadline for formal abstracts (200-words) will be a few
months later, and final papers would not need to be submitted until January
2012.
--
Mikel J. Koven
Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
- Juvenal (Satires VI)
--
Mikel J. Koven
Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
- Juvenal (Satires VI)
--
Mikel J. Koven
Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
- Juvenal (Satires VI)
The University of Aberdeen is a charity registered in Scotland, No SC013683.
The University of Aberdeen is a charity registered in Scotland, No SC013683.
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