This work challenges the dominant pejorative view of myth by showing how myth is implicated in the deepest layers of society, politics, individuality and temporality.
This work draws upon European cultural theorists, particularly Schelling, Nietzsche, Freud, Bataille and Baudrillard to challenge the dominant pejorative view of myth. It argues that myth has been subjected to a intensive process of profanation yet, nevertheless is always implicated in society, politics and temporality. The work examines sacred dimensions of myth, the modern myth of desire and some cultural effects of the profanation process.
The intended audience is undergraduate and postgraduate students in the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences.
Introduction
Chapter One: Myth, Society, (A)theogony
Chapter Two: Left Pole of the Sacred
Chapter Three: Society, Heterology and Transparency
Chapter Four: Profanations of Sex and Death
Chapter Five: After Profanation: myth and disappearance
Concluding remarks
Bibliography
Index
Biography
William Pawlett is Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Wolverhampton, UK. He is author of Georges Bataille: The Sacred and Society, Violence, Society and Radical Theory and Jean Baudrillard: Against Banality.
