Mythologizing the Past
Mythologizing the Past

Author: Sean Rafferty

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-12-27

Total Pages: 157

ISBN-13: 1040259693

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This book examines the origins, development, and current state of myths surrounding 'lost civilizations' and, more importantly, how these myths contribute to modern political ideologies. By examining the myths, legends, and scientific record concerning Atlantis, the Vikings, the Anglo-Saxons, and the Celts, pre-Contact North America and the Aryans, this book reveals the faulty science, logical fallacies, anti-intellectualism, and outright racism motivating the recurrent interest in them. It delineates the development of pseudohistory from its allegorical Classical origins, through renaissance and enlightenment literature, to nineteenth-century popular writing, and finally to modern pseudoscience. It describes how at every stage pseudohistory has been used to reinforce and reproduce dominant ideologies by marginalizing subordinate groups in favor of social elites. This book is ideal not only for the general reader interested in world history, but also for courses across the humanities, including pseudoarcheology, historiographic and scientific methods, and classics.

Quest for a Suitable Past
Quest for a Suitable Past

Author: Claudia-Florentina Dobre

Publisher: Central European University Press

Published: 2018-01-29

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 9633861365

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The past may be approached from a variety of directions. A myth reunites people around certain values and projects and pushes them in one direction or another. The present volume brings together a range of case studies of myth making and myth breaking in east Europe from the nineteenth century to the present day. In particular, it focuses on the complex process through which memories are transformed into myths. This problematic interplay between memory and myth-making is analyzed in conjunction with the role of myths in the political and social life of the region. The essays include cases of forging myths about national pre-history, about the endorsement of nation building by means of historiography, and above all, about communist and post-communist mythologies. The studies shed new light on the creation of local and national identities, as well as the legitimization of ideologies through myth-making. Together, the contributions show that myths were often instrumental in the vast projects of social and political mobilization during a period which has witnessed, among others, two world wars and the harsh oppression of the communist regimes. ÿ

History and Myth in Romanian Consciousness
History and Myth in Romanian Consciousness

Author: Lucian Boia

Publisher: Central European University Press

Published: 2001-01-01

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 9789639116979

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Based on the idea that there is a considerable difference between reality and discourse, the author points out that history is constantly reconstructed, adapted and sometimes mythicized from the perspectives of the present day, present states of mind and ideologies. He closely examines historical culture and conscience in nineteenth and twentieth century Romania, particularly concentrating on the impact of the national ideology on history. Boia's innovative analysis identifies several key mythical configurations and shows how Romanians have reconstituted their own highly ideologized history over the last two centuries. The strength of History and Myth in Romanian Consciousness lies in the author's ability to fully deconstruct the entire Romanian historiographic system and demonstrate the increasing acuteness of national problems in general, and in particular the exploitation of history to support national ideology.

Fascist Mythologies
Fascist Mythologies

Author: Federico Finchelstein

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2022-07-05

Total Pages: 95

ISBN-13: 0231544790

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For fascism, myth was reality—or was realer than the real. Fascist notions of the leader, the nation, power, and violence were steeped in mythic imagery and the fantasy of transcending history. A mythologized primordial past would inspire the heroic overthrow of a debased present to achieve a violently redeemed future. What is distinctive about fascist mythology, and how does this aspect of fascism help explain its perils in the past and present? Federico Finchelstein draws on a striking combination of thinkers—Jorge Luis Borges, Sigmund Freud, and Carl Schmitt—to consider fascism as a form of political mythmaking. He shows that Borges’s literary and critical work and Freud’s psychoanalytic writing both emphasize the mythical and unconscious dimensions of fascist politics. Finchelstein considers their ideas of the self, violence, and the sacred as well as the relationship between the victims of fascist violence and the ideological myths of its perpetrators. He draws on Freud and Borges to analyze the work of a variety of Latin American and European fascist intellectuals, with particular attention to Schmitt’s political theology. Contrasting their approaches to the logic of unreason, Finchelstein probes the limits of the dichotomy between myth and reason and shows the centrality of this opposition to understanding the ideology of fascism. At a moment when forces redolent of fascism cast a shadow over world affairs, this book provides a timely historical and critical analysis of the dangers of myth in modern politics.

Mythologizing Performance
Mythologizing Performance

Author: Richard P. Martin

Publisher: Myth and Poetics II

Published: 2017-09-15

Total Pages: 540

ISBN-13: 9781501713101

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Building on numerous original close readings of works by Homer, Hesiod, and other ancient Greek poets, Richard P. Martin articulates a broad and precise poetics of archaic Greek verse. The ancient Greek hexameter poetry of such works as the Iliad and the Odyssey differ from most modern verbal art because it was composed for live, face-to-face performance, often in a competitive setting, before an audience well versed in mythological and ritual lore. The essays collected here span Martin's acclaimed career and explore ways of reading this poetic heritage using principles and evidence from the comparative study of oral traditions, literary and speech-act theories, and the ethnographic record. Among topics analyzed in depth are the narrative structures of Homer's epics, the Hesiodic Works and Days, and the Homeric Hymn to Apollo; the characterization of poetic and musical performers within the poems; the social context for verses ascribed to the legendary singer Orpheus; the significance of various rituals as stylized by poetic performances; and the interrelations, at the level of diction and theme, among the major genres of epic and hymn, as well as "genres of speaking" such as lament, praise, advice, and proverbial wisdom.

The Myth of American Religious Freedom
The Myth of American Religious Freedom

Author: David Sehat

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2011-01-14

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 0199793115

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In the battles over religion and politics in America, both liberals and conservatives often appeal to history. Liberals claim that the Founders separated church and state. But for much of American history, David Sehat writes, Protestant Christianity was intimately intertwined with the state. Yet the past was not the Christian utopia that conservatives imagine either. Instead, a Protestant moral establishment prevailed, using government power to punish free thinkers and religious dissidents. In The Myth of American Religious Freedom, Sehat provides an eye-opening history of religion in public life, overturning our most cherished myths. Originally, the First Amendment applied only to the federal government, which had limited authority. The Protestant moral establishment ruled on the state level. Using moral laws to uphold religious power, religious partisans enforced a moral and religious orthodoxy against Catholics, Jews, Mormons, agnostics, and others. Not until 1940 did the U.S. Supreme Court extend the First Amendment to the states. As the Supreme Court began to dismantle the connections between religion and government, Sehat argues, religious conservatives mobilized to maintain their power and began the culture wars of the last fifty years. To trace the rise and fall of this Protestant establishment, Sehat focuses on a series of dissenters--abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, socialist Eugene V. Debs, and many others. Shattering myths held by both the left and right, David Sehat forces us to rethink some of our most deeply held beliefs. By showing the bad history used on both sides, he denies partisans a safe refuge with the Founders.

Mythologizing Jesus
Mythologizing Jesus

Author: Dennis R. MacDonald

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2015-05-07

Total Pages: 179

ISBN-13: 1442233508

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Our culture is well-populated with superheroes: Superman, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, and more. Superheroes are not a modern invention; in fact, they are prehistoric. The gods and goddesses of the Greeks, for example, walked on water, flew, visited the land of the dead, and lived forever. Ancient Christians told similar stories about Jesus, their primary superhero—he possessed incredible powers of healing, walked on water, rose from the dead, and more. Dennis R. MacDonald shows how the stories told in the Gospels parallel many in Greek and Roman epics with the aim of compelling their readers into life-changing decisions to follow Jesus. MacDonald doesn’t call into question the existence of Jesus but rather asks readers to examine the biblical stories about him through a new, mythological lens.

The Art of Return
The Art of Return

Author: James Meyer

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2019-09-11

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 022662014X

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More than any other decade, the sixties capture our collective cultural imagination. And while many Americans can immediately imagine the sound of Martin Luther King Jr. declaring “I have a dream!” or envision hippies placing flowers in gun barrels, the revolutionary sixties resonates around the world: China’s communist government inaugurated a new cultural era, African nations won independence from colonial rule, and students across Europe took to the streets, calling for an end to capitalism, imperialism, and the Vietnam War. In this innovative work, James Meyer turns to art criticism, theory, memoir, and fiction to examine the fascination with the long sixties and contemporary expressions of these cultural memories across the globe. Meyer draws on a diverse range of cultural objects that reimagine this revolutionary era stretching from the 1950s to the 1970s, including reenactments of civil rights, antiwar, and feminist marches, paintings, sculptures, photographs, novels, and films. Many of these works were created by artists and writers born during the long Sixties who were driven to understand a monumental era that they missed. These cases show us that the past becomes significant only in relation to our present, and our remembered history never perfectly replicates time past. This, Meyer argues, is precisely what makes our contemporary attachment to the past so important: it provides us a critical opportunity to examine our own relationship to history, memory, and nostalgia.

Rebel Correspondent
Rebel Correspondent

Author: Steve Procko

Publisher:

Published: 2021-09

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 9781737283409

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Rebel Correspondent by Steve Procko is the true story of a young man who joined the Confederate army just days after his eighteenth birthday and served bravely for over two-and-a-half years until the war ended. Wounded twice, he emerged a changed person. But he wasn't just a returning veteran; he was also a writer. Thirty-six years later, he would tell the world about his experiences.At the beginning of the 20th century, Arba F. Shaw was a fifty-seven-year-old farmer and local writer for the Walker County Messenger, a weekly northwest Georgia newspaper published in the town of LaFayette. Shaw would become the Rebel Correspondent when on a chilly December day in 1901, he began putting pen to paper with the account of his memories as a Rebel private in the 4th Georgia Cavalry (Avery), CSA. He completed writing his account in February 1902. When finished, he had scratched out over 40,000 words. His local newspaper, The Walker County Messenger, published his account in a series of over 50 articles from 1901 to 1903. Then it was all but forgotten.Twenty years before Arba Shaw put pen to paper, another soldier, the 1st Tennessee's Infantry Regiment's Samuel Rush Watkins (1839-1901) wrote his account of his experiences in the Civil War. The Columbian Herald newspaper in Columbia, Tennessee, serialized Watkins' writings from 1881 to 1882, then published the account as a critically acclaimed book, Co. Aytch: Maury Grays First Tennessee Regiment or A Side Show of the Big Show, in late 1882. They predominately featured Watkins' eyewitness accounts in Ken Burns PBS documentary on the Civil War.Rebel Correspondent presents Arba F. Shaw's account word-for-word, as first published in the Walker County Messenger almost 120 years ago. Procko annotates Shaw's account with in-depth research, verifying it and uncovering the back story of his life and the lives of his Rebel comrades. Procko's research offers a historical perspective on the many places and events Shaw so richly described.

Mythologizing Black Women
Mythologizing Black Women

Author: Brittany C. Slatton

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-11-17

Total Pages: 111

ISBN-13: 1317255712

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In this book Brittany C. Slatton uses innovative internet research methods to reveal contemporary prejudices about relationship partners. In doing so she thoroughly refutes the popular ideology of a post-racial America. Slatton examines the 'deep frame' of white men found in opinions and emotional reactions to black women and their body types, personalities, behaviours, and styles of speech. Their internet responses to questionnaires shows how they treat as common sense radicalised, gendered, and classed versions of black women. Mythologizing Black Women argues that the internet acts as a backstage setting, allowing white men to anonymously express raw feelings about race and sexuality without the fear of reprimand.