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| BLURB: The Second Annual Conference of the International Association for Comparative Mythology (IACM) was held at the former convent of Soeterbeeck near the small medieval town of Ravenstein in the Netherlands on 19-21 August 2008. This volume contains the proceedings of that conference. The 19 chapters are divided over five parts: an Introduction offering a report of the conference, a section on The Mythology of Death and Dying, another on Mythological Continuities between Africa and Other Continents, a section on Theoretical and Methodological Advances, and a final one on Work-in-Progress. This volume demonstrates that the field of comparative mythology is rapidly and convincingly shedding its sometime connotations of over-specialised antiquarian scholarship, to become (in close col-laboration with a wide range of auxiliary fields – from genetics to linguistics, ethnography, archaeology, statistics, and classics) an exciting, rapidly expanding domain of theoretical and methodological reflection, and an ever widening window on humankind’s remoter cultural history. While the field increasingly becomes transcontinental not only in subject matter but also in scholarly participation, new growth points can be discerned around death as a mythical domain, and around the understanding of Africa’s place in the wider cultural history of humankind as a whole. |
The editors. WIM VAN BINSBERGEN is Senior Researcher at the African Studies Centre, Leiden, and Professor of Intercultural Philosophy, Philosophical Faculty, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands. ERIC VENBRUX is Professor of Religious Anthropology in the Faculty of Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Both are founding members of the International Association for Comparative Mythology |
Preface
by Wim van Binsbergen & Eric
Venbrux..................................................5
PART II. MYTHOLOGY OF DEATH AND DYING
Chapter 2. Death
and Regeneration: The Moon in Australian Aboriginal Myths of the
Origin of Death
by Eric
Venbrux...................................................25
Chapter 3. Tales
of death and regeneration in West Africa
by Walter E.A. van
Beek..................................................41
Chapter 4. A
Journey to the Netherworld: Reconstructing Features of
Indo-European Mythology of Death and Funereal Rituals from
Baltic, Slavic, and Buddhist Parallels
by Boris Oguibénine & Nataliya Yanchevskaya
..................................................59
Chapter 5. Death
as Defilement in Zoroastrianism
by Victoria
Kryukova..................................................75
Chapter 6.
Varin’s philosophy and the Rök Stone’s mythology of
death
by Joseph Harris
..................................................91
PART III. MYTHOLOGICAL CONTINUITIES BETWEEN AFRICA AND OTHER
CONTINENTS
Chapter 7. The
emergence of the first people from the underworld: Another
cosmogonic myth of a possible African origin
by Yuri Berezkin
..................................................109
Chapter 8. Myths,
indigenous culture, and traditions as tools in reconstructing
contested histories: The Ife-Modakeke example
by Bukola Adeyemi
Oyeniyi..................................................127
Chapter 9. The
continuity of African and Eurasian mythologies: General
theoretical models, and detailed comparative discussion of the
case of Nkoya mythology from Zambia, South Central Africa
by Wim van Binsbergen
..................................................143
Chapter 10.
Pan-Gaean Flood myths: Gondwana myths – and beyond
by Michael Witzel
..................................................225
Chapter 11.
Hephaistos vs. Ptah
by Václav Blažek
..................................................243
Chapter 12. Can
Japanese mythology contribute to comparative Eurasian mythology?
by Kazuo Matsumura
..................................................253
PART IV. THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL ADVANCES
Chapter 13. The
cosmological theory of myth
by Emily Buchanan Lyle
..................................................267
Chapter 14. The
neurobiological origins of primitive religion: Implications for
comparative mythology
by Steve Farmer
..................................................279
Chapter 15.
Postmodernism and the Comparative Method
by Robert A. Segal
..................................................315
Chapter 16.
Myth: A challenge to philosophy
by Willem Dupré
..................................................335
Chapter 17.
Hephaestus and Agni – Gods and men on the battlefield in
Greek and Sanskrit epics
by Nick Allen
..................................................357
PART V. WORK IN PROGRESS
Chapter 18.
Sunda – The Affirmative life: The mythological worldview of
the contemplative site Nagara Padang, West Java, Indonesia
by Stephanus Djunatan
..................................................375
Chapter 19. The
function of irony in mythical narratives: Hans Blumenberg and
Homer’s ludicrous gods
by Nadia Sels
..................................................409
LIST OF
CONTRIBUTORS
..................................................427
INDEX OF
PROPER NAMES AND MOTIFS
..................................................429
AUTHOR INDEX ..................................................457
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