JCL National Meeting, 2015

Whatever Happened to Myth?

Today’s Lecture

• What Happened to Myth

• The Fantastic

• Horror: Animals and

Revenants

What Does Myth Do?

• Myth has several goals on the part of

the performer

– Entertainment; education; admonition;

explanation and expression

– Pragmatic acts that can communicate

one or many insights

– Forms of communication that appeal to

as large an audience as possible

WHAT ELSE DOES MYTH DO?

• Myth has several effects on the part of the audience

– Creation of a cultural commonwealth

– Communication throughout the generations

– Exploration of complex and threatening concepts

– Formation and replication of narrative patterns

– Received instructions for telling their own stories

Constraints on Myth

• Audiences must be receptive to the narrative

• The myth’s world cannot break all the basic natural laws held as true

by the audience

– Some fundamentals must be preserved

• Elements in the myth must be culturally recognizable (verisimilitude)

• Each allomorph of a narrative must be innovative and traditional at the

same time

Common Narrative Characteristics

• Myths contain tales of important/ ‘larger-than-life’ figures– Heroes, kings, gods, demi-gods etc.

• Myths occur on the margins of geography and time

• However fantastic, myths explore themes relatable to general audiences (universals?)

What Happened to Myth?

• Cultural change from primarily oral to

primarily literate societies

• Cultural change sparked by

technological change

• Cultural change rooted in religion

– Summary prejudice of ‘modern’ vs.

primitive

– Literalism vs. metaphorical paradigms

Post-Classical Myth

• Myths continued evolving even through the growth of

Christianity

• Oral story-telling traditions persisted but gradually lost

prominence

• During the Medieval and Renaissance periods myth

continued in the form of popular storytelling, Romance,

folk-tales and fairytales

Saints • Individual humans who are exalted through their own deeds or divine dispensation

• In some traditions, a saint is raised by popular opinion for religious devotion and good deeds

– According to the Roman Catholic Church, the church cannot make saints

– Instead, it recognizes them

• According to some, a saint is a person through whom the character and love of God can be glimpsed

Position of Saints

• A saint occupies the space between normal

humans and the divine

– Saints work for the benefit of men or for the

advancement of the religion in question

– Saints allow for a type of communication

between the realms

• Saints also take on specific spheres of

influence and have power in the mortal

realm as a vehicle or avatar for divinity

Divine

Saints

Man

St. George

• A Roman soldier who became a

Christian martyr and a saint of the

Roman Catholic, Greek and Eastern

Orthodox and Anglican Churches

– He lived from around 275 CE to 23 April

303

• As a soldier he defied Diocletian’s order

to sacrifice to the Roman gods

St. George and the Dragon

• Later legend: a serpent/dragon

occupied the water source in a city

named Silene

– A princess (sometimes claimed to be

the wife of Diocletian) was offered to

appease it

– St. George defeated the dragon with the

symbol of the cross

• The citizens embraced Christianity

St. Patrick– ca. 387 – 17 March, 493

• Roman/British Christian

missionary who introduced

the religion to Ireland

• Kidnapped and taken to

Ireland as a child

• He escaped and returned

after he was ordained

St. Patrick and the Snakes• According to

legend, St. Patrick cleansed Ireland of snakes after fasting and praying for 40 days

• Allegory for his expulsion of Druids and pagan religion?

RELIGIOUS AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS

• The sacred and revealed word of monotheistic religions privileged the book and religious hierarchy over folktale and myth

• Oral myth could no longer evolve alongside culture and society

• (Re-)Interpretation of static texts functioned to replace some of the uses of myth

Storytelling’s

Persistence

• Storytelling persisted in folk and literary forms

• There are examples of religious storytelling as

well

– John Milton’s Paradise Lost and Dante Aligheri’s

Divine Comedy

• Combinations of sacred texts, popular myth and literary

innovation

– They entertain, educate and explore

Fantastic Story-telling Genres

• The 19th and 20th centuries saw the birth and rapid

expansion of story-telling genres

• Included sub-varieties

– Horror

– Science Fiction

– Heroic Fantasy

• Media of presentation

– Poetry

– Prose

– Film and Television

– Comic Books

– Video Games

Fantastic Aspects

• Marginal time and space

– “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away”

• Verisimilitude

– Basic metaphysical Rules

• Miraculous deeds and events

– Advanced/alien technology, evolved biology, magic

– Replaces divine intervention etc.

Fantastic Aspects• Bigger than life and

marginal characters

– Heroes (narrative patterns), demi-gods and gods (demons, mutants and aliens)

• Conventional narrative patterns

– The monomyth, heroic pattern etc.

– Projected anxieties of audience

The Horror Genre

• Horror as a genre is named for its intended and desired effect: to

inspire fear and revulsion

– Horror narratives help to explore taboo and frightening subjects

• Horror tends to involve marginalized creatures and activities

– Horror developed from folk-tales and admonitory narratives

– Often religious systems combine with this: the Devil is behind the evil

forces

Animal Metamorphosis

• Many traditions have human beings transform into animals

– Witchcraft (the Odyssey)

– Divine intervention (e.g., Actaeon)

• Generally such transformations indicate both the closeness of humankind to animal kind and the marginalizing aspects of the irrational and animalistic

ManHeroes /

SaintsAnimals Werewolves God

Structures and Margins

Animals

Profane

Irrational

Sin

Occult

Condemnation

ManHeroes /

SaintsWerewolves

God

Sacred

Rational

Salvation

Man on the Margins

• Human transformation into animals is a symbolic return of ‘rational’ and ‘civilized’ man to the irrational/animal realm

• Wolves and dogs as a pair are marginal creatures– Dogs are tame and civilized but still animals

and thus occupy space between human and animal realms

• Wolves are social animals who are still savage – In a pair with dogs they represent the other

side of the boundary between the civilized and the savage realms

European Werewolves• In folk culture lycanthropy can

either be a choice or a curse– a curse from evil forces

– Or a choice to participate in evil

• Contraction of lycanthropy by contagion communicates essential fears about contagion– Bestial men who operate in the

forest, outside the margins of the city

Revenant Beings

• Cross-cultural belief in a creature that lives off the life-force of other living beings

– From Latin “to return”

– revenants cross the boundary between the living and the dead

– Ghosts, zombies, vampires

• They symbolize a disturbed and troubled afterlife

• They also indicate a troubled balance between the life and death

Structures and Margins: Revenants

Death

Darkness

Damnation

Satan

ManAnti-

Revenant

Warriors

Revenants

Life

Light

Salvation

God

Excess

Madness

Sin

Restraint

Reason

Virtue

Vampires!

• 18th century Vampire

hysteria led to

identification of marginal

people as evil beings

• In severe cases corpses

were mutilated or even

exhumed

Vampires and Corpses

• Vampires in part are about

the physicality of death

– Uneven decomposition of

bodies

– Corpses swell and change after

clinical death

– The body releases gasses and

makes sounds during

mortification

– Continued growth and change

after ‘death’

Apotropaic Magic• Garlic, Mirrors

and Crosses?

• Apotropaic rituals

to fend off evil

– Systems of

Apotropaic magic

ward off the

dangerous spirits

• Apotropaic is a

symbolic ritual

(finger-crossing,

evil-eye signs,

etc.) meant to

‘turn away”

Vampires as Etiologies

• Vampires and other supernatural creatures may explain sudden deaths and misunderstood plagues– Some scientists have theorized

that vampiric qualities are extensions of experiences with rabies outbreaks

• Vampirism has also been used to explain Madness, blood-lust and hypersexuality

Killing the Vampire

• Vampire death methods a reflex of

attempts to restore order to the

balance of good/evil, life/death

– Dismemberment: beheading

– Re-sacralization: holy water, crosses etc.

– Deflation of blood organ (stakes!)

– Symbolic victory of good over evil: The

light of day triumphs over darkness

Vampire Hunters: Heroic Patterns

• Vampire Hunters tend to be marginalized

• Physically: something greater than normal man

• Socially: Divorced from normal society

• Abstemious: Separated from regular life cycles

• In peril/threatening: Too close to the danger?

Consumption and Class• Vampires also become

associated with depraved nobility

– Dracula literally lives off the life force of his people

• Vampiric consumption reflects post-industrial capitalism

– Strivers are co-opted into the consumptive system

– Nosferatu is thus a middle-class striver who is co-opted into the bourgeoisie

• Karl Marx refers to capital itself as a vampire

Zombies

• The word zombie is a loan

word from North Africa to

English through Haitian

Creole

• Re-animated corpse

• Sometimes the term has been

used figuratively to indicate a

person deprived of autonomy

and under some type of

externally imposed hypnosis

Zombie Universals

• Undead creatures who desire to feed off the living are nearly a universal archetype– In earlier African culture a

zombie is raised by a sorcerer to be his servant

• In some regions Zombies can be returned to the grave if they are fed salt

• In Haiti, witch-doctors are believed to have the power to induce a zombie state in the living or dead

Zombie Appetite

• The Zombie appetite represents the pure human id in psychological terms – Our most basic desires unfettered

• As marginal creatures, they represent the most animalistic parts of humans deprived of all reason and higher order thinking skills

• Zombies represent unrestrained consumption and mindless obedience to desire

Popular Zombies• In popular culture

zombies can be created by magical or scientific means

– In H. P. Lovecraft’s Herbert West-Reanimator, the eponymous scientist tries to bring corpses back to life

• The revenant beings are violent and uncontrollable

• Corpses brought back from the dead seem to have no capacity to reason, no soul

Romero’s Zombies

• George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968) created the modern and popular concept of a zombie

– No clear explanation is given

– Scientists in the film offer radiation contamination as a cause

• Zombies represent anxiety about death and uncontrolled human appetite

– Their slow gait symbolizes the inevitability of death

Zombies at the

Mall

• Romero also uses zombies as a vehicle for exploring modern

culture

– Selfishness of individuals

– Danger of meddling with unknown science and mysticism

– Unpreparedness of governments to deal with serious threats

• Reflection of possible nuclear apocalypse

– Fragility of communities

Apocalypse Narratives

• Apocalypse narratives focus

on what is essential about

humanity when all trappings

of civilization are gone

– Reflection of social conflict

during the Cold War

• Sequels (Dawn of the Dead

especially) focus on social ills

like consumerism implying

that even in life humans have

zombie characteristic

28 Days Later (2002)

• Zombies move much faster as a result of a

‘rage’ pandemic

• Zombie narrative creates a post-

apocalyptic struggle for survival

• Humans can contract ‘zombi-ism’ from

an blood or fluid

– Real horror comes not from the undead but

from the behavior of men

ZOMBIE PSYCHOLOGY

• Zombies on a psychological level explore anxieties about lack of control over the body

• They also express concerns about the power of appetites and unmitigated desire

• In their dull but constant attack they represent fears over the inevitable (mostly death and decline)

• They also express concerns about autonomy and freewill (reason vs. animalism)

Zombie Science• The spread of zombie-contagion

represents larger cultural concerns– Early zombies come as a result of

magic or witchcraft (devil’s work and curses)

– Modern zombies develop as a result of science gone wild (nuclear age side-effects or Frankenstein-esqueexperimentation)

• Zombies represent cultural concerns about marginal powers or scientific progress

Zombies and Civilization

• Zombie epidemics provide settings for the exploration of civilization and humanity

– The stripping of reason and the unmitigated desires of zombies represent man outside of civilization

• The struggle against these forces offers opportunities to reflect on how human beings live together without being zombies

Science Fiction

• “Speculative” fiction dealing with fantastic

events without recourse to the supernatural

• Science fiction narratives are often set in the

future, an alternative present, or a forgotten

past

– Settings removed from Earth (outer-space, space

ships, etc.) or on an altered planet

– Includes imagined technology, extrapolated

science, or impossible science

– Also sometimes includes paranormal abilities or

evolved species

Golden Age Science Fiction Themes

• Arthur C. Clarke and Frank Herbert explore

environmentalism and ecology in Rendezvous with Rama and Dune

– In Rama, Clarke introduces an alien spaceship

designed to take a full ecological system across

space

– In Dune, Herbert explores the connections between

ecology, water scarcity and culture

– More recently, Orson Scott Card (the Ender series)

ruminates on the effects of traveling at light speed

on human lifespans and history in addition to

considering xenobiology and genetic manipulation

Darker Responses• 1960s and 70s television and film Science

Fiction were heavily influenced by Golden Age

Themes (Original Stark Trek series)

• There were darker visions: Frank Herbert’s

Dune; Soylent Green; Planet of the Apes

• Many authors (Frank Herbert, Robert Heinlein,

Ursula K. Le Guin and Philip Dick) use science

fiction to explore social development and

political tensions

– Philip Dick, especially, explores the boundaries of

human identity and consciousness

Dystopic Futures

• Many of the socially conscious Science Fiction narratives explore dystopias

– Bleak future realities where science has not proved to be man’s salvation

– Blade Runner; William Gibson

• Dystopias often appear cross-generically: George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World– Dystopic futures can appear as a

result of man-made or natural disaster (Nevil Shute’s On the Beach; Cormac McCarthy’s The Road; Kurt Vonnegut Cat’s Cradle; Films: The Postman, Waterworld, Mad Max)

Recurring Themes from Science Fiction

• God-complex

– Hubris: Frankenfish to Skynet

• Viruses: the Stand

• Computers, Artificial intelligence and Man

• The Journey

• Time Travel

• Social Development

• Aliens and Men

The Journey

• Jules Verne: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, etc.

• 2001: A Space Odyssey

• Rendezvous with Rama

• Alien

• Battlestar Galactica

Science Fiction and Social Evolution• H. G. Wells and Industrialization: The Time

machine

– The Eloi and the Morlocks

• Frank Herbert’s Dune

– Religious manipulation and Bedouin culture

• Cynical use of prophecy and myth

• Isaac Asimov, Prelude to Foundation

– One planet, many cultures

• Hari Seldon’s ethnographic tour

• “Psychohistory”

• Star Trek’s Ethnography

Time Travel • Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

• The Time Machine

• Why travel through time?

• Backward looking time travel

– Witness macrocosmic change

– Tour history

– Witness or change the past

• Forward looking time travel

– Change a dystopic future (Terminator)

• Witness other potential timelines

Time Travel Meanings• Rule of unintended

consequences (‘butterfly effect’)

• Reflection on current values

• Metaphysical insights about causality and interdependence– Perspective on the relationship

between current timeline and history

– Relationship between individual and time

• Fantasy of extra-mortality (going backward or forward)

Aliens• Extraterrestrial Life

was a topic of

speculation during the

Renaissance and

Enlightenment

• Advances in astronomy

and science (especially

evolution) increased

interest and speculation

about the planets

nearest to us

Aliens

• Jules Verne’s Around the Moon

(1870) puts life on Earth’s

satellite

• H.G Wells’ The War of the

Worlds (1898) has alien

invaders come from Mars

• In previous eras the sky and

moon were the domain of the

gods

– As science and religion both

adjust perspectives of the

world and divine materiality

or physicality, new beings

occupy this space in our stories

Alien Invasion • Alien invasions can emphasize the fractious behavior of mankind

• Or the wild threat outside the boundary of our planet (Aliens, Predator)

• Aliens can also help us explore what it means to be human by exploring other types of life

• Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama; Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land and Starship Troopers

• Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind or E. T.; Avatar

• Orson Scott Card’s Ender series (Xenocide)

Robots, more human than humans

• The Turing Test, introduced by Alan Turing in 1950

– Examines whether or not a human being in a blind conversation can tell the difference between computer and human interlocutors

– Even when computers pretend to be humans and humans pretend to be computers

– If a computer can imitate a human being and human beings cannot tell the difference….

• What is a person?

– Philip K. Dicks’ replicants in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep

– Cylons in Battlestar Galactica

The Laws of Robotics

• Asimov explores computer programming, robotic minds and philosophical paradox with the rules of Robotics (introduced in 1942 short-story “Runaround”)1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

THE GOLEM THEME, DIGITAL

• Prometheus and god-complex: the machines that turn against us

– Terminator’s Skynet wages nuclear war on man

– The computer mind in the Matrix overthrows and enslaves man

– Cylon androids commit genocide (and then feel bad about it)

• Reflection of human nature?

• Fear of the next step of evolution?

Comic Books• Comic books as we know them have

existed since 1933

– Comics in print form in America go back to

the early 19th century

• Why comic books?

– Attraction of visual and narrative form

– Cheap to produce and circulate

– Appeal to audiences of different economic

and educational class

• Quasi-literary; pre-cursor to serial

television?

COMIC HERO DEVELOPMENT

• Comic book heroes develop over time

– In their cultural development they mirror different social and cultural needs

– Echo the development of heroic narratives in early Greek myth

• From single virtuous heroes who combat threats for the good of society (Superman)

– To problematic heroes (Spiderman)

– To coalitions of heroes and anti-heroes (Justice League, Avengers, X-Men and Watchmen)

– Even originally virtuous heroes get more complex: Evil Superman, etc.

Growth of Comics

• Superman’s appearance in 1938 led to an explosion in Comics’ popularity

• Between 1938 and 1941 the ‘superhero’ archetype was explored and developed with the release of very influential titles

– Batman and Robin, The Flash, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman and Captain America

– Less well-remembered heroes: the Atom, Hawkman, and Aquaman, Human Torch, the Sub-Mariner

Comics and Context

• Temporal Context: Pre World-War 2, post Depression

• Cultural context: Rise of Communism, Nazism, fascism

• Rapid technological change: introduction of electricity, assembly-line cars, etc.

• Heroes regularly battled Nazi and Imperial Japanese enemies

• Boundaries of good and evil were clearly demarcated

Superman, Alien

• Alter-ego: Clark Kent

• Has nearly limitless

powers from his alien

birth

• One true weakness:

Kryptonite

• An unfailing moral

conscience from his

rearing in the

heartland

Super Symbolism

• The perfect virtuous hero in a position

between God and man

• A protector who knows better than we do

– Fantasy of a savior/protector

• His narrative mutates and develops: he

dies, marries, has a Bizarro twin

• Acknowledgement of essential

imperfection

The Bat-man, Vigilante

• Debuted in 1939 with the secret identity Detective Comics #27

– Alter-ego of Bruce Wayne

– He witnessed the death of his parents and swore to take revenge

• He does not have superpowers but trains his body and mind to be a crime fighter

• He often fights on the margins without the approval of conventional authorities

Batman Symbolism

• Batman changes over time from a campy and virtuous crime fighter to a brooding antihero

• Fantasy of a wealthy oligarch caring for the poor and weak

• Fear that established government protections are insufficient (corruption and ineptitude)

• Fantasy of individual empowerment to achieve justice

• Why a bat?

Captain

America

• First appeared in Captain America Comics # 1 (1941)

– Alter-ego of Steve Rogers

• A weakling enhanced by experimental

science to be a super-soldier

• Intentionally created during war

to battle America’s enemies

– His popularity decreased after the

war

• Represents the promise of the US

Army and American technology

– Fantasy: the promise that any man

might become a hero in defense of

his country

Postwar Comics

• Following the end of the war

and the dawn of the nuclear

age superheroes became

more complex

• Coalitions like the Justice

League of America (1960)

became popular

– The Fantastic Four (1961) were

heroes who worked together

but squabbled and were less

‘perfect’ than earlier heroes

Fantastic Space!• The Fantastic Four

gained their powers from exposure to cosmic rays during space travel

• Reflection of the space race?

– Sputnik was launched in 1957

– First US Satellite (Explorer 1) launched in 1958; NASA was created in the same year

Spiderman

• First Appearance of Peter

Parker (Spiderman) came in

Amazing Fantasy 15 (Marvel;

1962)

– The Amazing Spider-Man appeared

as an independent publication in

1963

• First significant teenager in a

super-hero role (not as a

sidekick like Robin)

– Secret identity and isolation

recall adolescence

• He develops his powers after

being bitten by a radioactive

spider

Spiderman

• "With great power there must also

come—great responsibility!"

• Peter Parker continues to struggle in real

life and balance his secret and public

identities

• Fantasy and psychology: struggle

between interior and exterior worlds

The Suffering Hero• Peter Parker must endure

taunting and teasing by school bullies

• The local editors persecute him He cannot keep consistent friends

– His friend Harry Osborn has drug problems and his father is the Green Goblin

– He is unable to save his girlfriend Gwen Stacy from death

– He tries to give up being a super-hero

Cold-War Comics

• Coalition narratives became

popular during the cold war

– The Justice League of America,

The Avengers, The Fantastic Four,

and X-Men

• The insufficiency of single heroes

to meet all threats

• A real-world of shifting and

weighty alliances

• Ian inadequacy or fallibility of

individual heroes?

X-men• X-Men debuted in 1963

– A coalition of Mutants formed from

an ‘x-gene’ or exposure to radiation

– Science themes (Frankenstein) and

evolution

• The good coalition who help men

is balanced by the more sinister

and selfish Brotherhood of

Mutants

– The storyline places their founders

(Professor Xavier and Magneto) in a

fraternal relationship

– The dueling coalition may reflect

the conflicts between cold war

powers

X-Men and Culture

• Mutant suffrage and persecution

has also been seen as a reflection of

the civil rights movement

– Mutant persecution has been

understood as a stand-in for racism,

sexism, and heteronormativity

• The world of the X-men remembers the

Holocaust

– X-men come from different nations

and religious groups

– The persecution of mutants has also

been compared to McCarthyism

Antiheroes • The 1970s witnessed the rise of antiheroes– Antiheroes are ‘good’ but not in

conventional ways—they are not virtuous heroes

– Reflects the hero fallen from grace theme

• Wolverine: Gruff, dirty and unpredictable; doesn’t mind killing

• Punisher (1974) uses kidnapping, blackmail and torture to fight crime (along with weapons not powers)– His family was killed by the mob

• Batman: The Dark Knight Returns

• Coalition of antiheroes: The Watchmen

Fantasy

• As a genre, Fantasy is distinguished by its use

of magic and the supernatural (instead of

science and technology) to create fantastic

elements

• Fantasy texts can be set in earlier or alternate

worlds (J. R. R. Tolkein; George R. R. Martin)

or in worlds adjacent or connected to our own

(C. S. Lewis and J. K. Rowling)

• Like Science Fiction and Horror, Fantasy

creates marginal spaces to explore themes

relevant to the audience

Fantasy History• Fantasy has its roots in folktales, Medieval

Romance and legends

• From Beowulf to Arthurian Legend

• Fantasy often is cast in the form of stories for

children

– Peter Pan, The Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland

• Such narratives often contain more than

meets the eye

High Fantasy• Pulp fiction and legendary

narratives became popular at the beginning of the 20th century

• J.R.R. Tolkein is credited with the beginning of ‘high fantasy’

– Set in a largely medieval world

– Mostly Anglo-Saxoneqsuepeople channeling Celtic and Northern European myths

– Robert Jordan and George R. R. Martin write in this tradition

Tolkein’s Themes• Fantasy often explores basic

themes of good vs. evil and the struggle of man between these two polarities

• The Hobbit: A quest to defeat a dragon

• The Lord of the Rings emphasizes the quest and the journey as well

• LOTR: The Struggle of Man to fight against good

• Temptation and sin: Boromir

• Symbolism of The Ring?

High Fantasy Premises

• Etiology for the

disappearance of magic from

the world

• The contribution of

‘smallfolk’

• The persistence of the heroic

pattern: Aragorn/Strider

• Tolkein marginalizes women,

sexuality, and the life cycle

– Escapist fantasy: No sex and

no women?

High Fantasy Media

• High Fantasy has considerable appeal and has

spawned other narrative types

– Choose your own adventure: Role-Playing Fantasy

– Participatory Narrative

– Video-game narratives

Fantasy and Children• Fantasy still comes largely in

the form of children’s literature Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, The Chronicles of Narnia

– In large part these narratives tend to marginalize ‘adult’ topics and themes

• Escapist fantasy for adults as well

– Some authors play against this pattern

Darker Fantasy

• Philip Pullman His Dark Materials– Lyra is a heroic female character who eventually wages war

on God

• Chaotic Fantasy: George R. R. Martin– NOT for Children: Martin’s world is dirty, sex-stained, and

violent

– No clear boundary between good and evil

Select Bibliography 1

• E. T. E. Barker and Joel P. Christensen. Homer: A Beginner’s Guide. One World, 2013.

• Joseph Campbell. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Glasgow: Fontana, 1993.

• Joel P. Christensen “Time and Self-Referentiality in the Iliad and Frank Herbert’s Dune,” in Classical Traditions in Science Fiction, Brett Rogers and Benjamin Stevens (eds.). Oxford, 2015: 161-175.

• Joel P. Christensen. “The Hero Herself: From Death-Giver to Storyteller in Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” in Ancient Women and Modern Media, William Duffy and Krishni Burns (eds.) Cambridge Scholars Press, 2016.

• Carl Jung. The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. R. F. C. Hull (trans.). Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981.

Select Bibliography 2

• Vladimir Propp. Morphology of the Folktale. Laurence Scott (trans.). Austin: University of Texas, 1968.

• Lord Raglan. The Hero: A Study in Tradition, Myth and Drama. Dover: Dover Books, 2011.

• Benjamin E. Stevens and Brett M. Rogers. “Classical Receptions in Science Fiction.” Classical Receptions Journal 4 (2012) 127-147.

• Thomas C. Sutton and Marilyn Sutton. “Science Fiction as Mythology.” Western Folklore 28 (1969) 230-237.

• Tzvetan Todorov. The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre. Ithaca: Cornell University, 1975.

• J. R. R. Tolkein. “Tree and Leaf: On Fairy Stories.” In The Tolkien Reader. New York, 1966: 33-99.

• Rhonda V. Wilcox and David Lavery (eds). Fighting the Forces: What’s at Stake in Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002.