TTC - Myth in Human History

Myth in Human History
In 36 half-hour lectures, this course explores myths from around the world,
focusing in particular on myths outside the Greco-Roman world, which
are already covered in other Teaching Company courses. The myths are
treated thematically rather than geographically or chronologically: One unit
deals with creation myths; another with myths about gods and goddesses; a
third with myths of heroes; a fourth with trickster myths; and the �� nal unit
deals with places made sacred by myth. Each thematic unit is illustrated with
myths from Japan and China to North America; from Africa and India to
Mesoamerica; and from such diverse peoples as the Celts, Scandinavians,
Polynesians from Oceania, the Inuit, Australian Aborigines, Tibetans, and
ancient Babylonians, Sumerians, and Egyptians. The occasional myth from
Greece or Rome—or from the Hebrew Bible—is used as a point of reference
for less familiar ones.
The �� rst two lectures de�� ne terms and provide an overview of the entire
course, and the next three treat some of the oldest and best-known cosmogonic
accounts: from Egypt, Babylon, and Genesis in the Old Testament. Three
more lectures take us around the world, looking at creation myths by type:
emergence, world parent, cosmic egg, ex nihilo, earth-diver, and dismembered
god, in each case trying to determine what aspects of creation and what
values are foregrounded in each type of myth. The �� rst unit ends with three
lectures on topics logically related to creation stories: stories of the Great
Flood and myths of cosmic destruction. Here, Mesopotamian, Hebrew, and
Roman �� ood stories provide a point of reference for other deluge myths of
other peoples, and the Norse Ragnarok provides the most compelling version
of myths of cosmic destruction.
The second unit—Lectures 12 through 20—treats myths about gods and
goddesses. After a look at pantheons (in particular, the Greek and Norse)
and the ways they developed and were organized over time, four lectures
are devoted to a biography of the goddess and four to a biography of God.
The goddess lectures consider the hypothesis that there was a time in human
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Scope
prehistory when human mythic and religious consciousness was dominated
by one or more female deities. Developments in the human apprehension
of gods and goddesses are related to important historical events, and the
two biographies are interleaved, so that we can see how changes in one
in�� uenced the other. The Sumerian goddess Inanna and the Egyptian Isis are
featured in the goddess part of the unit, and the unit ends with a summary
of the developments in human apprehension of the deity, using the Indian
pantheon as an illustration.
Lectures 21 through 28 make up the third unit, on heroes. After introducing
a simpli�� ed version of the monomyth—the idea that all the heroic stories in
the world conform in essential ways to a single transcultural template—and
using the Greek myth of Herakles to illustrate, individual lectures are devoted
to Gilgamesh (the Sumerian-Babylonian hero), King Arthur, and Jason and
the Argonauts’ quest for the Golden Fleece. Then, more detailed versions
of two famous monomyths—those of Otto Rank and Joseph Campbell—
are presented and illustrated, after which, the African epic of Mwindo is
set beside these templates to see how they work. The last two lectures of
the unit treat female heroes, both in terms of their proximity to the idea of
the monomyth and their differences from their male counterparts. Demeter
from Greek mythology, Hester Prynne from Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter,
Psyche from Apuleius’s The Golden Ass, and Beauty from “Beauty and the
Beast” are used as illustrations.
The trickster is one of the most popular and ubiquitous �� gures in world
mythology, and he is the subject of the fourth unit in the course: Lectures 29
through 33. After introducing the �� gure and illustrating him with a famous
cycle of trickster stories from the Winnebago people of Wisconsin, as well
as Hermes from Greek mythology, Enki from Sumeria, Loki from Norse
myths, and Ma-ui from myths of the South Paci�� c, we spend some time
trying to decide what makes this �� gure so compelling by reviewing a variety
of theories about what makes him tick. Then, various Native American
tricksters—Raven, Spider, Coyote—are treated in ways that show the many
facets of this complex character. The unit ends with trickster myths from
another place where the trickster is a popular character: Africa, and the last
lecture features accounts of two of the most famous African tricksters, Eshu
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and Legba, and a consideration of some of the meanings of trickster myths
for us in the modern world.
The last unit deals with sacred places: from Mt. Sinai to a magic lake in Tibet,
from Jacob’s Bethel to Australian Dreaming Time rocks, from Mt. Kailas in
Tibet (perhaps the most venerated mountain in the world) to a humanized
Buddhist mountain in China, from Yggdrasil in Norse myth to the inverted
cosmic tree of India, from trees climbed by shamans to the creation of a
sacred grove in Vietnam, and to trees climbed by people in Native American
stories that carry them into the skies. This unit considers the ways in which
sacred sites are centers of the world, located just beneath the pole star, the
places where heaven and earth meet and the cosmic powers that created the
world can still be accessed by human beings.
The course ends as it begins—with a few reminders that the myths of the
world are still alive and well, still communicating wisdom that is sometimes
dif�� cult to get across in other ways, and still there as models and templates
for us to use in the myths that we create to structure our own lives.

Course Lecture Titles

36 Lectures
30 minutes / lecture

00. Professor Bio
01. Myth and Meaning
02. The Continuing Importance of Myth
03. Creation Myths
04. Mesopotamian Creation—Enuma Elish
05. Hebrew Creation Myths
06. Emergence and World-Parent Creation Myths
07. Cosmic Egg and Ex Nihilo Creation Myths
08. Earth-Diver and Dismembered God Creation Myths
09. Mesopotamian and Hebrew Flood Myths
10. Other Flood Myths
11. Myths of Cosmic Destruction
12. Greek and Norse Pantheons
13. The Great Goddess Remembered?
14. The Goddess—Inanna and Dumuzi
15. The Goddess—Isis and Osiris
16. The Eclipse of the Goddess
17. Shamans and Vegetation Gods
18. Sky Gods and Earth Goddesses
19. Creator Gods
20. Gods and Goddesses of India
21. Hero Myths
22. Mythic Heroes—Gilgamesh
23. Mythic Heroes—King Arthur
24. Mythic Heroes—Jason and the Argonauts
25. The Monomyths of Rank and Campbell
26. Mythic Heroes—Mwindo
27. Female Heroes—Demeter and Hester Prynne
28. Female Heroes—Psyche and Beauty
29. The Trickster in Mythology
30. Tricksters from around the World
31. Native American Tricksters
32. African Tricksters
33. Mythic Tricksters—Eshu and Legba
34. The Places of Myth—Rocks and Lakes
35. The Places of Myth—Mountains
36. The Places of Myth—Sacred Trees