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I'm a little late to this thread, but as a performance studies scholar with a limited understanding of folkloristics, I was curious about the use of performance theory by those in in that field. How does it apply?
Jason Winslade

From: "Magliocco, Sabina" <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Fri, October 15, 2010 2:26:42 PM
Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] Fwd: CFP: Global Mythologies and World Cinemas (edited collection)

Dear Prof. Segal,

Thank you for those eludications of the contributions of Jung and Campbell to the study of myth. I expect they will be very useful to readers.  My response was not meant to be exhaustive, but simply to respond briefly to Kathryn's query.

Folklorists have been somewhat more accepting of Freudian theory than of Jungian theory, as the work of Alan Dundes, Ellitt Oring and Gary Alan Fine illustrate.  However, you are quite correct that folkloristics as a discipline has in general been skeptical of psychological theories.  The discipline has developed its own theoretical models, most notably performance theory, which has deeply informed the field of performance studies.  It also uses theoretical models drawn from anthropology and sociology.

Best,

Sabina Magliocco
Professor
Department of Anthropology
California State University - Northridge
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From: Society for The Academic Study of Magic [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Segal, Professor Robert A. [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2010 4:05 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] Fwd: CFP: Global Mythologies and World Cinemas (edited collection)

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
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From: Society for The Academic Study of Magic [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Magliocco, Sabina [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2010 10:00 PM
To: [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
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From: Society for The Academic Study of Magic [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Kathryn Evans [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2010 9:44 AM
To: [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]>
To: [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]>> 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]>

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]>) 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.