Twentieth Century MythologiesDaniel Dubuisson
| Hardback Price £65.00/$100.00 Paperback Price £17.99/$29.95 |    |
Description
Because its topic is not so much the study of myth as much as it is theories of myth, this book aims at a rather precise goal: to make a contribution to writing a history of ideas in the twentieth century. Twentieth Century Mythologies does this by offering a comparative epistemology to examine the diverse scholarly definitions of, and hypotheses concerning, myth and myths—assembling both theorists and theories into a coherent picture in which the specific place, contributions, as well as shortcomings, of each becomes apparent. The book examines in detail the influential work of three great scholars: the noted Indo-Europeanist Georges Dumézil, the structuralist anthropologist Claude Lévis-Strauss, and the historian of religions Mircea Eliade. Taken together, the scholarly productions of these authors comprise the twentieth-century’s body of work, or discourse,on myth(s).
First published in France in 1993, and since then translated into Italian (1995) and Romanian (2003), Twentieth Century Mythologies provides an indispensable resource not only for scholars of religion and myth, but also for those interested in both the history and the impact of ideas in the last century.
Because its topic is not so much the study of myth as much as it is theories of myth, this book aims at a rather precise goal: to make a contribution to writing a history of ideas in the twentieth century. Twentieth Century Mythologies does this by offering a comparative epistemology to examine the diverse scholarly definitions of, and hypotheses concerning, myth and myths—assembling both theorists and theories into a coherent picture in which the specific place, contributions, as well as shortcomings, of each becomes apparent. The book examines in detail the influential work of three great scholars: the noted Indo-Europeanist Georges Dumézil, the structuralist anthropologist Claude Lévis-Strauss, and the historian of religions Mircea Eliade. Taken together, the scholarly productions of these authors comprise the twentieth-century’s body of work, or discourse,on myth(s).
First published in France in 1993, and since then translated into Italian (1995) and Romanian (2003), Twentieth Century Mythologies provides an indispensable resource not only for scholars of religion and myth, but also for those interested in both the history and the impact of ideas in the last century.
Contents
Foreword by Professor Robert A. Segal, University of Aberdeen
Preface
Introduction
Part I: Georges Dumézil or Society (1898-1986)
1. Indo-European Background
2. First Comparative Mythologies
3. Durkheim, Mauss, Bourdieu and Dumézil
4. The 1950s: A Reorientation
5. Evidence Structural and Comparative
6. The New Comparative Mythology
Addenda 2005
(I) Theory, History and the Limits of Dumézil’s Comparativism
(II) Does a Dumézilian Theory of Religion Exist?
Part II: Claude Lévi-Strauss or the Mind (1908- )
1. The Symbolic Order
2. The Mythologiques: From Overture to Finale
3. From Marx to Kant
4. The Semantics of Myth
5. A Buddhist among the Bororo
Part III: Mircea Eliade or the Sacred (1907-1986)
1. Fascism and Mysticism
2. Primitive Ontology
3. The Eternal Return of Anti-Semitism
4. The Neo-paganism of Homo Religiosus
5. Metaphysics and Politics: Eliade and Heidegger
Addenda 2005
(I) Esotericism and Fascism
(II) The Reconstruction of Prehistoric Religions
(III) Eliadean Conception of Symbolism
(IV) Mircea Eliade or Forgetting the Shoah
Conclusion: Modern Theories of Myth and the History of Western Thought
Reviews
'The first two thirds of Dubuisson's book are important reading for those engaged in structuralist studies in religion and mythology at an advanced and specialized level.'
Hans J.L. Jensen, Aarhus University, Temenos, Vol 44, No 2 (June 2009)
Specifications
| ISBN-10 (Hardback) | 1845530209 |
| ISBN-13 (Hardback) | 9781845530204 |
| Price (Hardback) | £65.00/$100.00 |
| ISBN-10 (Paperback) | 1845530217 |
| ISBN-13 (Paperback) | 9781845530211 |
| Price (Paperback) | £17.99/$29.95 |
| Publication Date | September 2006 |
| Pages | 288 |
| Size | 234 x 156mm |
| Readership | scholars, students and general readers |
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