 2015 - 2016 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 0697-4091-01 | Myth and Meaning in Comparative Religion and the Study of Ju | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| FACULTY OF HUMANITIES | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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University credit hours: 4.0
Course description
In the nineteenth century, religious myths were identified with the tales of Gods characteristic of pagan religions. In the twentieth century, the meaning of the term was widened as a result of the development of various theories in the study of myths including psychoanalytical theory (Freud and his followers) the anthropological-ritualistic approach (From Jane Harrison to Walter Burkert), anthropological-structuralism (Claude Levi Strauss and his students) and ideological and linguistic approaches (from Marx and Cassirer to Wittgenstein and his followers). The notion of Myth was charged with new meanings and was perceived as a language characterizing a wide variety of religious phenomena as well as post-religious phenomena widely thought to be secular. In this methodological seminar, we will examine the numerous meanings the various theories ascribe to the notion of myth and analyze various mythical aspects of Jewish religion through the generations from a developmental and comparative perspective.
Final Task: Paper
Partial Bibliography:
Eric Csapo, Theories of Mythology, Oxford 2005; R.A. Segal, Theorizing About Myth, Amherest 1999; Walter Burkert, Homo Necans, Berkeley 1982; Cassirer, Essay on Man; Idel and Grunwald, The Myth in Judaism; Ron Magolin. "The Varoous faces of Myth".