107-111 Comparative Mythology

Credit Points

HECS Band

Coordinator

Prerequisites

see Prerequisites.

Semester

Subject Description

This subject focuses on mythic themes in a cross-cultural context. Students will start with specific themes in Greek myth (e.g. the trickster figure, birth and cosmogony, the quest, the archer/healer) and move on to examine other traditions (including the Roman, American, Celtic, Norse, and Egyptian) where similar narrative themes occur. Some attention is also given to the ways that these themes emerge in a modern cultural context, especially in the cinema. On conclusion of the subject students should have a grasp of the principal themes and cultural significance of the myths studied, and of some of the major scholarly approaches to Comparative Mythology.