"This new edition of MYTHOLOGIES is the first complete, authoritative English version of the French classic, Roland Barthes's most emblematic work"--

The sea, the sky, the veins of your hands, the earth when photographed from space--blue sometimes seems to overwhelm all the other shades of our world in its all-encompassing presence. The blues of Blue Mythologies include those present in the world's religions, eggs, science, slavery, gender, sex, art, the literary past, and contemporary film. Carol Mavor's engaging and elegiac readings in this beautifully illustrated book take the reader from the blue of a newborn baby's eyes to Giotto's frescoes at Padua, and from the films of Derek Jarman and Krzysztof Ki slowski to the islands of Venice and Aran. In each example Mavor unpicks meaning both above and below the surface of culture. In an echo of Roland Barthes's essays in Mythologies, blue is unleashed as our most familiar and most paradoxical color. At once historical, sociological, literary, and visual, Blue Mythologies gives us a fresh and contemplative look into the traditions, tales, and connotations of those somethings blue.

From the start, the Soviet human space program had an identity crisis. Were cosmonauts heroic pilots steering their craft through the dangers of space, or were they mere passengers riding safely aboard fully automated machines? Tensions between Soviet cosmonauts and space engineers were reflected not only in the internal development of the space program but also in Soviet propaganda that wavered between praising daring heroes and flawless technologies. Soviet Space Mythologies explores the history of the Soviet human space program within a political and cultural context, giving particular attention to the two professional groups—space engineers and cosmonauts—who secretly built and publicly represented the program. Drawing on recent scholarship on memory and identity formation, this book shows how both the myths of Soviet official history and privately circulating counter-myths have served as instruments of collective memory and professional identity. These practices shaped the evolving cultural image of the space age in popular Soviet imagination. Soviet Space Mythologies provides a valuable resource for scholars and students of space history, history of technology, and Soviet (and post-Soviet) history.

A beautifully illustrated, wonderfully engaging A-to-Z guide to more than 700 major and minor gods and goddesses, characters, creatures, and places of classical Greek and Roman mythology. Classical Mythology A-to-Z is a comprehensive and engrossing guide to Greek and Roman mythology. Written by Annette Giesecke, PhD, Professor of Classics and Chair of Ancient Greek and Roman Studies at the University of Delaware, this brilliant reference offers clear explanations of every character and locale, and captures the essence of these timeless tales. From the gods and goddesses of Mount Olympus and the heroes of the Trojan War to the nymphs, monsters, and other mythical creatures that populate these ancient stories, Giesecke recounts, with clarity and energy, the details of more than 700 characters and places. Each definition includes cross-references to related characters, locations, and myths, as well their equivalent in Roman mythology and cult. In addition to being an important standalone work, Classical Mythology A-to-Z is also written, designed, and illustrated to serve as an essential companion to the bestselling illustrated 75th-anniversary edition of Mythology by Edith Hamilton, including 10 full-color plates and 2-color illustrations throughout by artist Jim Tierney.

More than a hundred years ago, Freud made a new mythology by revising an old one: Oedipus, in Sophocles' tragedy the legendary perpetrator of shocking crimes, was an Everyman whose story of incest and parricide represented the fulfilment of universal and long forgotten childhood wishes. The Oedipus complex - child, mother, father - suited the nuclear families of the mid-twentieth century. But a century after the arrival of the psychoanalytic Oedipus, it might seem that modern lives are very much changed. Typical family formations and norms of sexual attachment are changing, while the conditions of sexual difference, both biologically and socially, have undergone far-reaching modifications. Today, it is possible to choose and live subjective stories that the first psychoanalytic patients could only dream of. Different troubles and enjoyments are speakable and unspeakable; different selves are rejected, discovered, or sought. Many kinds of hitherto unrepresented or unrepresentable identity have entered into the ordinary surrounding stories through which children and adults find their bearings in the world, while others have become obsolete. Biographical narratives that would previously have seemed unthinkable or incredible—'a likely story!'—have acquired the straightforward plausibility of a likely story. This book takes two Freudian routes to think about some of the present entanglements of identity. First, it follows Freud in returning to Greek tragedies - Oedipus and others - which may now appear strikingly different in the light of today's issues of family and sexuality. And second, it re-examines Freud's own theories from these newer perspectives, drawing out different strands of his stories of how children develop and how people change (or don't). Both kinds of mythology, the classical and the theoretical, may now, in their difference, illuminate some of the forming stories of our contemporary world of serial families, multiple sexualities, and new reproductive technologies.

A full, authoritative, and wholly engaging account of these endlessly fascinating tales and of the ancient society in which they were created. Greek myths are among the most complex and influential stories ever told. From the first millennium BC until today, the myths have been repeated in an inexhaustible series of variations and reinterpretations. They can be found in the latest movies and television shows and in software for interactive computer games. This book combines a retelling of Greek myths with a comprehensive account of the world in which they developed—their themes, their relevance to Greek religion and society, and their relationship to the landscape. "Contexts, Sources, Meanings" describes the main literary and artistic sources for Greek myths, and their contexts, such as ritual and theater. "Myths of Origin" includes stories about the beginning of the cosmos, the origins of the gods, the first humans, and the founding of communities. "The Olympians: Power, Honor, Sexuality" examines the activities of all the main divinities. "Heroic exploits" concentrates on the adventures of Perseus, Jason, Herakles, and other heroes. "Family sagas" explores the dramas and catastrophes that befall heroes and heroines. "A Landscape of Myths" sets the stories within the context of the mountains, caves, seas, and rivers of Greece, Crete, Troy, and the Underworld. "Greek Myths after the Greeks" describes the rich tradition of retelling, from the Romans, through the Renaissance, to the twenty-first century. Complemented by lavish illustrations, genealogical tables, box features, and specially commissioned drawings, this will be an essential book for anyone interested in these classic tales and in the world of the ancient Greeks.

In all cultures and at all times, humans have told stories about where they came from, who they are and how they should live their lives. 'Myths and Mythologies' brings together the key classic and contemporary writings - philosophical, psychological, sociological, semiological and cognitivist - on myth. To the insider, myths contain truth, revelation and a 'history of ourselves'; to the outsider, a culture s myths can be seen as the product of foolish, infantile and wishful thinking. Myths tell us about specific cultures, about human creativity, and how narrative shapes and reflects understanding. The 'Reader' is an invaluable resource for students and scholars interested in the impact of narrative on human culture and the meaning of truth in religious language.

These 130 articles Aisan mythologies and cover such topics as Buddhist and Hindu symbolic systems, myth in pre-Islamic Iran, Chinese cosmology and demons, and the Japanese conceptions of the afterlife and the "vital spirit". Also includes myths from Turkey, Korea, Tibet, and Mongolia. Illustrations.

Looks at ancient myths and legends, how they are interpreted today, and what they mean now.

Michael Witzel persuasively demonstrates the prehistoric origins of most of the mythologies of Eurasia and the Americas ('Laurasia').