« The myth of the Trickster—ambiguous creator and destroyer, cheater and cheated, subhuman and superhuman—is one of the earliest and most universal expressions of mankind. Nowhere does it survive in more starkly archaic form than in the voraciously uninhibited episodes of the Winnebago Trickster Cycle, recorded here is full. Anthropological and psychological analyses by Radin, Kerényi, and Jung reveal with Trickster as filling a twofold role: on the one hand he is “an archetypal psychic structure” that harks back to “an absolutely undifferentiated human consciousness, corresponding to a psyche that has hardly left the animal level” (Jung); on the other hand, his myth is a present-day outlet for the most unashamed and liberating satire of the onerous obligation of social order, religion, and ritual. » (Résumé)
Format: Collectif
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Mythical Trickster Figures: Contours, Contexts, and Criticisms
« Mythical Trickster Figures is the first substantial collection of essays about the trickster figure since Paul Radin’s influential 1955 publication of The Trickster. Contributions by leading scholars treat a wide range of manifestations of this mischievous character, ranging from the Coyote of the American Southwest to such African figures as Eshu-Elegba and Ananse, the Japanese Susa-no-o, the Greek Hermes, Christian adaptations of Saint Peter, and examples found in contemporary American fiction and drama. Original essays by authors known for their work on trickster figures provide resources for comprehending the nature of the phenomenon and challenge some previous interpretations. The contributors include T.O. Beidelman, Anne Doueihi, Robert S. Ellwood, Laura Makarius, Robert D. Pelton, Mac Linscott Ricketts, Thomas J. Steele, S.J., Christopher Vecsey, as well as the editors. Several contributors deconstruct earlier comparativist works in favor of culture-specific analysis and provide for a grasp of the transcultural qualities of the trickster myths and figures that appear in the local mythologies of different societies. The many humorous trickster stories included are fascinating in themselves, and Hynes and Doty highlight the wide range of features of the trickster – the figure whose comic appearance often signifies that the most serious cultural values are being both challenged and enforced. Mythical Trickster Figures moves away from earlier studies that considered the figure merely “primitive” or located in the basement of the human psyche suggesting instead that the spirit of metaplay is crucial to human and social maturation. » (Résumé)
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Beasts of the deep : sea creatures and popular culture
« Beasts of the Deep: Sea Creatures and Popular Culture offers its readers an in-depth and interdisciplinary engagement with the sea and its monstrous inhabitants; through critical readings of folklore, weird fiction, film, music, radio and digital games. Within the text there are a multitude of convergent critical perspectives used to engage and explore fictional and real monsters of the sea in media and folklore. The collection features chapters from a variety of academic perspectives; post- modernism, psychoanalysis, industrial-organisational analysis, fandom studies, sociology and philosophy are featured. Under examination are a wide range of narratives and media forms that represent, reimagine and create the Kraken, mermaids, giant sharks, sea draugrs and even the weird creatures of H.P. Lovecraft. Beasts of the Deep offers an expansive study of our sea-born fears and anxieties, that are crystallised in a variety of monstrous forms. Repeatedly the chapters in the collection encounter the contemporary relevance of our fears of the sea and its inhabitants — through the dehumanising media depictions of refugees in the Mediterranean to the encroaching ecological disasters of global warming, pollution and the threat of mass marine extinction. » (Résumé de l’éditeur)
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Les sirènes ou le savoir périlleux
« Si les mythes représentent souvent la grandeur et la beauté de l’aspiration au savoir, inséparable de la condition humaine, ils en explorent aussi de manière récurrente les périls, qu’ils figurent à travers des personnages au destin terrible et fascinant : de Cassandre et d’Œdipe à Faust et Frankenstein, en passant par Prométhée, Narcisse ou Psyché, se dessine en variations potentiellement infinies le cortège des êtres qui n’ont ou ne donnent accès à la connaissance qu’au prix des plus grands malheurs pour autrui et/ou pour eux-mêmes. Or, en tête de ce cortège, se trouvent les Sirènes du chant XII de l’Odyssée, dont le chant merveilleux est promesse de mort autant que de savoir et qui, dans de nombreuses versions du mythe, sont finalement à leur tour vaincues, mutilées voire tuées. L’équation savoir = danger posée de manière à la fois implacable et énigmatique par le texte homérique autour des Sirènes a été le point de départ d’une immense chaîne de réécritures : qu’elles détiennent un savoir véritable ou n’en offrent qu’une pure virtualité, qu’elles soient dangereuses ou en danger, ces créatures hybrides, femmes-oiseaux ou femmes-poissons, dont même le nombre est instable, n’ont jamais cessé de hanter la littérature de leur présence aussi séduisante qu’inquiétante. Le présent volume se veut une enquête sur les raisons, les modalités et les effets de cette présence ; du temps d’Homère à nos jours, il trace en deux volets – le premier consacré aux Sirènes grecques et romaines, le second allant du Moyen Âge au XXIe siècle – une histoire littéraire de ce mythe fondateur du savoir périlleux. » (Résumé)
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Études sur les productions de Disney
De nombreuses recherches s’intéressent aux représentations de la Sirène et d’autres princesses dans les productions cinématographiques de Disney.
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Études sur les contes de fées et leurs réécritures
L’importance du conte d’Anderson, La petite sirène, est le sujet de nombreux travaux sur le conte lui-même, les contes de fées en général et leurs réécritures contemporaines et/ou subversives.
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The Routledge history of the Devil in the Western tradition
« Covering a period of two thousand years, this book offers an interdisciplinary exploration of the devil’s role in the Western tradition and draws from history, religion, art, literature, media studies and anthropology to provide a multifaceted view of the devil over time. The Routledge History of the Devil in the Western Tradition examines topics such as the devil’s scriptural origins, medieval development, and role in witch-hunting and possession cases, as well as the influence of the demonic on contemporary issues like terrorism, political polarisation, and digital culture. Collectively, this volume demonstrates that the demonological imagination has served as part of the glue holding western societies together. While contexts, misfortunes and anxieties have shifted according to time and place, many of the dynamics that underlie the devil’s construction and detection have important continuities. This book, then, provides an innovative history of the anti-west-the west as seen through its anxieties, fears, and attempts to define and police itself and its boundaries. With contributions from 28 leading scholars in the field, this volume is of interest to all students and scholars of the devil in the Western world. » (Résumé)
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Philosophical Approaches to the Devil
« This collection brings together new papers addressing the philosophical challenges that the concept of a Devil presents, bringing philosophical rigor to treatments of the Devil. Contributors approach the idea of the Devil from a variety of philosophical traditions, methodologies, and styles, providing a comprehensive philosophical overview that contemplates the existence, nature, and purpose of the Devil. While some papers take a classical approach to the Devil, drawing on biblical exegesis, other contributors approach the topic of the Devil from epistemological, metaphysical, phenomenological, and ethical perspectives. This volume will be relevant to researchers and scholars interested in philosophical conceptions of the Devil and related areas, such as philosophers of religion, theologians, and scholars working in philosophical theology and demonology. » (Résumé)
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Giving the Devil His Due: Satan and Cinema
« The first collection of essays to address Satan’s ubiquitous and popular appearances in film Lucifer and cinema have been intertwined since the origins of the medium. As humankind’s greatest antagonist and the incarnation of pure evil, the cinematic devil embodies our own culturally specific anxieties and desires, reflecting moviegoers’ collective conceptions of good and evil, right and wrong, sin and salvation. Giving the Devil His Due is the first book of its kind to examine the history and significance of Satan onscreen. This collection explores how the devil is not just one monster among many, nor is he the “prince of darkness” merely because he has repeatedly flickered across cinema screens in darkened rooms since the origins of the medium. Satan is instead a force active in our lives. Films featuring the devil, therefore, are not just flights of fancy but narratives, sometimes reinforcing, sometimes calling into question, a familiar belief system. From the inception of motion pictures in the 1890s and continuing into the twenty-first century, these essays examine what cinematic representations tell us about the art of filmmaking, the desires of the film-going public, what the cultural moments of the films reflect, and the reciprocal influence they exert. Loosely organized chronologically by film, though some chapters address more than one film, this collection studies such classic movies as Faust, Rosemary’s Baby, The Omen, Angel Heart, The Witch, and The Last Temptation of Christ, as well as the appearance of the Devil in Disney animation. Guiding the contributions to this volume is the overarching idea that cinematic representations of Satan reflect not only the hypnotic powers of cinema to explore and depict the fantastic but also shifting social anxieties and desires that concern human morality and our place in the universe. Contributors: Simon Bacon, Katherine A. Fowkes, Regina Hansen, David Hauka, Russ Hunter, Barry C. Knowlton, Eloise R. Knowlton, Murray Leeder, Catherine O’Brien, R. Barton Palmer, Carl H. Sederholm, David Sterritt, J. P. Telotte, Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock. » (Résumé)
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Études religieuses et théologiques sur la figure du Diable
Plusieurs ouvrages s’intéressent, d’un point de vue théologique ou des sciences des religions, sur l’évolution de la figure du Diable : de ses débuts dans les textes judaïques à aujourd’hui, en passant par ses multiples métamorphoses dans l’imaginaire chrétien durant l’époque médiévale et la Renaissance.