The first lecture focuses on two main themes, ways of teaching myth and different approaches to myth. In addition, it supplies basic definitions and functions for myth as a type of storytelling. Along the way, we will also discuss how why we think learning about myth is important shapes how we teach it and the idea of myth as social discourse which shapes and reinforces culture and helps to frame and restrict individual actions with it.
This lecture provides brief introductions to etiological and cognitive approaches to myth, which will be revisited in more detail as we approach individual narratives.
Ancient Authors Discussed
Plato, 4th Century BCE
Strabo, 1st Century CE
Some Modern Theorists Mentioned In Lecture
Links to Blogposts
Strabo and Plato on the Use of Narrative
Some Suggested Course Texts
Other Articles
Kwame Anthony Appiah, “There’s No Such Thing as Western Civilization.”
Rebecca Futo Kennedy, “Identity Politics and Classics: The Universal vs. the Particular.”
Sarah Bond, “Why We Need to Start Seeing the Classical World in Color”
Tim Whitmarsh, “Black Achilles”
Student Suggested Links
[TBA]
Classical Mythology 
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