Mythopoesis

Mythopoesis is a Greek-derived word that means "myth-making." Mythopoeia was used by the English author J. R. R. Tolkien in reference to creative art about "fundamental things." Mythopoesis is, therefore, the creation of myth by means of the higher imagination. Thus, the creation of myth is also one of the highest forms of storytelling. In this way, myths and myth-making are a source of meaning for human consciousness, which exists at the junction of two vast worlds or realities: the external world known to science and empirical observation and the inner world described in myth, art, imagination, and phenomenology in general. This inner world, the world of mythopoesis, is present in popular culture, such as novels, television, cinema, comic books, and computer games, in which archetypal themes have been re-shaped according to the understanding and worldview of contemporary authors and readers. The inner world is not just an epiphenomenon of the brain. It is as extensive and autonomous as the outer world. To use the terminology of esotericist scholar Henry Corbin, it is an "Imaginal World," which is the intermediate or transitional reality between the mundane or everyday reality on the one hand and spiritual, noetic, and transcendent reality or realities on the other. Mythopoesis and the Modern World draws inspiration from various authors, including (but not limited to) J. R. R. Tolkien, Henry Corbin, Joseph Campbell, Carl Gustav Jung, Sri Aurobindo, Mircea Eliade, Ken Wilber, and Jean Gebser. The book also studies mythopoesis and archetypes in the science fiction and fantasy genres in relation to mythological and metaphysical narratives.

In Mythopoetic Cinema, Kriss Ravetto-Biagioli explores how contemporary European filmmakers treat mythopoetics as a critical practice that questions the constant need to provide new identities, a new Europe, and with it a new European cinema after the fall of the Soviet Union. Mythopoetic cinema questions the perpetual branding of movements, ideas, and individuals. Examining the work of Jean-Luc Godard, Alexander Sokurov, Marina Abramović, and Theodoros Angelopoulos, Ravetto-Biagioli argues that these disparate artists provide a critical reflection on what constitutes Europe in the age of neoliberalism. Their films reflect not only the violence of recent years but also help question dominant models of nation building that result in the general failure to respond ethically to rising ethnocentrism. In close readings of such films as Sokurov's Russian Ark (2002) and Godard's Notre Musique (2004), Ravetto-Biagioli demonstrates the ways in which these filmmakers engage and evaluate the recent reconceptualization of Europe's borders, mythic figures, and identity paradoxes. Her work not only analyzes how these filmmakers thematically treat the idea of Europe but also how their work questions the ability of the moving image to challenge conventional ways of understanding history.

Donald Wiebe critically examines the pervasive assumption that theology is a form of religious thought that is both compatible with and supportive of religious faith. The irony, he argues, is that theology is in fact detrimental to religion and the religious way of life.

The Argentinian writer Julio Cortázar was clearly influenced by his predecessors John Keats and Edgar Allan Poe. However, to what extent? Which aspects of the two Romantics have been kept and which ones transformed by Cortázar’s imagination? And is there a common bond in the works of Keats and Poe which is also the common denominator for their works? And why these particular images, themes, or ideas? This books tries to answer all these questions and is of interest to everyone who wants to know more about Cortázar.

How we view the foreign, presented either in the interrelated forms of culture, language, or text, determines to a large degree the way in which we translate. This volume of essays examines the cultural politics of translation that have determined the production and dissemination of the foreign in domestic cultures as varied as contemporary North America, Europe, and Israel. The essays address from a variety of theoretical perspectives the question posed almost two hundred years ago by the German philosopher Friedrich Schleiermacher of whether the translator should foreignize the domestic or domesticate the foreign.

I have long admired the mythopoetic tradition in curriculum studies. That admiration followed from my experience as a high-school teacher of English in a wealthy suburb of New York City at the end of the 1960s. A “dream” job—I taught four classes of 15–20 students during a nine-period day—in a “dream” suburb (where I could afford to reside only by taking a room in a retired teacher’s house), many of these often Ivy-League-bound students had everything but meaningful lives. This middle-class, Midwestern young teacher was flabbergasted. In one sense, my academic life has been devoted to understanding that searing experience. Matters of meaning seemed paramount in the curriculum field to which Paul Klohr introduced me at Ohio State. Klohr assigned me the work of curriculum theorists such as James B. Macdonald. Like Timothy Leonard (who also studied with Klohr at Ohio State) and Peter Willis, Macdonald (1995) understood that school reform was part of a broader cultural and political crisis in which meaning is but one casualty. In the mythopoetic tradition in curriculum studies, scholars labor to understand this crisis and the conditions for the reconstruction of me- ing in our time, in our schools.

‘The Internet is broken and Paolo Bory knows how we got here. In a powerful book based on original research, Bory carefully documents the myths, imaginaries, and ideologies that shaped the material and cultural history of the Internet. As important as this book is to understand our shattered digital world, it is essential for those who would fix it.’ — Vincent Mosco, author of The Smart City in a Digital World The Internet Myth retraces and challenges the myth laying at the foundations of the network ideologies – the idea that networks, by themselves, are the main agents of social, economic, political and cultural change. By comparing and integrating different sources related to network histories, this book emphasizes how a dominant narrative has extensively contributed to the construction of the Internet myth while other visions of the networked society have been erased from the collective imaginary. The book decodes, analyzes and challenges the foundations of the network ideologies looking at how networks have been imagined, designed and promoted during the crucial phase of the 1990s. Three case studies are scrutinized so as to reveal the complexity of network imaginaries in this decade: the birth of the Web and the mythopoesis of its inventor; and the histories of two Italian networking projects, the infrastructural plan Socrate and the civic network Iperbole, the first to give free Internet access to citizens. The Internet Myth thereby provides a compelling and hidden sociohistorical narrative in order to challenge one of the most powerful myths of our time. This title has been published with the financial assistance of the Fondazione Hilda e Felice Vitali, Lugano, Switzerland.

In this extensively illustrated book containing over 80 diagrams and images of artworks, David Burrows and Simon O'Sullivan explore the process of fictioning in contemporary art through three focal points: performance fictioning, science fictioning and machine fictioning.

Matthew Gorkos begins The Storied Church with this compelling statement: "I believe in the church--in the power of faithful people serving a good and gracious God--and I believe in the power of a good story. Moreover, I believe, as this book will argue, that church and story--harnessed together--could be an even more powerful force for goodness in our world." Neuroscientists, anthropologists, archeologists, and psychologists all agree. Story is how our brains and our communities make sense of things. Storytelling helps us cope with change and loss. Storytelling helps us transmit lessons and life-skills to the next generation. As human beings, it seems we can't do without story. This book--indeed, this whole idea of story-centered church renewal--was born of a suspicion that the restorative, transformative, life-giving function that stories have for us as individuals may serve communities of faithful people as well. If stories help us survive as human creatures, why can't they help churches survive? The problem that story-centered renewal seeks to remedy has only become more prevalent and urgent in the age of Covid-19. Our churches need hope now more than ever. Writing from a pastor's perspective, Gorkos hopes to encourage and empower other pastors and lay leaders with both the hope and the tools they need to effect revitalizing change in their faith communities. Each chapter includes questions for reflection to help readers listen to and tell the stories that will lead to renewal and transformation.