Myth, Ritual, and Symbolism

136 Pages·2008·0.88 MB·English

In Conjunction with 

massachusetts institute of technology

Myth, Ritual, and Symbolism

"Symbolical Head, Illustrating the Natural Language of the Faculties." (Image from Wells,
Samuel. How to Read Character. New York: Wells Publishing, 1870. p.36.)
Course Highlights
This course includes a complete set of lecture notes, an extensive bibliography, and samples of
student work.
Course Description
Human beings are symbol-making as well as tool-making animals. We understand our world and
shape our lives in large part by assigning meanings to objects, beings, and persons; by
connecting things together in symbolic patterns; and by creating elaborate forms of symbolic
action and narrative. In this introductory subject we consider how symbols are created and
structured; how they draw on and give meaning to different domains of the human world; how
they are woven into politics, family life, and the life cycle; and how we can interpret them.
The semester will be devoted to a number of topics in symbolism.
1. Metaphor and Other Figurative Language
2. The Raw Materials of Symbolism, especially Animals and The Human Body
3. Cosmology and Complex Symbolic Systems
4. Ritual, including Symbolic Curing and Magic
5. Narrative and Life
6. Mythology
Syllabus
Overview
Human beings are symbol-making as well as tool-making animals. We understand our world and
shape our lives in large part by assigning meanings to objects, beings, and persons; by
connecting things together in symbolic patterns; and by creating elaborate forms of symbolic
action and narrative. In this introductory subject we consider how symbols are created and
structured; how they draw on and give meaning to different domains of the human world; how
they are woven into politics, family life, and the life cycle; and how we can interpret them.
The semester will be devoted to a number of topics in symbolism.
1. Metaphor and Other Figurative Language
2. The Raw Materials of Symbolism, especially animals and The Human Body
3. Cosmology and Complex Symbolic Systems
4. Ritual, including Symbolic Curing and Magic
5. Narrative and Life
6. Mythology
The course will focus primarily on symbolic forms and their analysis, rather than on intellectual
history or the place of symbolic studies in social theory. Theorists, schools of thought, and
intellectual history will be discussed for the most part in the context of the six topics listed
above, and technical vocabulary will be kept to a minimum. Readings will consist primarily of
articles and chapters, most of them by anthropologists, covering a wide variety of cases from
traditional and modern societies. Students, in addition to keeping up with the readings and
participating in class discussions, will be expected to write a series of short essays and field
studies over the course of the semester.
There is one required text, Illness as Metaphor / AIDS and its Metaphors, (by Susan Sontag
1978, 1989, Doubleday). Otherwise, course readings consist of articles and chapters on different
aspects of symbolism, which will be discussed in class.
Classes will consist of a mixture of lecture and discussion. Each class is keyed to a set of
readings, and it is crucial that students keep up with the readings and be prepared to discuss them
in class. Class participation — in terms of both regular attendance and participation in discussion
— will count strongly towards the final grade. In the first weeks of the semester attendance will
be taken.
There is no prerequisite: this subject is open to any student.
Written work will consist of a series of short papers, divided between essays and field reports.
There is no final exam.
Calendar
LEC # TOPICS KEY DATES
1 Introduction
Response
essay, on Susan
Culture, Sign Sontag's Illness
2
and Symbol as Metaphor (2
pages) due in
class
Discuss Illness
3
as Metaphor
Metaphor and
4
Other Tropes
5 More Tropes
Interpreting
6
Metaphor
Metaphorical
7
Imperialism
8 Animals
Animals and
9
Classification
10 Roosters and
Interpretation
The Human
11
Body
12 More Bodies
Classification
13
and Cosmology
14 Ritual
Passage and
15
Persuasion
Ritual and
16
Power
Magic and
17
Ritual Curing
Narrative and
18
Life
Narrative and
19
Control
Folktale and
20
Form
Little Red
Riding Hood
21
and the Freudian
Wolf
Goldilocks
22
Meets Oedipus
Hyenas and
23
Demon Brides
Jaguars,
24 Vampires, and
Starlets
25 Movies on Myth
26 Wrap up

Readings
Below are readings by class session and a bibliography of supplementary readings.
Readings by Class Session
LEC # TOPICS READINGS
1 Introduction
Culture, Sign and
2
Symbol
Discuss Illness as Sontag, Susan. Illness as Metaphor. New York: Doubleday,
3
Metaphor 1990.
Cohn. "Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense
Intellectuals." Signs 2, no. 4 (1987): 687-718.

Gregor, Thomas. "Far, Far Away My Shadow Wandered…"
Metaphor and
4 American Ethnologist 9 (1981): 709-720.
Other Tropes

Ohnuki-Tierney, Emiko. "Structure, Event, and Historical
Metaphor: Rice and Identities in Japanese History." J. of
Royal Anthro. Inst. 1, no. 2 (1995): 227-248.
Foong Khong, Yuen. Analogies at War: Korea, Munich,
Dien Bien Phu and the Vietnam Decisions of 1965.
5 More Tropes
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992, pp. 174-190.
(Excerpts)
Interpreting
6
Metaphor
Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson. Metaphors We Live by.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980, pp. 3-32.
Metaphorical (Excerpts)
7
Imperialism
Ohnuki-Tierney, Emiko. "Monkey as Metaphor?" Man 25,
no. 1 (1990): 89-104.
Douglas, Mary. "The Abominations of Leviticus." In Purity
and Danger. New York: Routledge, 1966, pp. 41-57.

8 Animals Ritvo, Harriet. "Cave Canem." In The Animal Estate: The
English and Other Creatures in the Victorian Age.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987, pp. 167-
202.
Tambiah, S. J. "Animals Are Good to Think and Good to
Animals and
9 Prohibit." In Culture, Thought, and Social Action. Cambrdge,
Classification
MA: Harvard University Press, 1985, pp. 169-211.
Geertz, Clifford. "Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese
Cockfight." In Myth, Symbol, and Culture. Edited by Clifford
Geertz. Norton, 1971, pp. 1-29.
Roosters and
10
Interpretation
Dundes, Alan. "Gallus as Phallus." In The Cockfight, A
Casebook. Edited by Alan Dundes. Madison, WI: University
of Wisconsin Press, 1994, pp. 241-275.
Turner, Terence. "Tchikrin: A Central Brazilian Tribe and its
Symbolic Language of Bodily Adornment." Natural History
(Oct. 1969): 50, 52, 57-59 and 70.

Firth, Raymond. "Hair as Private Asset and Public Symbol."
11 The Human Body In Symbols. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1973, pp.
262-298.

Hertz, Robert. "The Pre-eminence of the Right Hand." In
Death and The Right Hand. Aberdeen: Cohen & West, 1960
[1909], pp. 89-113.
Martin, Emily. "Science and Women's Bodies." In
Body/Politics: Women and the Discourses of Science. Edited
by Mary Jacobus et al. New York: Routledge, 1990, pp. 69-
79.

Gilman, Sander. "The Jewish Foot." In The Jew's Body. New
12 More Bodies York: Routledge, 1991, pp. 38-59.

Gusterson, Hugh. "Nuclear War, the Gulf War, and the
Disappearing Body." J. of Urban and Cultural Studies 2, no.
1 (1991): 45-52.

Foucault, Michel. "The Body of the Condemned/ Docile
Bodies." Excerpts from Discipline and Punish, in 1984, The
Foucault Reader. Edited by Paul Rabinow. New York,
Pantheon, 1984, pp. 170-187.
Durkheim, Emile, and M. Mauss. Primitive Classification.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966, pp. 3-26
and 42-66. (Excerpts)
Classification and
13
Cosmology
Fox, James. "On Binary Categories and Primary Symbols."
In The Interpretation of Symbolism. Edited by Roy Willis.
New York: Wiley, 1975, pp. 99-132.
Turner, Victor. "Betwixt and Between: The Liminal Phase in
Rites de Passage." In The Forest of Symbols. Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 1967, pp. 93-110.

Gusterson, Hugh. "Nuclear Weapons Testing — Scientific
14 Ritual Experiment as Political Ritual." In Naked Science:
Anthropological Inquiries into Boundaries, Power, and
Knowledge. New York: Routledge, 1996, pp. 131-146.

Goffman, Erving. Asylums. New York: Doubleday, 1961, pp.
4-35.
Passage and
15 none
Persuasion
Cohn, Bernard. "Representing Authority in Victorian India."
In The Invention of Tradition. Edited by Eric Hobsbawm,
and Terence Ranger. New York: Cambridge University
16 Ritual and Power Press, 1992, pp. 165-209.

Howe, James. "Fox Hunting as Ritual." American
Ethnologist 8, no. 2 (1981): 278-297.
Turner, Victor. "An Ndembu Doctor in Practice." In The
Forest of Symbols. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
1967, pp. 359-393.
Magic and Ritual
17
Curing
Holloman, Regina. "Ritual Opening and Individual
Transformation: Rites of Passage at Esalen." American
Anthropologist 76, no. 2 (1974): 265-278.
Bruner, Jerome. "The Legal and the Literary." In Making
18 Narrative and Life
Stories: Law, Literature, and Life. Cambrdge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 2002, pp. 37-62.

Mattingly, Cheryl. Healing Dramas and Clinical Plots: The
Narrative Structure if Experience. New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1998, pp. 72-103. (Excerpts)
Howe, James, and Joel Sherzer. "Friend Hairyfish and Friend
Rattlesnake." Man 21 (1986): 680-696.
Narrative and
19
Control Ewick, Patricia, and Susan Silbey. "Subversive Stories and
Hegemonic Tales: Toward a Sociology of Narrative." Law
and Society Review 29, no. 2: 197-226.
Propp, Vladimir. Morphology of the Folktale. Austin, TX:
University of Texas Press, 1968, pp. 19-37 and 96-99.
20 Folktale and Form
Colby, Benjamin. "A Partial Grammar of Eskimo Folktales."
American Anthropologist 75 (1973): 645-660.
Bettelheim, Bruno. The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning
and Importance of Fairy Tales. New York: Vintage, 1975,
pp. 3-19 and 166-183.
Little Red Riding

21 Hood and the
Dundes, Alan. "Interpreting Little Red Riding Hood
Freudian Wolf
Psychoanalytically." In The Brothers Grimm and Folktale.
Edited by James M. McGlathery. Urbana: University of
Illinois Press, 1988.
Leach, Edmund. "The Structure of Myth." In Claude Lévi-
Strauss.
Goldilocks Meets
22
Oedipus Hammel, Eugene. "The Myth of Structural Analysis: Lévi-
Strauss and the 3 Bears." In Modules in Anthropology 25,
Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1972.
Beidelman, Thomas. "Hyena and Rabbit." Africa 31, no. 1
(1961): 61-74.

Hyenas and Demon
23 Hymes, Dell. "The Wife who Goes out Like a Man." In In
Brides
Vain I Tried to Tell You: Essays in Native American
Ethnopoetics . Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1981, pp. 274-299.
Jaguars, Vampires, Howe, James, and Lawrence Hirschfeld. "The Star-Girls'
24
and Starlets Descent: A Myth about Men, Women, Matrilocality, and
Singing." J. of Am. Folklore 94, no. 373 (1981): 292-322.
25 Movies on Myth none
26 Wrap up none

Supplementary Readings
Bell, Catherine. Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions. New York: Oxford University Press,
1997.
Douglas, Mary. Natural Symbols. New York: Vintage Books, 1973.
Fernandez, James, ed. Beyond Metaphor: The Theory of Tropes in Anthropology. Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1991.
Gibbs, Raymond. The Poetics of Mind: Figurative Thought, Language, and Understanding. New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Humphrey, Caroline, and James Laidlaw. The Archetypal Actions of Ritual. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1994.
Kertzer, David. Ritual, Politics, and Power. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988.
Lévi-Strauss, Claude. The Raw and the Cooked. New York: Harper & Row, 1969.
———. The Savage Mind. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1966.
Maybury-Lewis, David, and Uri Almagor, eds. The Attraction of Opposites: Society and Thought
in a Dualistic Mode. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1989.
Needham, Rodney, ed. Right and Left: Essays on Dual Symbolic Classification. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1973.
Ortony, Andrew, ed. Metaphor and Thought. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979.
Polkinghorne, Donald. Narrative Knowing and the Human Sciences. Albany: Status University
of New York Press, 1988.
Rappaport, Roy. Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity. New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1999.
Sapir, J. David, and J. Christopher Crocker. The Social Use of Metaphor. Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1977.
Tambiah, S. J. Culture, Thought, and Social Action. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985.
Turner, Victor. Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1974.
———. The Ritual process: Structure and Anti-Structure. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
1969.
Hendy, Andrew Von. The Modern Construction of Myth. Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
2002.
Willis, Roy, ed. Signifying Animals: Human Meaning in the Natural World. New York:
Routledge, 1990.

Lecture Notes
LEC # TOPICS
1 Introduction (PDF)
2 Culture, Sign and Symbol (PDF)
3 Discuss Illness as Metaphor (PDF)
4 Metaphor and Other Tropes (PDF)
5 More Tropes (PDF)
6 Interpreting Metaphor (PDF)
7 Metaphorical Imperialism (PDF)
8 Animals (PDF)
9 Animals and Classification (PDF)
10 Roosters and Interpretation (PDF)
11 The Human Body (PDF)
12 More Bodies (PDF)
13 Classification and Cosmology