Robert A. Segal – författare

Comparing and evaluating modern theories of myth, this book offers an overview of explanations of myth from the social sciences and the humanities.This ambitious collection of essays uses the viewpoints of a variety of disciplines - psychology, anthropology, sociology, politics, philosophy, religious studies, and literature. Each discipline advocates a generalization about the origin, the function, and the subject matter of myth. The subject is always not what makes any myth distinct but what makes all myths "myth". The book is divided into five sections, covering topics such as myth and psychoanalysis, hero myths, myth and science, myth and politics, and myth and the physical world. Chapters engage with an array of theorists--among them, Freud, Jung, Campbell, Rank, Winnicott, Tylor, Frazer, Malinowski, Levy-Bruhl, Levi-Strauss, Harrison, and Burkert. The book considers whether myth still plays a role in our lives is one of the issues considered, showing that myths arise anything but spontaneously. They are the result of a specific need, which varies from theory to theory.This is a fascinating survey by a leading voice in the study of myth. As such, it will be of much interest to scholars of myth and how it interacts with Sociology, Anthropology, Politics and Economics.

Comparing and evaluating modern theories of myth, this book offers an overview of explanations of myth from the social sciences and the humanities.This ambitious collection of essays uses the viewpoints of a variety of disciplines - psychology, anthropology, sociology, politics, philosophy, religious studies, and literature. Each discipline advocates a generalization about the origin, the function, and the subject matter of myth. The subject is always not what makes any myth distinct but what makes all myths "myth". The book is divided into five sections, covering topics such as myth and psychoanalysis, hero myths, myth and science, myth and politics, and myth and the physical world. Chapters engage with an array of theorists--among them, Freud, Jung, Campbell, Rank, Winnicott, Tylor, Frazer, Malinowski, Levy-Bruhl, Levi-Strauss, Harrison, and Burkert. The book considers whether myth still plays a role in our lives is one of the issues considered, showing that myths arise anything but spontaneously. They are the result of a specific need, which varies from theory to theory.This is a fascinating survey by a leading voice in the study of myth. As such, it will be of much interest to scholars of myth and how it interacts with Sociology, Anthropology, Politics and Economics.

At least three major questions can be asked of myth: what is its subject matter? What is its origin? What is its function? Theories of myth may differ in the answers they give to any of these questions, but more basically they may also differ on which of the questions they ask. C.G. Jung's theory is one of the few that purports to answer fully all three questions.This volume collects and organizes the key passages on myth by Jung himself and by some of the most prominent Jungian writers after him: Erich Neumann, Marie-Louise von Franz and James Hillman. The book synthesizes the discovery of myth as a way of thinking, where it becomes a therapeutic tool providing an entrance to the unconscious.

Praise for the previous edition: “This volume, expertly edited and introduced by Segal, collects a series of essays that combine clarity and accessibility with nuance and balance … and are uniformly of high quality, each with a helpful bibliography that supplements the volume bibliography… This work will command a wide audience, ranging from the general public to religious studies specialists. Highly recommended.”—CHOICE “This is an excellent volume of papers about the study of religion both in conception and execution … Robert Segal has done a marvelous job in editing the volume and providing a bibliography and index … a very useful, well constructed and interesting book that should be widely read and used on courses.”—British Association for the Study of Religions Bulletin Now in its second edition, The Wiley Blackwell Companion to the Study of Religion offers an expertly compiled and comprehensive overview of contemporary religious studies across the humanities and the social sciences. Truly interdisciplinary in its methodology and featuring an international team of contributors from diverse academic backgrounds, this Companion explores the anthropological, economic, literary, philosophical, psychological, sociological, and theological terrain of religious studies, and presupposes no prior knowledge of the academic study of religion. Each chapter is framed around an approach to religious studies from the vantage point of an adjacent discipline or topic that contributes to our understanding of religion, and is accompanied by its own bibliography to guide further reading. New to this edition are chapters which reflect contemporary trends in scholarship, including gender, science, law, music, emotion, cognition, globalization, and violence. Standard topics like death and the afterlife, ethics, fundamentalism, magic, ritual, and myth, among others, have been rigorously updated to reflect new directions in research and foster discussion among disciplines. Ideal for students and scholars alike, the second edition of The Wiley Blackwell Companion to the Study of Religion remains an authoritative resource in the study of religion for anyone working in the fields of religious studies, theology, sociology, anthropology, psychology, political science, history, and philosophy.

In this collection, Robert Segal, one of the leading interpreters of theories of myth, seeks to provide a comprehensive analysis of the myth and ritual theory.

Hero Myths: A Reader provides a selection of 25 stories about heroes from around the world.

Hero Myths: A Reader provides a selection of 25 stories about heroes from around the world.

At least three major questions can be asked of myth: What is its subject matter? What is its origin? and What is its function? C G Jung's theory is one of the few that purports to answer fully all three questions. This volume collects and organizes the key passages on myth by Jung himself and by some of the prominent Jungian writers after him.

Gnosticism, together with alchemy, was for C G Jung the chief prefiguration of his analytical psychology. Jung did not simply interpret Gnostic texts psychologically but also cited them as confirmation of his psychology. The author has searched the Jungian corpus to bring together Jung's main discussions of this ancient form of spirituality.

Acknowledged by T. S. Eliot as crucial to understanding "The Waste Land," Jessie Weston's book has continued to attract readers interested in ancient religion, myth, and especially Arthurian legend. Weston examines the saga of the Grail, which, in many versions, begins when the wounded king of a famished land sees a procession of objects including a bleeding lance and a bejewelled cup. She maintains that all versions defy uniform applications of Celtic and Christian interpretations, and explores the legend's Gnostic roots. Drawing from J. G. Frazer, who studied ancient nature cults that associated the physical condition of the king with the productivity of the land, Weston considers how the legend of the Grail related to fertility rites--with the lance and the cup serving as sexual symbols. She traces its origins to a Gnostic text that served as a link between ancient vegetation cults and the Celts and Christians who embellished the story. Conceiving of the Grail saga as a literary outgrowth of ancient ritual, she seeks a Gnostic Christian interpretation that unites the quest for fertility with the striving for mystical oneness with God.

Scottish Semiticist and Arabist William Robertson Smith was a celebrated biblical critic, theorist of religion, and theorist of myth. His accomplishments were multiple. Smith's German mentors reconstructed the history of Israelite religion from the Bible itself; Smith ventured outside the Bible to Semitic religion and thereby pioneered the comparative study of religion. Where others viewed religion from the standpoint of the individual, Smith approached religion-at least ancient religion-from the standpoint of the group. He asserted that ancient religion was centrally a matter of practice, not creed, and singlehandedly created the ritualist theory of myth. Since Smith's time, the ritualist theory of myth has found adherents not only in biblical studies but in classics, anthropology, and literature as well.Smith's accomplishments are seen most fully in Religion of the Semites, adapted from a number of public lectures he gave at Aberdeen, and first published in 1889. Smith delivered three courses of lectures over three years. It is this set that is reprinted here. Only recently were the notes for the second and third courses of lectures discovered and published.Religion of the Semites combines extraordinary philological erudition with brilliant theorizing. Among the fundamental emphases of the book are the foci on sacrifice as the key ritual and non-ancient sacrifice as communion with God rather than as penance for sin. Most important is Smith's use of the comparative method: he uses cross-cultural examples from other "primitive peoples" to confirm his reconstruction from Semitic sources.Smith combines pioneering sociology and anthropology with a staunchly Christian faith. For him, Christianity is an expression of divine revelation. For Smith, only continuing revelation can account for the leap from the collective, ritualistic, and materialistic nature of ancient Semitic religion to the individualistic, creedal, and spiritualized nature of Christianity. Lectures on the Religion of the Semites manages to meld social science with theology, and remains a classic work in the social scientific study of religion.

Much of the theorizing about myth in philosophy and religious studies grows out of efforts to understand the classics and the Bible. In the case of the classics, the presence of myth has been taken for granted, and conclusions reached about Greek and Roman mythology have spurred generalizations about myth. In the case of the Bible, however, the existence of myth has been contested. In fact, Judaism and Christianity are regularly praised for their nonmythic outlook. Conclusions reached about the presence or absence of myth in either the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament have led to generalizations about myth per se. Many of the essays in this volume apply theories of myth to classical, biblical, and ancient Near Eastern cases, but in so doing they draw conclusions about the nature of myth itself. Those essays that criticize past applications make generalizations as weIl. By no means has aIl theorizing about myth from philosophy and religious studies centered on the ancient world, and this volume contains selections from theories in both disciplines that stern from reflections on the nature of science, language, knowledge, and reality.

At least three major questions can be asked of myth: what is its subject matter? What is its origin? What is its function? Theories of myth may differ in the answers they give to any of these questions, but more basically they may also differ on which of the questions they ask. C.G. Jung's theory is one of the few that purports to answer fully all three questions.This volume collects and organizes the key passages on myth by Jung himself and by some of the most prominent Jungian writers after him: Erich Neumann, Marie-Louise von Franz and James Hillman. The book synthesizes the discovery of myth as a way of thinking, where it becomes a therapeutic tool providing an entrance to the unconscious.

Scottish Semiticist and Arabist William Robertson Smith was a celebrated biblical critic, theorist of religion, and theorist of myth. His accomplishments were multiple. Smith's German mentors reconstructed the history of Israelite religion from the Bible itself; Smith ventured outside the Bible to Semitic religion and thereby pioneered the comparative study of religion. Where others viewed religion from the standpoint of the individual, Smith approached religion-at least ancient religion-from the standpoint of the group. He asserted that ancient religion was centrally a matter of practice, not creed, and singlehandedly created the ritualist theory of myth. Since Smith's time, the ritualist theory of myth has found adherents not only in biblical studies but in classics, anthropology, and literature as well.Smith's accomplishments are seen most fully in Religion of the Semites, adapted from a number of public lectures he gave at Aberdeen, and first published in 1889. Smith delivered three courses of lectures over three years. It is this set that is reprinted here. Only recently were the notes for the second and third courses of lectures discovered and published.Religion of the Semites combines extraordinary philological erudition with brilliant theorizing. Among the fundamental emphases of the book are the foci on sacrifice as the key ritual and non-ancient sacrifice as communion with God rather than as penance for sin. Most important is Smith's use of the comparative method: he uses cross-cultural examples from other "primitive peoples" to confirm his reconstruction from Semitic sources.Smith combines pioneering sociology and anthropology with a staunchly Christian faith. For him, Christianity is an expression of divine revelation. For Smith, only continuing revelation can account for the leap from the collective, ritualistic, and materialistic nature of ancient Semitic religion to the individualistic, creedal, and spiritualized nature of Christianity. Lectures on the Religion of the Semites manages to meld social science with theology, and remains a classic work in the social scientific study of religion.

Much of the theorizing about myth in philosophy and religious studies grows out of efforts to understand the classics and the Bible. In the case of the classics, the presence of myth has been taken for granted, and conclusions reached about Greek and Roman mythology have spurred generalizations about myth. In the case of the Bible, however, the existence of myth has been contested. In fact, Judaism and Christianity are regularly praised for their nonmythic outlook. Conclusions reached about the presence or absence of myth in either the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament have led to generalizations about myth per se. Many of the essays in this volume apply theories of myth to classical, biblical, and ancient Near Eastern cases, but in so doing they draw conclusions about the nature of myth itself. Those essays that criticize past applications make generalizations as weIl. By no means has aIl theorizing about myth from philosophy and religious studies centered on the ancient world, and this volume contains selections from theories in both disciplines that stern from reflections on the nature of science, language, knowledge, and reality.

Praise for the previous edition: “This volume, expertly edited and introduced by Segal, collects a series of essays that combine clarity and accessibility with nuance and balance … and are uniformly of high quality, each with a helpful bibliography that supplements the volume bibliography… This work will command a wide audience, ranging from the general public to religious studies specialists. Highly recommended.”—CHOICE “This is an excellent volume of papers about the study of religion both in conception and execution … Robert Segal has done a marvelous job in editing the volume and providing a bibliography and index … a very useful, well constructed and interesting book that should be widely read and used on courses.”—British Association for the Study of Religions Bulletin Now in its second edition, The Wiley Blackwell Companion to the Study of Religion offers an expertly compiled and comprehensive overview of contemporary religious studies across the humanities and the social sciences. Truly interdisciplinary in its methodology and featuring an international team of contributors from diverse academic backgrounds, this Companion explores the anthropological, economic, literary, philosophical, psychological, sociological, and theological terrain of religious studies, and presupposes no prior knowledge of the academic study of religion. Each chapter is framed around an approach to religious studies from the vantage point of an adjacent discipline or topic that contributes to our understanding of religion, and is accompanied by its own bibliography to guide further reading. New to this edition are chapters which reflect contemporary trends in scholarship, including gender, science, law, music, emotion, cognition, globalization, and violence. Standard topics like death and the afterlife, ethics, fundamentalism, magic, ritual, and myth, among others, have been rigorously updated to reflect new directions in research and foster discussion among disciplines. Ideal for students and scholars alike, the second edition of The Wiley Blackwell Companion to the Study of Religion remains an authoritative resource in the study of religion for anyone working in the fields of religious studies, theology, sociology, anthropology, psychology, political science, history, and philosophy.

For two hundred years the subject of myth―its origin, function, and significance―has been addressed again and again, first by theologians and philosophers and then by anthropologists, sociologists, and psychologists. From the outset the topic has sparked intense debate, with differing opinions expressed on everything from issues of epistemology and methodology to the meaning of "myth" itself. In this collection of essays, Robert A. Segal surveys the contours of this ongoing discussion, comparing and evaluating the leading theories of myth. Among the theorists discussed are Edward Tylor, William Robertson Smith, James Frazer, Jane Harrison, S. H. Hooke, Mircea Eliade, Rudolf Bultmann, Hans Jonas, Sigmund Freud, C. G. Jung, Joseph Campbell, Claude Lévi-Strauss, and Hans Blumenberg. Author and editor of numerous books and articles in the fields of theories of myth and theories of religion, Segal has developed a reputation as a preeminent proponent of a social-scientific approach to the study of both. The essays in this book represent some of the best of his writing on myth over the past ten years.

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