Spring 2022: Honors World Mythologies

Honors World Mythologies Spring 2022, Prof. Townsend

Are you interested in how Marvel characters like Thor and Loki relate to their much older roots in Norse mythology? How vampire mythology emerged from taboos surrounding blood from the Bible and from diverse cultures all around the world? Why ideas like ‘heroes’ or ‘ideal’ people, ‘you are what you eat’, and the ‘end of the world’ have endured in human thinking across time and geography? How Harry Potter, Star Wars, Dragonball Z, Hellboy, and every superhero and Disney movie (ever) echo mythic themes that human beings have been captivated by for thousands of years?

HUM210 HC1 Honors World Mythologies (CRN:11216) will survey a broad sampling of mythologies from around the world and throughout human history. We will read short versions of the Ramayana and the Epic of Gilgamesh together, as well as our main textbook Introduction to Mythology. We will discuss prominent theories of myth on topics such as heroes, tricksters, archetypes, rituals, myth and gender, and the resilience of myth and mythic themes in the world today.

The class is in an engaging, online, asynchronous format. Roughly 1/3 of the points are given to participation in online discussions of the readings (forums), 1/3 to short written responses to our readings, and 1/3 of the grade is given to a final paper or project on a current topic answering the question “how is mythology still with us?”. Each student will get individualized help (via Zoom and email) through the process of choosing a topic, researching, and writing the final paper/project. For those interested, I would love to help you find opportunities to present or publish your finished project!

Examples of past Honors project topics (not actual titles): The “Hero’s Journey” and Greek Mythology in The Hunger Games (presented at a conference on campus); Carl Jung’s “Archetypes” in The Legend of Zelda series; Japanese Shinto mythology in the films of Hayao Miyazaki; the crafting of Barack Obama as mythic Hero and another paper on the crafting of Donald Trump as mythic Hero; Juche and the crafting of the North Korean Kim regimes as mythic Hero stories; and a Jungian analysis of the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas (currently under consideration for publication).

The class is transferrable (IAI:H9901), and fulfills Oakton’s Area E (Humanities) and Area F (Global Studies) gen-eds, as well as the Global Studies and Great Books Concentrations.

Please email Charles Townsend townsend@oakton.edu to ask any question you might have about the class!