Joseph Campbell

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
This is going to sound like I'm a stoner cliché (or 'archetype', given the context) but I smoked a doob last night and then - on a whim - stuck on a documentary about Joseph Campbell - and was almost immediately transfixed and galvanised by his theories.

In the back of my mind was the a nagging suspicion that I was being somehow brainwashed and indoctrinated into a scientological cult. Perhaps it was just the style of the documentary, which is from the late 80s, and therefore sleazy.

I suspect he might have been a sort of Jordan Peterson prototype - hence how easily I was persuaded and seduced by his narrative of the 'hero's journey'.

I looked him up on Google and immediately saw that he has been widely criticised by academic specialists. But then, even academic specialists are widely criticised by academic specialists.

So is anyone familiar with him here, and what do they make of him? I would like to know if it's worth reading one of his books, or if its specious nonsense that I would do better to avoid.
 
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droid

Well-known member
He pops up quite a bit in educational theory/self help circles. The monomyth is probably his most famous work, and has been widely questioned but is still influential.

Superficially I guess he is similar, but unlike Peterson does actually have some theoretical and academic heft behind him and isnt just a misogynistic, racist, reactionary huckster hiding behind a stained patina of intellectualism.
 

luka

Well-known member
he gets it from finnegans wake. he wrote one of, perhaps the earliest, guide to it, a skeletons key to finnegans wake. also famously influenced george lucas to write star wars.
 
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luka

Well-known member
what academics think of this kind of thing is completely irrelevant. it's a different field. a different way of thinking.
 

luka

Well-known member
for what it's worth im not a big fan. i think it's not cute enough. but respect him for his work on the wake.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
My mum had a book by him years ago that I remember reading, or reading bits of, at any rate, and being fascinated by.

Definite influence on Lucas in terms of Luke Skywalker following the archetypal Hero's Journey, sure, though I wonder how much of that was a direct Campbell -> Lucas connection and how much came via Frank Herbert, who was certainly massively influenced by Campbell.

Also I think we should have a competition to see who can start a thread that luka can't connect in some way to

finnegans wake
 

luka

Well-known member
George Lucas was the first Hollywood filmmaker to credit Campbell's influence. Lucas stated, following the release of the first Star Wars film in 1977, that its story was shaped, in part, by ideas described in The Hero with a Thousand Faces and other works of Campbell's. The linkage between Star Wars and Campbell was further reinforced when later reprints of Campbell's book used the image of Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker on the cover.[44] Lucas discusses this influence at great length in the authorized biography of Joseph Campbell, A Fire in the Mind:

I [Lucas] came to the conclusion after American Graffiti that what's valuable for me is to set standards, not to show people the world the way it is...around the period of this realization...it came to me that there really was no modern use of mythology...The Western was possibly the last generically American fairy tale, telling us about our values. And once the Western disappeared, nothing has ever taken its place. In literature we were going off into science fiction...so that's when I started doing more strenuous research on fairy tales, folklore, and mythology, and I started reading Joe's books. Before that I hadn't read any of Joe's books...It was very eerie because in reading The Hero with a Thousand Faces I began to realize that my first draft of Star Wars was following classic motifs...so I modified my next draft [of Star Wars] according to what I'd been learning about classical motifs and made it a little bit more consistent...I went on to read 'The Masks of God' and many other books.[45]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Campbell#Film_and_television
 

luka

Well-known member
its sort of the point of it in a way. it swallows the world. youd love it. we;d have something to agree on if you started reading it.
 

luka

Well-known member
im not a very good reader of it at all. i can only manage short bursts. im not mcluhan or burgess or RAW or even joe campbell but i still love it every time i dig in.
 

luka

Well-known member
whats your favourite chapter in uyleses oliver craner? i'll read the chapter this evening once you tell us what it is
 

droid

Well-known member
It has to be Molly's Soliloquy surely?

Luka, did I mention that my psychedelic night walk I invited you too takes place at the location of the climax to Ulysses? Im actually heading up there tomorrow night to do a test frolic in Molly's Rhododendrons.
 

luka

Well-known member
you do realise i may well actually turn up. i need to have a look at how much it would be likely to cost.
 
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