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Comment by camjohnson26 | Hacker News Reader

If the idea of common motifs through different cultures and mythologies interests you I highly recommend this 6 part interview with Joseph Campbell, who was the author of “The Hero with 1000 Faces” and an expert in the field.

Joseph Campbell and The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers.

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While Joseph Campbell (who was not an actual “expert in the field” for most of what he wrote about) has a big reputation among the public because he wrote books directed towards a popular audience, and e.g. George Lucas's praise of his work for Star Wars guaranteed him renown, he is not taken very seriously by actual specialists on folklore and anthropology. IMO, citing him does more harm than good.

What authors or works would you recommend instead?

The difficulty with folklore is that it’s so intensely regional and period-specific, and that no real “canon” exists for most regions and times, especially when you’re reaching back into pre-christianity folklore.

This is the mistake that Campbell made. He thought you could unify folklore with some psychological frameworks. But you can’t, unless you’re employing gratuitous selection bias, which he did.

So it depends what you’re interested in! I’ve personally found it most fun to find some culture I’m incidentally connected to, with a long literary history, and try to find the earliest transcriptions and translations of stories that I can.

If you’re interested in some region and time in particular, somebody here can probably help get you started.

I second this statement.

Russian Folk Belief by Ivanits is a good one.

My understanding from my readings in the field of mythology is that the parent post is precisely correct: Campbell was an enthusiastic amateur who did a whole bunch of cherry-picking to suit his passionate holding-forth on the topics, but without systematic study.

If he was alive today, he (still) wouldn't be a PhD, but he'd have a YT channel, a vigorously active twitter page, and maybe have penned a couple of D&D modules.

> Joseph Campbell and The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers

https://archive.org/details/josephcampbellandthepowerofmyth0...

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