Time Schedule:
Michael Heyes
CHID 496
Seattle Campus
Credit/no-credit only.
Class description
This course will encourage students to evaluate magic and mythology through a chain of three processes: 1) Acquire a working knowledge of mythology and magic in different cultures and different time periods (where possible through primary text), 2) Establish the way in which modern media (books, short stories, movies, television shows, etc) makes use of mythology and magic as well as what, if any, alterations such media has made to the medium, and 3) Discern what modernity has “gained” through such alterations to the original form.
Student learning goals
Students should have a wide working knowledge of traditional mythology
Students should have a working knowledge of several magical paradigms
Students should have experience in framing the needs of modernity in the way modernity makes use of traditional mythology and magical paradigms
Students should have a general knowledge of the transformation that myths undergo in their appopriation into modernity
General method of instruction
Class will follow the form of a brief lecture in the beginning, followed by discussion and group analysis.
Recommended preparation
No prior background is necessary, although it can only serve to enrich the course.
Class assignments and grading
One final paper about a subject studied in class.
Credit/No Credit
