Re: [OpenHeroQuest] Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey

From: David Cake <dave_at_r29wh5qSoOiBYszvUahggnN6wDSrhvbB4Cpble71YE2FheQTEvoBPaBbYq8BGSF15S1smGN>
Date: Fri, 5 Dec 2003 11:50:51 +0800


At 9:38 PM -0600 4/12/03, Guy Hoyle wrote:
>If I might digress into something other than poo-throwing and
>bile-spewing for a bit, does anybody know whether Joseph Campbell's
>description of the hero's journey is held to have any academic merit?

        It was regarded fairly well in its day, but that day has long passed. It would now be held to be an examplar of a type of theory that no one gives much respect to.

        Like everything else, academic theories of mythology are trying to be post-post-modern/structuralist, whatever that is. Campbellian theory is really pre-structuralist. After you have taken into account structuralist critique (ie Levi-Strauss), feminist critique, post-modernist deconstruction, a post-colonialist hunt for cultural bias, a few other competing theories of myth creation, etc its not much done academically these days to talk about myth in anything like a pure Campbellian point of view.

        Excepting, of course, that academia is a many-splendored thing. Campbell wouldn't be much discussed in anthropology departments that would claim to be the authorities on studying myth, but might surface other places in academia (English depts, for example. Perhaps Classics, who care about some of the actual myths a lot but the underlying theory a bit less).

	Cheers
		David

           

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