The Melbourne Free University is launching a new course on the politics of myth.
In stories, images and casual references, around the names of mythic figures (whether they really existed or not) there cluster through time a remarkably changing series of ideas, concepts, obsessions, all with some social and so political meaning.
To look at these myths will both indicate just how much politics, past and present, there is about in our world, and how strange some of the past politics can be – and that might even make us wonder if our own politics of myth is always all that sensible? The figures of mythic politics can be turned inside out and read as examples of how people, even today, find meaning, consolation, escape, in the myths they use so casually and so much.
The topics chosen for examination here are a set of myths that are still with us, have changed significantly over time, and may well still be changing in our own mythic minds.
45 minute presentation, 45 minute open discussion
______________________________________________________________
WEEK 1: 12.6.12
King Arthur (and Guinevere and Lancelot and Galahad and Morgan)
Starting over a millenium ago and flowing thorough the languages and cultures of Europe, Arthur is the king who stood for various forms of nobility but was finally let down by dissent among his own people.
______________________________________________________________
WEEK 2: 19.6.12
Joan of Arc (and the English, and the French, the Inquisition and the many later versions)
Religious, pure-hearted, a successful war-leader, the saviour of enfeebled France, and burnt to death before she was twenty: a startling story, with varied meanings for people, not only in France.
______________________________________________________________
WEEK 3: 26.6.12
Shakespeare (and the Earl of X and Jonson and Garrick and cultural capital)
The plays and poems would be enough for a wise author myth, but on top of that comes the insistence from many apparently sane people that he didn’t write them anyway.
______________________________________________________________
WEEK OFF 3.7.12
______________________________________________________________
WEEK 4: 10.7.12
Bennelong (and Boney and Jandawarra)
One way of looking at relations with Australia’s indigenous people is to compare mythically different figures, the `first contact’ figure Bennelong, the imaginary `Boney’ and the actual criminal -- or tragic -- figure of Jandawarra.
______________________________________________________________
WEEK 5: 17.7.12
Ned Kelly (and the family and the police and the continuing debate)
The great Australian criminal myth is based on Ned Kelly versus the police and the state: he still causes deep-seated differences of opinion, or feeling.
______________________________________________________________
WEEK 6: 24.7.12
Sherlock Holmes (and Watson and Irene Adler and the countless imitations)
The rather complex myth of Sherlock Holmes is, what with drugs, urban angst and gender tensions, vigorously alive today.
______________________________________________________________
The MFU is an autonomous organisation that was established in 2010, and aims to create a space for constructive engagement with ideas and knowledge for its own sake, rather than the more outcome-oriented education of the formal education system.
We are completely free and open - anyone can attend sessions regardless of their qualifications, and we do not take enrolments.
The MFU runs regular courses on topics ranging from political philosophy, to permaculture and sustainability, to indigenous issues, refugee issues, law, politics, cinema, linguistics, literature and more.
Further information about the MFU can be found at www.melbournefreeuniversity.org.