Mythologies
Greg Salyer & James Boobar
Days: Mondays
Time: 6pm-9pm
Location: Holt Lobby
Units: 4
Course Description by Owen:
Do you ever wonder about stories? Do you ever wonder where they come from? What is the inspiration for all of the stories you’ve ever heard? The answers will be searched for and debated over during Spring semester 2009. We are offering you the chance to delve into the origin of story telling. Myths have been around for as long as we can remember. They are the accounts of the epic journeys, battles, and events that shaped the way stories would be written and told. What makes myths so profound? Why after all of these years do they still captivate the hearts and minds of readers? Why will they continue to be studied for an entire lifetime? Because myths are the very essence, nay, they are the foundation of all literature. Stories were originally oral tales that were passed down through the generations and retold countless times. Join our class and you will embark on a journey of epic proportions which has no equal. Learn from the masterful minds of Greg Salyer (aka the Slayer) and James “The Lit Man” Boobar. Join us and you will delve deep into the mines of Moria and far past the Grey Havens. Myths are as old as time, but this course is only offered by these masterful professors once in a lifetime...
Will you undertake the quest of quests?
We're James Boobar and Greg Salyer, and we approve this message.
Biographies
Greg Salyer through Walt Whitman:
| WITH antecedents; |
|
| With my fathers and mothers, and the accumulations of past ages; |
| With all which, had it not been, I would not now be here, as I am: |
| With Egypt, India, Phenicia, Greece and Rome; |
| With the Kelt, the Scandinavian, the Alb, and the Saxon; |
| With antique maritime ventures,—with laws, artizanship, wars and journeys; |
| With the poet, the skald, the saga, the myth, and the oracle; |
| With the sale of slaves—with enthusiasts—with the troubadour, the crusader, and the monk; |
| With those old continents whence we have come to this new continent; |
| With the fading kingdoms and kings over there; |
| With the fading religions and priests; |
| With the small shores we look back to from our own large and present shores; |
|
With countless years drawing themselves onward, and arrived at these years
|
| You and Me arrived—America arrived, and making this year; |
| This year! sending itself ahead countless years to come. |
|
|
James Boobar through John Steinbeck's Cannery Row:
"Doc closed the book. He could hear he waves beat under the piles and he could hear the scampering of white rats against the wire. He went into the kitchen and felt the cooling water in the sink. He ran hot water into it. He spoke aloud to the sink and the white rats, and to himself
Even now,
I know that I have savored the hot taste of life
Lifting green cups and gold at the great feast
Just for a small and forgotten time
I have had full in my eyes from off my girl
The whitest pouring of eternal light
He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. And the white rats scampered and scrambled in their cages. And behind the glass the rattlesnakes lay still and stared into space with their dusky frowning eyes."
Before Enrolling
from Whitman's "Song of the Open Road"
Allons! the inducements shall be greater;
We will sail pathless and wild seas;
We will go where winds blow, waves dash, and the Yankee clipper speeds by under full sail.
Allons! with power, liberty, the earth, the elements!
Health, defiance, gayety, self-esteem, curiosity;
Allons! from all formules!
From your formules, O bat-eyed and materialistic priests!
The stale cadaver blocks up the passage—the burial waits no longer.
Allons! yet take warning!
He traveling with me needs the best blood, thews, endurance;
None may come to the trial, till he or she bring courage and health.
Come not here if you have already spent the best of yourself;
Only those may come, who come in sweet and determin’d bodies;
No diseas’d person—no rum-drinker or venereal taint is permitted here.
I and mine do not convince by arguments, similes, rhymes;
We convince by our presence.
Listen! I will be honest with you;
I do not offer the old smooth prizes, but offer rough new prizes;
These are the days that must happen to you.
Required Books
Other Texts and Media
- "The Peasant Marey," Fyodor Dostoevsky
- "The Gettysburg Address," Abraham Lincoln
- "Discourse in the Novel," from The Dialogic Imagination, Mikhail Bakhtin
- "Myth Today," from Mythologies, Roland Barthes
- "Mythology," the Wikipedia entry
- "The Power of Myth," Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers
- "The Hero with a Thousand Faces," Joseph Campbell
- "A Country Doctor," Franz Kafka
- Greek and Roman Gods: A Name Comparison
- Sigurd (from Tavi)
The Mythologies Movie Series
dates TBA
Assignments
Weekly Writing:
Each week we will provide a prompt for you to use to write an essay of no more than one page. The essay will tie together the readings for the week and will also require you to think critically about the nature of myth and myth-making. The one-page limit is a strict one and will also require you write especially well to incorporate the readings and to build your theory of myth. The prompts will help you with these challenges. Weekly writing is due Sunday evening at midnight, and it must be posted in the class discussion forum as a comment (not an attachment).
Theory Project:
We have two goals in this class: 1) to give you an experience of the power of myth, and 2) to collaboratively construct a theory of myth. We will do the former with the readings and discussion. The latter is up to you. At the end of the course, we want you to produce a theory of myth that is comprehensive, critical, and creative. We will talk about what this means throughout the class, and your weekly writing will contribute to this work. Among other things, your theory of myth must account for the nature and function of all myths, how they change, and under what conditions. You should have other issues that you want to incorporate into your theory, and we will help you with that.
Contracting:
You will of course contract for other assignments or variations on these two assignments.
Schedule
January 12: Myth
January 19:
- Ovid, The Metamorphoses
Book 1
Prologue - The Creation - The Four Ages - The Giants - Lycaön - The Flood - Deucalion and Pyrrha - Python - Daphne - Io (1) - Interlude: Pan and Syrinx - Io (2) - Phaëton (1)
Book 2
Phaëton (2) - Callisto - The Raven and the Crow - Ocyrhoë; - Battus - Aglauros - Europa
- Apuleius, The Golden Ass, Books 1-2
- J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, Book One, 1-6
- "Mythology," the Wikipedia entry
- "Myth Today," from Mythologies, Roland Barthes
January 26
- Ovid, The Metamorphoses
Book 3
Cadmus - Actaeon - Semele - Teiresias - Narcissus and Echo - Pentheus and Bacchus (1) - Acotetes and the Lydian Sailors - Pentheus and Bacchus (2)
Book 4
The Daughters of Miniyas (1) - Pyramus and Thisbe - Mars and Venus - Leucothoë; and Lytië; - Slmacis and Hermaphroditus - The Daughters of Miniyas (2) - Ino and Athamas - Cadmus and Harmonia - Perseus (1)
- Apuleius, The Golden Ass, Books 3-4
- J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, Book One, 7-12
- Popol Vuh
January 27: Contracts Due
February 2
February 9
Februrary 16
February 23: Spring Break
March 2
March 9
March 16
March 23
March 30
April 6
April 13
- Ovid, The Metamorphoses
Book 14
Glaucus and Scylla (2) - The Wanderings of Aeneas (3) - The Sibyl of Cumae - Achaemenides' Story: Ulysses' Men in Plyphemus' Cave - Macareus' Story: Ulysses and Circe; Picus, Canens and Circe - The Wanderings of Aeneus (4) - The Mutinous Companions of Diomedes - The Apulian Shepherd - The Ships of Aeneus - Ardea - The Apotheosis of Aeneus - Aeneus' Descendants - Pomona and Vertumnus - Iphis and Anaxarete - Romulus - The Apotheosis of Romulus
Book 15
Myscelus - Pythagoras - Egeria and Hippolytus - Tages, Romulus' Spear, Cipus - Aesculapius - The Apotheosis of Julius Caesar- Epilogue
- J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, Book Six, 5-9
- "The Power of Myth," Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers
- "The Hero with a Thousand Faces," Joseph Campbell
- "The Gettysburg Address," Abraham Lincoln
April 15-18 Final Exams
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