13/04/2015 - Modern Historical Myths

WHEN: 13 April 2015, 5:30 p.m.

WHERE: MUP Prague-Jarov building, Učňovská 1, room 504

Ivan Šedivý is a professor of history, a member of the Anglophone Studies Department at MUP and the Institute of Czech History at Charles University.

“Modern Historical Myths“:
Our concepts of myths are still framed to a significant extent by our scholastic knowledge of the classical myths about Gilgamesh, Prometheus, Theseus, or King Oedipus. This lecture rests on the realisation that mythical narrations, symbols and rituals are far from belonging to advanced civilisations of prehistorical times or cultures of non-literary nations, and mythology that is lived very intensively by modern ‘myth-less’ societies.