THE NEW MYTHOS RESEARCH GRANT – 2010
It’s all a question of story. We are in trouble just now because we do not have a good story. We are in between stories. The old story, the account of how the world came to be and how we fit into it is no longer effective….Our challenge is to create…a new sense of what it means to be human. Thomas Berry
The old gods are dead or dying and people everywhere are searching, asking: What is the new mythology to be, the mythology of this unified earth as of one harmonious being? … The only myth that is going to be worth thinking about in the immediate future is one that is talking about the planet and everything on it. Joseph Campbell
In 2010 OPUS hosted 13 recipients of the first New Mythos Research Grant. These individuals were not only scholars but also artists and writers, a composer and dancer. They, and 150 others, responded to the call in 2009 for articulations of the new mythic threads, the stories of meaning that are rising in the culture and these stories had to be built on the strong foundations of the scholars whose collections we have here in the archives.
In the original announcement for the New Mythos Grant we wrote “Campbell’s call [what is the new mythology] has been taken up by many and now we find ourselves in a time when the cry from most every quarter is for a new story, a new narrative, the new mythos that he wrote about. We humans are in search of a way to understand the patterns underlying the profound transformation we are currently experiencing in relationship with each other and our planet. From whence will this new mythos come? Who will tell the story? How will such a search be resourced?”
This grant cycle is officially over and we have been gathering the initial gleanings and thoughts by the researchers. We have been host to these incredible projects by the 13 individuals who participated in this call for the new stories and almost all of the preliminary research essays are available for you to read now on our website. As final projects come in, like Daniel Lentz’s Oratoio, we will share those as well.
Click here to read the New Mythos 2010 preliminary research reports
The collections held by OPUS Archives and Research Center provide treasures by visionary thinkers, scholars, writers and teachers. These individuals dedicated their lives to exploring the origins of cultural stories from pre-history (Marija Gimbutas), through ancient and classic history (Joseph Campbell and Christine Downing), and into contemporary culture (James Hillman, Jane and Joseph Wheelwright and Marion Woodman), thereby laying the foundation for new research that fosters meaning and guidance for the questions held by our modern world.
