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]>
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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.