Myths Alive

Catalog description

Myth is an important part of the architecture that sustains human culture and society. This course begins w/an account of the principal theoretical positions that've shaped anthropological understandings of myth as a living and guiding force in human communities in ancient times and in the present day. We'll examine the expressions of myth in senses of place, social harmony, inequality, conflict, religious experience, and radical social change in a wide variety of historical and ethnographic settings. We'll draw upon objects from Brown's Haffenreffer Museum to recognize them as materialized representations from mythical worlds.