The Artist, Hollywood and Change
There are two themes I’ve been returning to in my research these days: Disney and myth-in-transition. The Disney research is paying off; my chair has given his seal of approval on the completed draft. The myth-in-transition question arose as I was writing the dissertation. 2012 is a year full of potential change, and after researching the Cold War for my dissertation… Continue reading
Tags: film, Old Hollywood, The Artist, transition
A Dangerous Method
In short, this is a film about psychologist C.G. Jung. Jung is underrepresented in American culture, even with all the publicity he gets in the academic circles. This is one of the first films I’m aware of that portrays Jung at all, beyond documentaries of course.
The story concentrates on Jung and his patient… Continue reading
Tags: A Dangerous Method, film, Jung
Copyrighting our Dreams
Neil Gaiman, author of The Sandman among other wonderful stories that make Jungians giddy with excitement, posted a link to this blog post yesterday that considers the significance of some elements in The Kindly Ones from the Sandman. The author, Matthew Cheney, concludes his post with this observation:
People have made the case that television and movies and comic books are our contemporary myths, that popular mass… Continue reading
Tags: copyright, dreams, Sandman
Reflections: Hello 2012!
I was able to finish 2011 on a positive note. My dissertation is completely drafted and in the hands of my chair. Now begins those agonizing few weeks of waiting to see if my draft will be approved. My conclusion opened a few conceptual doors for me, and I’m a little nervous that my chair is going to ask me to flesh out that tiny chapter. Since we’re entering 2012… Continue reading
Tags: 2012, myth in transition
Current Events and Fairy Tales
I have been decidedly quiet about current events lately. One reason is that I don’t actually read/listen to the news, and I try not to make opinions based on headlines. And the other reason is that I don’t often make it a habit to discuss current events in print. That said, there has been a lot over the last couple months that are worth considering, especially considering the idea that… Continue reading
Tags: Current Events, fairy tales, Old vs. New
New Scholarship?
A friend of mine recently sent me an e-mail that contained the following question:
I have been thinking a lot about this statement you made on your blog over the summer:
And, while I’m happy to be a book-thumping mythologist and an arm-chair psychologist, it’s time to get some new scholarship published that isn’t just reciting or repackaging the same old theories that have been tossed around for 100 years
Tags: doing myth, myth, studying myth
Disneyland as Sacred Landscape
This month’s Myth Café prompt is to consider a sacred landscape either around us or that we have visited. The catch to the prompt is that it is supposed to be a natural landscape. Because if it were just any old landscape, then I could write about Disneyland and call it a day. I’ve been sitting on this question now for a few weeks, and realize that I need to… Continue reading
Tags: Disneyland, Sacred Landscape
The End of Dissertation Summer, Or: How I Spent My Summer Vacation
Just to recap: I took this summer off from teaching to make a significant dent to my dissertation. My goal was to complete 3 chapters by the end of summer vacation. I figure that after the 2 chapters of the proposal, 3 out of 7 chapters is a significant dent to the overall project. With one week to spare on my summer vacation, I have successfully completed 5 of 7… Continue reading
Tags: Cold War, consumption, Disneyland, Dissertation, Dissertation Summer, globalism, post-modernism
What’s The Point? My Review
1971’s The Point is an animated feature based on a fable by musician Harry Nielsen. It is set in the Pointed Village in the Land of Point, where everyone and everything is driven obsessively by the point. One day, Oblio is born with no point. Though he and his family learn to work around his “disability” (as it would be described… Continue reading
Tags: The Point
Myth Collection as Consumption
A recent bee started buzzing in my bonnet. Something about people who just collect myths and spit them out to prove a point has gotten under my skin, and this has been festering for awhile and it’s part of my current disillusionment with Joseph Campbell. On one hand, it’s a very superficial way to win an argument. But on the other, it does a disservice to the myth. Each myth… Continue reading
Tags: American Myth, collection, consumption, Manifest Destiny, myth