The Mapuche people are a native group from the extreme south of Latin America. Their culture is based on the interconnectedness between the cohabitants of the environment, including human and non-human categories of life. The closest concept to consciousness for them would be Mapuche rakizuamor Mapuche thinking, which is defined as a particular kind of reflexivity or state of awareness of the interdependence of people with natural and spiritual entities. This understanding of the human condition represents a (...) relational ontology, which cannot be translated to the predominating individualistic approach. Although the mind–body distinction is not a central point within Mapuche culture, these dimensions can be explored through crucial processes of the life cycle such as socialization, illness, and death. Contributions from cultural psychology and Indigenous psychology are taken into account regarding the challenge to address the interplay between culture and the human psyche more appropriately. (shrink)

La demanda mapuche nos obliga a pensar en un “sujeto incardinado” que sostiene ciertas reivindicaciones propiamente modernas en su reclamo por reconocimiento de la diferencia, al mismo tiempo que desafía la noción de ciudadanía universal y sostiene una demanda anclada territorialmente y basada en un discurso emancipatorio de derechos. En efecto, nos reenfoca en la constitución de una identidad colectiva que es efecto –por una parte– de una exclusión y de un reconocimiento erróneo y –por otra parte– de un (...) entorno global que hace más visibles los fragmentos no anudados, como su contracara. Finalmente, nos enfrentan a la demanda universal de derecho a la vida significativa. Se propone pensar la identidad desde una perspectiva des-esencializada que enfatice –por una parte- el rol del lenguaje en la estructuración de las relaciones sociales y –por otra- la relevancia de lo no-narrativizado del campo social. (shrink)

In the context of understanding Nature's Contribution to People, this article explores the Mapuche value system and its contributions to living well by conserving nature. Through the context-specific approach, the findings shows that the Mapuche Az-Mapu is important for bio-cultural conservation in Chile. Deepening understanding of the distinct Mapuche value system shows the importance of rights and sovereignty for other coastal stateless nations who are enhancing bio-cultural conservation around the world. The article explores the importance of maintaining (...) Mapuche values in the context of Indigenous Marine Areas in Chile and linking to land-based rights. This research makes use of semi structured interviews and intercultural dialogue among the authors, to understand how traditional Mapuche concepts under the framework of Az-Mapu, are continued today in local marine conservation and other ecosystems. In this context, we ask how well these eudemonic relational values resonate with Mapuche values of nature. This article shows that rights for the marine environment can be expanded to additionally allow indigenous communities safeguard wetlands, lakes and forests which are indivisible under Az-Mapu. Greater recognition of this different form of valuation can better account for the dynamic relations between individuals, cultures, and ecosystems, as well as showing the importance in allowing indigenous communities to take back control of conservation under their own terms. (shrink)

Resumen: En este artículo analizamos, en un corpus del diario La Nación, la ideología de la cobertura mediática respecto del conflicto chileno-mapuche durante el primer gobierno de Michelle Bachelet Jeria. En particular, nos preocupa dar cuenta de la forma en que son retratados en este periódico los comuneros indígenas y los personeros de gobierno. Para ello, en primer lugar, describimos la caracterización de estos dos tipos de actores a partir de un análisis de contenido, y luego, en una segunda (...) parte, damos cuenta del panorama ideológico general en donde se insertan estas construcciones. Concluimos que la cobertura del diario se funda en tres puntos nodales: en primer lugar, el “reconocimiento cultural”, donde prima la construcción del llamado indio permitido; en segundo lugar, la “seguridad pública”, donde predomina la imagen del indio insurrecto. Estos dos puntos, el “reconocimiento cultural” y la “seguridad pública”, siempre van en la dirección de insinuar “competencia gubernamental”, el tercer punto nodal, entendido como “éxito y destreza en la generación de gobernabilidad”, parte fundamental en el proyecto político de la Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia.: In this article we analyze the ideology behind chilean newspaper La Nacion’s coverage of the chilean-mapuche conflict, specifically during the first government of Michelle Bachelet Jeria. We try to account for the way both indigenous subjects and government officials are portrayed, characterizing these types of actors, to later, in a second part, attempt to account for the general ideological landscape in which these constructs are inserted. We conclude that the coverage moves between three nodal points: first, “cultural recognition”, in which we find the indio permitido; second, “public security”, where we find the indio insurrecto. Both these nodal points always seem to imply the third one: “governmental competence”, understood as success and skill in generating political governance, a fundamental part of the Concertacion’s political project. (shrink)

El artículo presenta una visión histórica de la sociedad mapuche y del vínculo “interétnico”; y por otro lado se refiere a los diversos modos de comprensión de “Chile”, para examinar el tema de la existencia o no de una “deuda histórica” con la sociedad mapuche. Remarca que con el advenimiento de la República, los mapuche dejaron de ser vistos como un pueblo o nación y comienzan a ser tratados como chilenos, con lo que se puso fin a (...) la política colonial de los parlamentos. Frente a esto, la sociedad mapuche no logró articular un frente común para encarar el nuevo momento histórico. Agrega que la “Pacificación de la Araucanía” y la “política reduccional” funcionaron no como un proyecto de “inclusión”, sino de “exclusión”. Tras presentar los enfoques de los recientes gobiernos en lo concerniente al tema, y el de los historiadores Gonzalo Vial, Vitale y Pérez, concluye con una propuesta que pasa por separarse de la cultura dominante, y elaborar un política “sensible a las diferencias”. (shrink)

El pueblo mapuche, pueblo originario del Sur de América --Chile--, posee un sistema de comunicación propio articulado a una visión mítico-simbólica y sacralizada del mundo, condición que implica una diversidad de códigos y lenguajes que operan integradamente para la comunicación entre las diferentes dimensiones y entidades que componen este cosmos. La irrupción de occidente ha incidido en la transformación de la práctica tradicional de este pueblo debido al proceso de dominación hegemónica que ha buscado desarticularlo, ante el cual el (...) pueblo mapuche, desde la segunda mitad del siglo XX, implementa diversas estrategias tendientes a recuperar su territorio y autonomía cultural. Este trabajo sostiene que una de las principales estrategias contrahegemónicas es la creación de un macrosistema de comunicación intercultural que responde a un proceso metacognitivo complejo sustentado en distintas fases y niveles de elaboración epistémica. Con el propósito de dar cuenta de este proceso este trabajo se centra en el estudio de uno de sus subsistemas: el artístico, desde el cual se describen y reflexionan los territorios y fronteras simbólicas que se generan respecto del sistema de comunicación occidental. The Mapuche people in southern Chile, South America, have a system of communication organized upon a sacred mythical symbolic view of the world, a condition that implies a diversity of codes and languages working altogether to communicate in the different dimensions and entities that integrate this cosmos. Irruption of the western world and its hegemonic dominance have influenced and transformed these people’s culture, trying to break it apart. Since the second half of the 20th century, Mapuche people have developed varied strategies to recover their land and cultural autonomy. The present paper holds that one of the main strategies against this hegemony is the creation of a macro system of intercultural communication, which derives from a complex metacognitive process supported by different phases and epistemic elaboration levels. This paper focuses on one of those systems: the artistic one, from which we describe the land areas and symbolic borders produced in relation to the western communication system. (shrink)

Resumen Este artículo es resultado de una investigación exploratoria sobre escrituras de mujeres mapuche entre 1935 y 1965 presentes en periódicos mapuche, así como en órganos de difusión de instituciones de educación y revistas de movimientos sociales. Los objetivos de esta investigación son revisar los elementos históricos que posibilitaron el surgimiento de esta prosa particular de mujeres y desglosar los aspectos centrales tratados en ella, en particular la relación con los derechos civiles, la demanda por la educación y (...) la lucha contra el racismo. El artículo nace de una investigación realizada en archivos de prensa en la Biblioteca Nacional de Chile y documentos en el Museo de la Educación Gabriela Mistral, así como una breve revisión en el Archivo Regional de La Araucanía. Abstract This paper is the result of an exploratory research about Mapuche women's writings between 1935 and 1965 available in Mapuche newspapers, as well as in educational institutions and journals of social movements. The goals of this research are to review the historical elements that allow the emergence of the women’s prose, and to break down the central aspects of these writings, specifically, the relationship with civil rights, the demand for education and the fight against racism. The article arises from a study carried out in press archives in the National Library of Chile and documents in the Gabriela Mistral Museum of Education, as well as brief research in the Regional Archive of Araucanía. (shrink)

Este artículo revisa el proceso histórico de la ‘Conquista del desierto’ y la existencia de campos de concentración para indígenas en Argentina a través de una lectura de hermenéutica filosófica. El objetivo del artículo es interpretar el periodo y el uso de campos como instancias que configuraron la diferenciación del pueblo mapuche como sujeto racializado en la sociedad argentina. Los resultados de la exposición muestran que la marginación del cuerpo mapuche ocurre por el registro de excepciones y que (...) aquella es disputada por sujetos mapuche. This paper reviews the historical process of the ‘Conquest of the Desert’ and the existence of concentration camps for indigenous people in Argentina. The research is conducted through philosophical hermeneutics. The objective of the paper is to read the period and the use concentration camps as instances that shaped the differentiation of the Mapuche people as a racialized subject in Argentine society. The results of the argumentation show that marginalization of the Mapuche body occurs through the registration of exceptions, which is disputed by Mapuche subjects. (shrink)

Resumen: Dentro del movimiento sociopolítico mapuche por la autodeterminación que surge en Chile en la década de los noventa, una generación de mapuches de las ciudades comienzan a llevar a cabo proyectos de comunicación y cultura. Allí se vuelve relevante el desarrollo de producciones audiovisuales, estas han jugado un rol fundamental en la disputa por el derecho a la elaboración y circulación de sus propias imágenes y representaciones. El presente trabajo busca establecer el estatuto crítico de algunas de estas (...) imágenes en tanto dispositivos de pensamiento, para abordar la potencia afirmativa e inmanente que implica su irrupción estético-política, y plantearla como contracara de un historicismo teleológico Estado-nacional y como suspensión proliferante de la violencia biopolítica funcional al patrón económico regional de acumulación por desposesión.: Within the Mapuche sociopolitical movement for self-determination which rose in Chile in the nineties, a generation of urban Mapuche began to undertake projects of communication and culture. The development of audiovisual productions, which have played a fundamental role in the struggle for the right to do and to spread their own images and representations, has become relevant there. This paper seeks to establish the status of these images as devices of critical thought in order to address the affirmative and immanent power which this aesthetic-political breakthrough implies. In this way it is stated as a counterpart of the teleological nation-state historicism and as proliferating suspension of the consubstantial biopolitics sacrificial violence of the regional economic pattern of accumulation by dispossession. (shrink)

Anthropologists who "study" religious practitioners are always confronted with both an ethical and a methodological problem. Our traditional training asks us to remain detached from our "informants" and their beliefs in order to collect "data" whose content will be analyzed according to academic agendas and theoretical trends, translated into anthropological jargon and published in ethnographies that will be accepted, published, and read in the academic world. On the other hand, the purpose of our anthropological research is to gain a deeper (...) understanding of the "other" from the "inside." Experiential anthropology has searched for a deeper understanding of religious practitioners and their beliefs. This includes focusing on native epistemologies and experiences and personal engagement with informants that sometimes involves the ethnographer's apprenticeship and initiation into the religious traditions that are beingstudied. This experience involves our commitment and respect towards those we study. Drawing on my own experience with Mapuche shamans in southern Chile I discuss the ethical and methodological problems anthropologists have in bridging professional interests with the personal commitments made with those whom we study. I discuss the ethical problems in using apprenticeship and initiation solely for professional purposes and the problem of cultural appropriation, the limitations that an exclusively academic model has on what can be written about, how it should be conceptualized, theorized, and represented, and the problems anthropologists undergo in having to simultaneously maintain professional detachment and be committed to those with whom we work. (shrink)

시간의 흐름에 따라 변하지 않는 것이 없듯이, 철학적 사유도 시대의 상황에 따라 변화를 거듭한다. 이러한 의미에서 본 논문은 근대 이전의 신 중심 사회의 신화(神話)로부터 벗어난 근대의 자유 혹은 자율성의 시대도 또 하나의 신화임을 논증하고자 한다. 우선, 정치적 의미에서 근대적 자유(주의)의 출발점이 되는 로크의 개인주체의 자유 개념과 개인주체의 자율성을 철학적 원리로서 확립한 칸트의 자율성 개념을 해-체함으로써 근대 주체의 자유 혹은 자율성이 불가능한 근거, 달리 말해 근대 주체의 자율성이 신화(神話)임을 살펴볼 것이다. 그런데 자율성은 바로 개인주체의 자율성이므로, 자율성의 신화는 곧 개인주체의 신화이다. 개인주체가 (...) 해-체임을 보여준다면 그 신화도 폭로될 것이다. 그런 다음, 오늘날 이론적으로나 실천적으로 첨예하게 대립하고 있는 자유주의와 공동체주의의 주체 개념을 비교․비판함으로써 주체의 자유가 현실적으로 어떻게 실현될 수 있는지 살펴보도록 하겠다. 마지막으로, 이런 과정을 가로질러서 그리고 이런 과정 끝에, 근대적 주체 신화의 해-체 다음에 올 자율성은 과연 (불)가능한지, (불)가능하다면 어떻게 (불)가능한지 해체론(deconstruction)의 안내를 받아보기로 하겠다. 개인주체의 자율성이 해-체로 밝혀짐으로써 주체의 자리, 즉 자율성의 신화의 자리에 새로운 이야기(新話) 곧 도래할 신화(新話)의 공간이 마련될 수 있을 것이다. (shrink)

Entre los meses de julio y octubre de 2010 se llevó a cabo una huelga de hambre de 38 comuneros mapuches, presos en distintas cárceles de Chile, debido a una serie de incidentes y conflictos con el Estado, los cuales han sido catalogados por las autoridades como >. Este hecho visibilizó un conflicto entre el Estado y el pueblo mapuche, a partir de la violencia de estado ejercida en sus formas de control, represión y castigo hacia un sector de (...) la población que lucha por demandas ancestrales e históricas, y que exponen una serie de contradicciones sintomáticas en el seno del Estado. A continuación se pretende realizar un análisis que aborda, resumidamente, las distintas posiciones de los actores involucrados en el conflicto y las principales betas de un ejercicio político de violencia, en su direccionalidad, intencionalidad y rigurosidad, como elemento paradójico de la construcción práctica y discursiva de un escenario democrático. (shrink)

This article investigates whether different religious (mythological) worldviews can be described as alternative and altered states of consciousness (ASCs). Differences between conscious and unconscious motivations for behaviour are discussed before looking at ASCs, Weltanschauung and symbolic universes. Mythology can be described both as Weltanschauung and symbolic universe, functioning on all levels of consciousness. Different Weltanschauungen constitute alternative states of consciousness. Compared to secular worldviews, religious worldviews may be described as ASCs. Thanks to our globalised modern societies, the issue is (...) even more complex, as alternate modernities lead to a symbolic multiverse, with individuals living in a social multiverse.Keyowrds: mythology; Weltanschauung; worldview; symbolic universe; states of consciousness; altered states of consciousness; alternative states of consciousness; symbolic multiverse; social multiverse. (shrink)

Este artículo aborda la acción educativa mapuche kimeltuwün como aporte a la solución del problema que implica la contextualización de los contenidos que se enseñan en la escuela a niños y niñas de origen mapuche que inician su proceso de escolarización. Se trata de saberes vernáculos que se centran principalmente en contenidos actitudinales relacionados con la memoria social mapuche. Se revelan conceptos y métodos educativos que utilizan los kimches (sabios portadores del conocimiento social y cultural) para formar (...) a niños, niñas y jóvenes en el contexto de la familia y comunidad. Para ello, los sabios recurren a la lógica sociocultural sobre la cual se fundamentan sus saberes educativos. Los resultados muestran la vigencia de categorías de conocimientos educativos mapuches para la formación de las personas. (shrink)

The author explores how dichotomous representations of women and Indians came into play in Chilean print media representations of Mapuche women from 1997 to 2003, at the height of conflicts between the Mapuche people, the state, and elites in southern Chile. The author finds there were three competing representations of Mapuche women, which reproduce assumptions not just about them but about the people as a whole. Together, they accentuate, and simultaneously complicate, dichotomous views of Indians and women. (...) These media portrayals are significant because they reflect and reinforce the central principles of neoliberal multiculturalism—the prevailing form of governance in contemporary Latin America—which promotes diversity while perpetuating the marginalization of indigenous peoples and many of their rights. This analysis of images in print media contributes to understandings of how race and gender ideologies continue to inform debates over national belonging in contemporary Latin America. (shrink)

Este artículo tiene como objetivo sistematizar los avances del enfoque narrativo en bioética con el fin de proponer una fundamentación de las prácticas de salud intercultural que facilite su complementariedad con el conjunto del sistema sanitario. Para ello revisará críticamente los fundamentos de la bioética narrativa y su vinculación con las corrientes hermenéuticas en las éticas aplicadas y con el movimiento de la medicina narrativa. A la vez relacionará el enfoque narrativo con el paradigma intercultural en salud, en orden a (...) evaluar sus capacidades de complementación y articulación con la sabiduría ancestral mapuche, desde su raigambre y especificidad. Finalmente informará sobre las posibilidades de desarrollo de una bioética narrativa en clave intercultural, adecuada a las prácticas en el ámbito sanitario que se basan en el acervo de la sabiduría ancestral mapuche. This article aims to systematize the progress of the narrative approach in bioethics in order to propose a groundwork for intercultural health practices. Seeks propose a basis for intercultural health practices that facilitate the complementarity of the health system through the recovery of ancestral Mapuche Worldview, their roots and specificity. It will critically review the basics of narrative bioethics and its relationship with the hermeneutical currents in applied ethics and the movement of Narrative Medicine. At the same time relates the narrative approach to the intercultural paradigm in health, in order to assess its capabilities complementation and articulation. And finally it will report on the possibilities of developing an intercultural key Narrative Bioethics appropriate to the intercultural practices in health care based on the acquis of the Mapuche Ancestral Wisdom. (shrink)

Can mythology be a form of critical theory in the service of right? From the standpoint of an Enlightenment tradition, the answer is no. Mythology is characterised by irrationality, and works to mystify reality, whilst critical theory is set against the irrational, its entire force directed at demystifying reality. In a post-Enlightenment tradition, reason, including critical reason, may take mythological form—indeed, there is identity as much as non-identity between the two forms, a mimetic relationship in which the rational (...) cannot be freed of the mythological any more than myth can stand outside reason. However, the work of critical theory remains essentially the same. Whether in the form of rational myth or mythological reason, critical theory must remain in the service of right in the sense of ‘the true’, and thus remains an enlightenment project. In contrast, the aim of this essay is to put forward a model of critical theory that is sympathetic with mythology, not only in its form, but also in the work that it does, which is not in the service of the true but of the good. That model is Peter Fitzpatrick’s seminal work of jurisprudence, The Mythology of Modern Law. After addressing how Fitzpatrick’s Mythology is in the form of a negative mythology, the essay elaborates the critical work of such mythological critical theory. In the case of Mythology, that work involves creating the conditions for a mythological legal pluralism, through the decolonisation of law. (shrink)

As I have pointed out in a series of papers, which appeared about fifteen years ago in the Revue de l'histoire des religions, there are numerous resemblances between the ancient myths of the Indo-Europeans, on the one hand, and those of Japan, on the other. These resemblances, relating both to the fundamental structures of the two mythological systems and to a number of curious details, constitute an assemblage which seems too conspicuous to be regarded as either accidental or the result (...) of a similitude of human mentalities, manifesting itself, so it seems, through the creation of a great many similar myths and legends throughout the length and breadth of the surface of our planet. (shrink)

A hugely important book that rediscovers three crucial, but long overlooked themes in German idealism: mythology, madness and laughter.

El principal objetivo del presente ensayo es analizar los conceptos y praxis del Mundo Mapuche y del País Mapuche las cuales, es posible argüir, constituyen la síntesis de la demanda y propuesta de parte significativa del movimiento mapuche autonomista. Síntesis que conlleva una modificación cualitativa en la estructuración de los marcos cognitivos del movimiento, lo que ha significado la articulación embrionaria de una visión mapuche de la realidad que trascendería la dimensión social y política del movimiento (...) para instalarse como elemento de índole más estructural, que ya no sólo enfrenta crecientemente a dos identidades distintas, sino que, también, a dos proyectos de sociedad, a dos países, a dos pueblos encapsulados en un mismo territorio geográfico, pero culturalmente diferenciados. La aproximación al sujeto de estudio se realizará a través de la aplicación de algunos elementos de las teorías de los movimientos sociales, específicamente los marcos cognitivos, y además, desde el concepto de memoria colectiva. (shrink)

In this article, the authors introduce the concept of a “queer counter-mythology.” They do so by discussing a speculative song they wrote as an enactment of research-creation. Research-creation names an interdisciplinary scholarly praxis where artist-scholars create the artefacts they want to think-with, rather than analysing existing cultural productions. The song discussed in this article, “Cosmic Beavers,” proposes a queer counter-mythology that reimagines the historical, colonial archive by foregrounding the stories of giant, trans-dimensional beavers who shred Lewis and Clark (...) and use them to reinforce their Time-Dam. Drawing on this song, as well as queer theories of time and anti-colonial thinkers, the authors suggest that artistic interventions invoke speculative lures that, while not changing history, can complicate state-sanctioned archives and narratives of the past and future: they frame this intervention as a queer counter-mythology. (shrink)

Classical Mythology in Context encourages students to directly encounter and explore ancient myths and to understand them in broader interpretative contexts. Featuring a modular structure that coincides with the four main components of a classical mythology course--history, theory, comparison, and reception--each chapter is built around one central figure or topic. Classical Mythology in Context provides: A sustained discussion of religious practices and sacred places that offers a key approach to the historical contextualization of Greek myths An introduction (...) to--and integration of--theoretical approaches to myth in each chapter that shows how these approaches affect the ways in which students understand myths and mythic figures Ample selections of primary sources, all from the Oxford World's Classics series A robust comparative approach examining Greek myths alongside other myths from the Mediterranean Basin and the Ancient Near East An approach to the reception of myths as interpretation and reflection in Western art, with an emphasis on contemporary culture An Ancillary Resource Center that includes PowerPoint-based lecture slides and an Instructor's Resource Manual A Companion Website that provides additional student and instructor resources FEATURES Compelling and relevant illustrations provide visual evidence for placing myths in context Abundant maps help students locate all sites in Greece, the larger Greek world, and the Ancient Near East A detailed Timeline for Greece, Rome, and the Ancient Near East helps students situate key works within their cultural and historical contexts "The Essentials": In Part I, these boxes appear at the start of each chapter, introducing students to the most essential information about a god or goddess and previewing that chapter's content. In Part II, they appear whenever a new hero or heroine is introduced. "Before You Read" section for each primary source and critical reading is prefaced with a brief contextual overview followed by questions that encourage critical thinking Paired chapters explore different aspects of a god, hero, or heroine, equipping students with analytical tools that can be applied to other topics A list of Key Terms at the end of each chapter helps students review and retain its most important points A "For Further Exploration" annotated bibliography at the end of each chapter provides a starting point for students who wish to learn more about the chapter's content A Select Bibliography at the end of the book, divided by chapter emphasizes scholarly works that are accessible to students A Combined Glossary and Index includes a pronunciation key, the Greek form, and brief description for all figures, places, and rituals in the text. (shrink)

It’s a cornerstone of epistemology that knowledge requires truth – that is, that knowledge is factive. Allan Hazlett boldly challenges orthodoxy by arguing thatthe ordinary concept of knowledge is not factive. On this basis Hazlett further argues that epistemologists shouldn’t concern themselves with the ordinary concept of knowledge, or knowledge ascriptions and related linguistic phenomena. I argue that either Hazlett is wrong about the ordinary concept of knowledge, or he’s right in a way that leaves epistemologists to carry on exactly (...) as they have, paying attention to much the same things they always did. (shrink)

Jamake Highwater is a master storyteller and one of our most visionary writers, hailed as "an eloquent bard, whose words are fire and glory" (Studs Terkel) and "a writer of exceptional vision and power" (Ana"is Nin). Author of more than thirty volumes of nonfiction, fiction, and poetry, Highwater--considered by many to be the intellectual heir of Joseph Campbell--has long been intrigued by how our mythological legacies have served as a foundation of modern civilization. Now, in The Mythology of Transgression, (...) he uses his remarkable narrative powers to offer a personal and extraordinarily far-ranging examination of how people who stand outside of society--by dint of their sexual orientation, physical appearance, ideas, artistic inclinations, or ethnic heritage--often achieve lasting, even profound influence upon the culture at large. Drawing from a stunningly rich variety of sources ranging from the arts and literature to biology, physics, psychology, and anthropology, Highwater looks at his own outsider status--as a gay man, an artist, and an orphaned Native American--in an attempt to explore how mythologies from ancient times to the present have shaped the ways we think about social "abnormality" and alienation. Throughout, he points to a paradox at the center of Western values--the competing notions that the outsider is at once sinful and wise, that in everyday life the transgressor is ostracized, while in our most durable folklore and religious legends, heroes must break the rules to achieve greatness. Focusing in particular on homosexuality as a modern metaphor of transgression, Highwater brilliantly mixes personal anecdotes with wide ranging research, leading us on a tour through the history of social conformity and rejection, citing examples that span from Judeo-Christian-Islamic doctrines of good and evil, to the Navajo Nation's ambivalence toward the nature of sexuality, to Carson McCullers's treatment of physical deformity in the novella Member of the Wedding, to Descartes's theories of dualism. He also pays special attention to the debates currently raging in science regarding the biology of homosexuality and provides an engaging discussion of why we are motivated to seek a genetic basis of sexual orientation in the first place. Jamake Highwater has long been celebrated as a writer uniquely suited to give voice to the social outsider. Often provocative, always fascinating, The Mythology of Transgression is a tour de force of eloquent scholarship, a book that will prompt discussion and debate on the subject for years to come. (shrink)

Preface to the second edition -- Preface to the first edition -- Psycho-mythology : meschugge? -- Dreams and fantasies : manifestations 0f the mythological unconscious -- African-American dreaming and the "lion in the path" : racism and the cultural unconscious -- "Hapless" the Centaur : an archetypal image, amplification, and active imagination -- Pegasus and visionary experience : from the white winged horse to the "flying red horse" -- The bull, the labyrinth, and the Minotaur : from archaeology to (...) "archetypology" (with an apology to Ariadne) -- Griffins, gold, and dinosaurs : mythology and "fantastic paleontology" -- Dreaming of a unicorn : a comparison of Lacanian and Jungian interpretation -- "Destiny" and the call to heroism : a dream of vocation and individuation -- List of publications by Michael Vannoy Adams. (shrink)

I pose the following dilemma for Millikan's teleological theory of mental content. There is only one way that her theory can avoid Gauker's [(1995) Review of Millikan's White queen psychology and other essays for Alice, Philosophical Psychology, 8, 305-309] charge that it relies on an unexplained notion of mapping or isomorphism between mental state and world. Mental content must be explained in terms of the mapping relation that is required for mental state producing and consuming mechanisms to perform their biologically (...) proper functions, i.e. producing mental states that are consumed in systematically adaptive practical inferences. However, this proposal leads to unacceptably counterintuitive ascriptions of content to mythological beliefs and related desires: such beliefs and desires must "map onto" environmental states that make them adaptive, not onto the mythological states of affairs that (would) make them true or fulfilled. I conclude by discussing the merits and drawbacks of a potential solution to this problem: the view that the contents of mythological beliefs and desires are determined by the non-mythological concepts out of which they are constructed, rather than by the environmental states that make them adaptive. The affinities of this proposal with Pascal Boyer's recent theory of mythological concepts [(2001) Religion explained, New York: Basic Books] are also discussed. (shrink)

This concise, accessible and engaging collection debunks the myths and corrects the falsehoods surrounding one of the most famous scientific figures in history - Charles Darwin. Leading scholars examine his life and work to set the historical record straight, and to draw conclusions about the very nature of science itself.

The paper aims to investigate the thesis of the so-called Neue Mythologie within the fragment entitled “Das älteste Systemprogramm des deutschen Idealismus” [“The Oldest Systematic Program of German Idealism”]. The latter presents a revolutionary project of social pedagogy linked to the use of the aesthetic character of myth and poetry in the formation of the conscience and the intellect of the people. The program, therefore, formulates a fertile dialogue between the emancipatory potential of the Enlightenment and Jena Romanticism, in that (...) it proposes a re-evaluation of feelings and Sinnlichkeit [sensuousness] in connection to modern rationality and freedom. The links between the rational mythology of the program and Hegelian philosophy will be explored, starting from his early writings, which are strictly concerned with the importance of a popular and sensuous religion (Volksreligion). Secondly, the work will retrace the same sensuous externalization of philosophical ideas within the relationships between art, religion and philosophy in the mature system, addressing the problem of Hegel’s change of heart regarding art and mythology between the two phases of his thought. In the end the value of symbolical mediation of concepts and idea will be established. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Do Christmas Mythologies Even Exist? The Secular Christmas Mythology: The Santa Story A Sacred Christmas Mythology: The Virginal Conception The Problem of Literal Truth The Philosophical Case Against Literal Truth: Russell's Teapot The Religious Case Against Literal Truth: Tillich's Broken Myths.

Habermas explained the attraction of German Idealism to twentieth century Jewish philosophers by appealing to the impact of kabbalah on the German Idealists. Schelling was his principal example. In this article, I trace two lines of Jewish reception of Schelling in the nineteenth century. Among German-Jewish thinkers, Schelling was attractive because of his philosophy of mythology, not because of his relation to kabbalah. Among Galician-Jewish thinkers, Schelling was attractive because of what they took to be his non-mythological version of (...) kabbalah. In both cases, Schelling offered a middle road between, on the one hand, traditionalist rejection of modernity and non-Jewish philosophy and, on the other, varieties of antinomianism. (shrink)

Forty years ago Roland Barthes defined a mythology as those “falsely obvious” ideas which an age so takes for granted that it is unaware of its own belief. An illustration of what he meant can be seen in his 1957 critique of the photographic exhibition, The Family of Man . Barthes declares that the myth it promotes stresses exoticism, complacently projecting a Babel of human diversity over the globe. From this image of diversity a pluralistic humanism “is magically produced: (...) man is born, works, laughs and dies everywhere in the same way....” The implicit mythological background of the show postulates “a human essence.” Barthes exhorts us instead to probe beneath the facile implications of a universal human nature implied by the exhibition’s sentimental juxtapositions. We must try “constantly to scour nature, its ‘laws’ and its ‘limits’ in order to discover History there, and at last to establish Nature itself as historical” (1972:100-102). (shrink)

Resumen: El artículo tiene por objeto describir las causas que permitieron la permanencia de la lengua mapuche en Chillwe pese a la dominación española, y analizar el proceso de su desaparición. Se propone que el vuelco demográfico que opera a partir de fines del siglo XVIII, con la minorización de la población williche, es una de esas causas, aunque de por sí no decisiva. El segundo factor, quizás más determinante, son las reformas borbónicas, en particular aquellas que apuntan a (...) la unificación lingüística de los dominios españoles mediante la imposición del castellano. Esta política de asimilación lingüística será profundizada con la anexión de Chillwe al naciente Estado nación chileno.: The aim of this article is to describe the causes that made it possible for the Mapuche language to remain firm in Chillwe, in spite of the Spanish domination, and analyse the process of its disappearance. Although it is not a decisive factor, it is proposed that one of the causes is the demographic change that started by the end of the 18th century with the diminution of the Williche population. The second factor, and perhaps the most defining, are the Bourbonic reforms, particularly those that aim at the linguistic unification of the Spanish domains by imposing the Castilian language. This policy of linguistic assimilation will be further developed with the annexation of Chillwe to the rise Chilean State nation. (shrink)

The concept of interpretation is applicable to any forms of knowledge, including systems of religious knowledge, designing the ideal model of the subject of religious veneration. The author analyzes the epistemological features of theology as a form of spiritual culture, its formation in ancient culture. It is shown that the epistemological basis for overcoming mythological consciousness was the decentralization of thinking, i.e. development of the ability of consciousness in the construction of the image, the picture of the world to correct (...) the position of the subject, to take into account the relativity of the reference system, from the standpoint of which the subject perceives the object and transforms it into an operational system of thinking. Decentration of thinking provided the overcoming of the subjective mental boundaries of the field, giving the thinking nature of universality. Historical stages and moments of this process - the transformation of mythology into forms of folk art, mythopoetic epic, in the form of religious consciousness. In line with such transformations of archaic consciousness, cultural and historical prerequisites of theology emergence were formed. They are represented in mythopoetic art, ancient mythography, early traditions of critical and rationalistic interpretation of the myth, etc. The article shows the formation of allegorical theology, which became possible in the era of individualization of artistic creativity, when the visible was the difference between the motive and the purpose of activity, creative idea and its embodiment, figuratively-poetic and rationally-conceptual ways of reflecting the world, when the image of reality and its personal meaning began to be realized as different States of consciousness. The main function of any theology is the interpretation of abstract models of the subject of religious veneration. (shrink)

AN inquiry into the use of paradeigma in the Iliad must begin with Niobe. At 24. 602 Achilles introduces Niobe in order to encourage Priam to have some food. The dead body of the best of Priam's sons has now been placed on the wagon ready for its journey back to Troy. Achilles says , ‘Now let us eat. For even Niobe ate food, and she had lost twelve children. Apollo and Artemis killed them all; they lay nine days in (...) their blood and there was no one to bury them, because Zeus had turned the people into stone. On the tenth day the gods buried them. But she managed to eat some food, when she was tired of weeping. And now among the mountains, although turned into stone, she still broods over her sorrows. But come, let us also eat. You can weep for your son again later’. (shrink)

Sous le titre quelque peu énigmatique de Mythologizing Performance, Richard P. Martin (R.M.) a réuni dix-sept essais publiés à différentes occasions. D’une manière ou d’une autre ces essais, plus originaux les uns que les autres, font tous suite à l’ouvrage fondamental paru en 1989, dans la même belle collection « Myth & Poetics » dirigée par Gregory Nagy à Cornell University Press, soit The Language of Heroes: Speech and Performance in the ‘Iliad’. Assurément, le recenseur ne dispose pas des...

In Schelling’s Lectures on the Philosophy of Art, he outlines an aesthetic theory of the novel and how it communicates truth, based around his Identitätssystem. In doing so, he understands truth as symbolic, where the symbolic is tautegorical. In his later lectures on mythology he instantiates a new understanding of ontology and mythology as tautegorical, and makes gestures towards how to understand aesthetic forms based on these new accounts. This paper explores how that new aesthetic understanding of truth, (...) ontology, and aesthetics can be used to create a new Schellingian theory of the novel. To explore this, the paper looks at the worldview presented in Thomas Mann’s Doktor Faustus, arguing that it could be seen as the late Schellingian novel and as such, present a new paradigm for understanding truth as communicated through literature. (shrink)

Este artículo parte de mi propio archivo de investigación para revisar ‒desde una perspectiva etnográfica‒ experiencias en y con archivos estatales locales y memorias mapuches vinculadas con políticas de forestación implementados durante el siglo XX en El Hoyo ‒Comarca Andina del Paralelo 42°, Chubut, Patagonia Argentina‒. Me interesa discutir no tanto el contenido referencial de los documentos, sino ciertos lenguajes del archivo que considero que son pistas claves para comprender cómo operan lógicas de poder y entramados de funcionamiento de las (...) instituciones locales; aunque también donde observar subjetividades y tiempos de desacuerdos y desbordes respecto a lo que ha sido y/o sigue siendo instituido. Me refiero, particularmente, al lenguaje temporal y los tempos de dos archivos estatales provinciales. Me detengo a analizar ese lenguaje del archivo como clave que expresa el campo de fuerzas que, en cada momento, constituyó a los mismos; y reviso su devenir en articulación con memorias de comunidades mapuches de la región que fueron a recuperar sus espacios territoriales. (shrink)

Este artículo parte de mi propio archivo de investigación para revisar ‒desde una perspectiva etnográfica‒ experiencias en y con archivos estatales locales y memorias mapuches vinculadas con políticas de forestación implementados durante el siglo XX en El Hoyo ‒Comarca Andina del Paralelo 42°, Chubut, Patagonia Argentina‒. Me interesa discutir no tanto el contenido referencial de los documentos, sino ciertos lenguajes del archivo que considero que son pistas claves para comprender cómo operan lógicas de poder y entramados de funcionamiento de las (...) instituciones locales; aunque también donde observar subjetividades y tiempos de desacuerdos y desbordes respecto a lo que ha sido y/o sigue siendo instituido. Me refiero, particularmente, al lenguaje temporal y los tempos de dos archivos estatales provinciales. Me detengo a analizar ese lenguaje del archivo como clave que expresa el campo de fuerzas que, en cada momento, constituyó a los mismos; y reviso su devenir en articulación con memorias de comunidades mapuches de la región que fueron a recuperar sus espacios territoriales. (shrink)

Introduction. The lexeme “myth” is ordinary for a modern person, but its meaning is a vague circle of definition. The author sets the question — how does modern man understand the myth, how does he use it, and what approaches to studying the manifestations of the mythological are used in modern science. But in order to correctly answer these questions, it is necessary to clarify the concept of “modernity”. According to the author, it is possible to correctly substantiate the concept (...) of modernity by using the method of paradigm analysis by A.G. Dugin. In line with this approach, the concept of “modernity” is conceptually identical to the postmodern paradigm. The purpose of the study is to conduct a revision of modern literature (literature of the postmodern paradigm) devoted to the scientific study of the myth and the manifestations of the mythological in human existence, to analyze it in line with the paradigm approach. Introduce new sources into scientific circulation and, on the basis of a combination of new and existing sources, offer a detailed historiographic review of the literature. Methods. The main method used in this work is the paradigm analysis by A.G. Dugin. In addition to it, a systematic approach and general scientific methods were used — analysis and synthesis, induction, deduction, abstraction. Scientific novelty of the research. The main scientific novelty of the study is the use of the method of paradigm analysis in the study of the mythological. In addition, a number of new sources (published in the period from 2020 to 2022) dedicated to the topic of myth are being introduced into scientific circulation. Results. Within the framework of this article, more than 60 works were analyzed and, on their basis, an exhaustive historiographic review of the existing modern literature devoted to the study of myth and manifestations of the mythological in human being was made. Conclusion. Considering the presented literature in line with the paradigm approach, the author explicates the main aspects of the study of the mythological, which are characteristic of this paradigm and suggests further vectors of its development. According to the author, the myth is increasingly integrated into the digital and virtual environment, which actualizes the need to study it already in the mainstream of digital anthropology. The author also puts forward the thesis that digital literacy skills can help reduce the ideological load of the myth, which manifests itself in the digital environment in the form of fake news and other tools of hybrid wars. (shrink)

Resumen: El presente trabajo explora el estatuto del arte en la filosofía de Spinoza, en el marco de la inversión copernicana que da origen a la estética y del barroco holandés. Si bien el pensamiento spinozista se inscribe en la conversión antropológica, en donde lo bello resulta ser un efecto en el sujeto y no una cualidad de los objetos, su comprensión del arte es inasimilable a la “estética” como ámbito diferenciado y autónomo que se consolida en el siglo XVIII, (...) y más bien concibe el arte integrado a la vida y a la experiencia común -a la vez que, en cuanto praxis de origen corporal al alcance de cualquiera, presenta puntos de contacto con las vanguardias históricas del siglo XX-. Spinoza, según se propone en este texto, concibe la producción de “obras de arte” menos como un hecho estético que como una actividad corporal éticamente orientada a la vida buena.: The present work explores the status of art in the philosophy of Spinoza, within the framework of the Copernican revolution that gives rise to aesthetics and the Dutch Baroque. Although the Spinozist thought is inscribed in the anthropological conversion by virtue of which beauty turns out to be an effect on the subject and not a property of objects, its understanding of art is unassimilable to "aesthetics" as a differentiated and autonomous area that it was consolidated in the eighteenth century, and rather conceived art integrated to life and common experience -at the same time, as praxis of bodily origin within the reach of anyone, presents points of contact with the historical avant-gardes of the twentieth century-. Spinoza conceives the production of "artworks" less as an aesthetic fact than as a body activity ethically oriented to the good life. (shrink)