This American Life: Origin Stories
Some of you might listen to the PRI radio show “This American Life.” Last year, one of the episodes centered around the theme of origins. The first segment of the episode, which you can hear through the above link, talks about how companies construct origins myths as a way of defining their image to their customers.
This article is not required, but it does fit well with our current discussion.
While it is based on empirical measurement and quantitative reasoning, it is also a creation story, and therefore shares some of the traits of the stories that have come before. For one thing, it resonates with the ethos of the modern age—this is the era of big explosions, like those in White Sands and over Nagasaki. Also, like all creation stories, it explains in comprehensible language something which otherwise requires unobtainable categories of thought. After all, we cannot really know what the world was like before its creation. But we do see how things around us change, grow, are born, and die. And, like the ancients, we fashion these observations into the story of our creation.
From Tim Kreider’s Comic “The Pain”: Science vs. Norse Mythology. http://thepaincomics.com/weekly041229a.htm
This clip is from the theme song from the Mighty Thor segments of the 1966 Marvel Superheroes cartoons. Honestly, I don’t know why we’re bothering to read any of the myths because all you need to know is right here.
(All you need to know is not right here.)
Source: Greek Mythology Bingo
Some of you might know of the site Reddit, either because you are a user yourself or because you’ve read some not-that-great stuff about some of its badly-behaving users. Much of the site is harmless, and some is vile, but the subreddit AskHistorians is a good resource, in no small part because the moderators usually insist that anyone who answers these questions have some sort of historical expertise and/or cite authoritative sources to support their answers.
Here are some threads on Greek Myth that you might enjoy reading:
Did the Greeks really believe in their gods?
Were the Titans the gods of a pre-Greek society that was supplanted?
When did Greek Mythology as a religion die off?
And many other questions about Greek and Roman mythology
Like all the the links I post here, you do not have to read them (although I try to pick things that you might enjoy). If a text is required reading, I’ll put it on the course shell.
Tumblr and WordPress don’t play well together in terms of embedding, so I can only provide a link to this Tumblr post, which explains why fighting each Greek god is a good or bad idea. (Spoiler: it’s usually bad.)
You don’t need to know all these Greek gods, but the visuals are funny, and they might help you remember the major Olympians.
Greek God Family Tree from Veritable Hokum
Greek God Family Tree
Hi folks. Thanks for jumping through the extra hoops to register with WordPress. I greatly prefer this format to the discussion board on the course shell, and I’ve found that class discussion is generally livelier here. I will also be asking you to post images and videos at certain points throughout the semester, and it’s much easier to do so here.
You’ll still need to refer to the class schedule for readings and the course shell for specific writing prompts. But all the discussion will take place here. If you have any questions about the technology, I’m happy to answer them, but you should also see if the WordPress help page might have the answer to your question. For example, this page on making posts explains how to do so much clearer than I could.
I’ll try to post things that might be of interest to you in between weekly assignments, but unless I say otherwise, they’re just for your edification and/or amusement, not extra reading. The internet is a fun (if occasionally vulgar) place to find mythological-related things, and if you find anything of interest, feel free to post them as well.
I look forward to reading your insights over the semester.
Hum 115: World Mythology 