We love sharing this kind of opportunity – a CFP for a conference on myth in contemporary literature…and I agree with Graciela, it is definitely an under-represented theme in academia.

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From: Graciela M. Báez, New York University:

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

The upcoming ACLA conference titled World Literature/Comparative Literature, sponsored by Simon Fraser University will be held on March 31-April 3, 2011 in Vancouver, Canada.

I am leading a seminar titled Myth in Contemporary World Literature, and welcome any papers or presentations on how global, ancient myths are reflected, renovated, implemented, restructured and narrated in contemporary world literature.  Personally, I will present a paper with the working title: Myth in Contemporary World Literature: A Latin American Perspective on the Great Mother Structure and her Son/Lover; a retelling of the age old classic myth structure in a couple of canonical Latin American novels.

I welcome papers/presentations on mythology within contemporary literature, children’s literature, art, music or film, for instance, that refreshes national or cultural projects of rejuvenation/recuperation through ancient mythic structures, whether it be about the Great Mother, the Trickster, Gods/Goddesses and Hero myths, either from Latin America, North America, Europe, Asia or Africa.  If I missed something, please note I am open to learning and sharing so much more, so please suggest!  This seminar, I hope, will be a truly open, intellectual exchange that will offer one another the dialogue that is missing in academia and post-modern literary theory.

If interested, kindly view the link below and submit a paper proposal.  I look forward to sharing with you this rich and important, however, under-represented theme in the study of the humanities.

Abstracts must be received by 5PM CST on November 12, 2010 in order to receive full consideration.

http://www.acla.org/acla2011/?p=916

Reading Joe Campbell’s lectures that were transcribed for Transformations of Myth Through Time really gives the sense of being in a classroom with him. Coupled with the recordings of the lectures in the “Mythos” series – it becomes a complete experience!

We will continue with the lectures series and this upcoming meeting will be on the goddesses and gods of the Neolithic period and the transformation of culture from the agrarian to the city centered. This chapter includes the work of archeologist Marija Gimbutas whose collection we have in the archives housed alongside Campbell’s.

Event Info:

OPUS Archives & Research Center on the Ladera campus of Pacifica Graduate Institute
801 Ladera Lane
6:30-8:30PM
For more information or questions, contact OPUS at info@opusarchives.org or 805-969-5750.

This event is free and open to the public.

This image includes a photo that Marija Gimbutas used in The Language of the Goddess and includes the book editing aspects – note the caption with her handwritten edit as well as measurements of the image for proper setting for production of the book.

Chalk replica of a Bronze Age drum with face of an owl from Folkton Wold, East Riding, Yorkshire c. 2000 B.C.

Gimbutas wrote in The Language of the Goddess that this is “evidence for the Goddess’ association with music, particularly drums [and] comes from a bronze age inhumation grave of a child in a British tumulus.”

Last night was the monthly discussion group I lead on Joe Campbell and his work on mythology. We watched him give a lecture on the Navajo myth “Where the Two Came to Their Father”,  a warrior initiation myth. The myth itself was published by Maude Oakes who got the myth from Jeff King, an elder of his tribe who shared the ceremonial myth with her, it goes, because the young were not undergoing the time intensive training required to learn the story. So the myth and its pollen paintings were recorded in the book Where the Two Came to Their Father by Jeff King, Maude Oakes and commentary by Joe Campbell. We have 2 first edition copies of it in the Campbell library here in the archives available for research or perusal.

Here are 2 images from the book:

First pollen painting - image from pbagalleries.com

Image from theosociety.org

One of the observations Campbell makes in his lecture on this myth is the highly symbolic quality of the drawings. It is not that the Navajo didn’t know how to render animals and nature naturalistically, but that in these sacred paintings the images are rendered so to be transparent to the transcendent. In other words, they’re rendered in the form of their spiritual reference.

“Living myths are not mistaken notions, and they do not spring from books. They are not to be judged as true or false but as effective or ineffective, maturative or pathogenic…They are not invented but occur, and are recognized by seers and poets, to be then cultivated and employed as catalysts of spiritual (i.e. psychological) well-being” The Flight of the Wild Gander

The image on the book cover is from the Bhaghavata Purana and tells of how Krsna hid Brahma's cows.