“Sola Scriptura”: Max Müller’s Theory of Myths
How to Do Things with Myths - A Performative Theory of Myths and How We Got There - Ivan Strenski
Ivan Strenski [+]
University of California Riverside (retired)
Author of 15 books and more than 100 academic articles on religion and political issues
like gift, sacrifice, freedom of religion/religious freedom, religious nationalism, French
Catholic integralism, post-revolutionary French Jewry, divine right of kings, Ivan Strenski
is Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies at the University of California,
Riverside. His most recent books are Muslims, Islams, and Occidental Anxieties:
Conversations about Islamophobia (2022), a history of the study of religion from the
Renaissance to the present-day, Understanding Theories of Religion (2014) and Why Politics Can’t Be Freed from Religion: Radical Interrogations of Religion, Power and Politics (2009), Arabic translation (2016).
Description
An exposition of Friedrich Max Müller’s theory of myths, here a paradigm of a static, textual, intellectualist – non-performative -- theory of myths. Müller interpreted myths from Vedic India, as conveying profound philosophical ideas. Even though today’s students of myth no longer respect Müller’s theory, his flair for cross-cultural comparison, his desire to be free of confessional biases, and his intellectual rigor, all exemplify traits of successful theorizing about myths.