Myths, Politics and Myth Making

PLAN DE COURS
MYTHS, POLITICS, AND MYTH MAKING
Professeur(s): Charles DELATTRE
Année universitaire 2015/2016: Semestre de printemps
COURSE SESSIONS
Session 1: Definition of Myth, ancient and modern
Anthropological definition of myth, from the 17th to the 21th century Thematical definition of ancient myth
(muthos, logos, epos)

How to use the word « myth » ?
Session 2: How to analyze a myth: symbolism, structuralism, pragmatics
Mainstream analysis of myth, since Antiquity. Old and new trends, basic methodological definitions

Which methodology shall be used in the classroom?
Reading required : J. Whitman (éd.), Interpretation and allegory. Antiquity to the Modern Period, Leyde, Brill,
2003, chap. 1 : « A Retrospective Forward: Interpretation, Allegory, and Historical Change », p. 3-23
Session 3: How gesture can become myths (drinking with friends)
Case study: Medusa as tale / icon. How did ancient Greeks look at an image? What sense did they give to
it?

How far do we extend the definition of myth to include not only mimetical representation, but also
attitudes.
Reading required : S. Woodford, Images of Myths in Classical Antiquity, Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press, 2003, chap. 3 : « Choosing a moment », p. 28-41
Session 4 : Athens, a mythical geography
Case study: shaping Athenian space. How is geography transformed into politics? What is the relationship
between democracy and civic space?

How do we model politics into myth?
Reading required : J. Ober, Democracy and Knowledge. Innovation and Learning in Classical Athens,
Princeton & Oxford, Princeton University Press, 2008, chap. 7 « Conclusions », p. 264-280
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PLAN DE COURS
Session 5 : Athens, the origins
Case sudy : what did Athenian people say / represent of their origins ? When and how did they do it ? What
does (legendary) history stand for ?

How does history shape political identities?
Reading required: S. E. Alcock, Archaeologies of the Greek Past. Landscape, Monuments, and Memories,
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002, chap. 1 « Archaeologies of Memory », p. 1-35
Session 6: Myths of athenian citizenship (who is Theseus?)
Case study: why did Amazons wage war on Theseus? Why did Theseus become a royal founder of Athens
in the early 5th century?

How are gender and citizenship interrelated?
Reading required : M. Trumper, “Gender and Space”, in Sh. L. James & Sh. Dillon (éds.), A Companion to
Women in the Ancient World, coll. Blackwell Companions to the ancient world. Ancient history, Malden (MA),
Oxford & Chichester, Wiley-Blackwell, 2012, p. 288-303
Session 7: Athens on stage: performing citizenship
Case study : how Athens put on stage auto-referential performances of Athenian identity in crisis times
(tragedy and funebris oratio)

What is the difference between a democratic display of citizenship and a monarchical / tyrannical
one?
Project: « Memorial and Marseillaise in Paris, november 2015”
Session 8: Myths of Greek ethnicity, from classical to Roman times (who is a barbarian?)
Case study: Why did Athenian people define themselves as Greek? What sense of unity did it give them?

Who were the others? In what sense can we define a modern barbarism?
Project : “Who are the modern barbarians ?”
Session 9: Political propaganda at Athens: how to erase memory
Case study : how and when did Athenian people invent the name of « democracy » ? What does the use of
this particular name entails ? Did Socrates die in the name of democracy?

How do we use wrongly ancient codifications?
Reading required : N. Loraux,
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The Divided City: On Memory and Forgetting in Ancient Athens,2006
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PLAN DE COURS
Session 10: Sparta: another world?
Case study : Sparta represents a typically non-Athenian model, as Athenians themselves describe it. What is
specifically Sparta?

Why do we use Athens to reflect upon Greece?
A. Powell, Athens and Sparta. Constructing Greek Political and Social History from 478 BC, London & New
York, Routledge, 2001 (1st ed. 1988), chap. 4, « Sparta: Her Problems and Her Ingenuity, 478–431 », p. 97137
Session 11: Athens, Sparta and Rome in the modern world
The opposition between Sparta and Athens has been famously used in the 20th century by liberty fighters
and fascists : how can we understand imperialism without reference to Antiquity?

Is imperialism an heritage of our past?
Project: Star Wars, an heritage from Thucydides
Session 12: 300: new barbarism?
Case study: how does a movie betray modern preocupations while reffering to Antiquity?

Who are the barbarians?
Project: The 300 as political fiction
REQUIRED READING

E. Csapo, Theories of mythology, coll. Ancient Cultures, Oxford, Blackwell, 2005

M. de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, trad. S. Rendall, Berkeley & Los Angeles, University
of California Press, 2004

R. Buxton, Imaginary Greece. The Contexts of Mythology, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,
1994
Additional required reading

R. D. Woodard (éd.), The Cambridge Companion to Greek Mythology, Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press, 2008

Cl. Aziza, Guide de l’Antiquité imaginaire, roman, cinéma, bande dessinée, Paris, Les Belles Lettres,
2008

D. Lowe & K. Shahabudin (éds.), Classics for All. Reworking Antiquity in Mass Culture, Cambridge,
Cambridge Scholars, 2009
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
J. Seznec, The Survival of the Pagan Gods. The Mythological Tradition and Its Place in Renaissance
Humanism and Art, Barbara F. Sessions (trad.), New York, 1953

L. Wallace & J. Hirsh (éds.), Contemporary Art and Classical Myth, Farnham & Burlington (VT),
Ashgate, 2011

R. Girardet, Mythes et mythologies politiques, Paris, Seuil, 1986

R. Barthes, Mythologies, coll. Points, Paris, Seuil, 1957
Athènes & Sparte

N. Loraux, L’invention d’Athènes : histoire de l’oraison funèbre dans la “cité classique”, Paris,
Editions de l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 1981

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N. Loraux, Les enfants d’Athéna. Idées athéniennes sur la citoyenneté et la division des sexes , coll.
Points, Paris, Seuil, 1990 (1

ère
éd. 1981)
N. Loraux, La cité divisée : l’oubli dans la mémoire d’Athènes, coll. Critique de la politique, Paris,
Payot, 1997

P. Vidal-Naquet, Clisthène l’Athénien. Essai sur la représentation de l’espace et du temps dans la
e
pensée politique grecque de la fin du VI siècle à la mort de Platon, Annales littéraires de l’Université
de Besançon, n° 65, Paris, Belles Lettres, 1964

N. M. Kennell, Spartans: A New History, coll. Ancient Cultures, New York, Oxford & Chichester,
Wiley-Blackwell, 2010

St. Hodkinson, I. Macgregor Morris (éds.), Sparta in Modern Thought. Politics, History and Culture,
Swansea, Classical Press of Wales, 2012
Mythes de reference

T. Gantz, Early Greek Myth. A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1993
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