Projektbeschreibung
Germanische Mythologie und nationale Identität
Der nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg eingeleitete Prozess der religiösen, politischen, kulturellen und sozialen Entmythologisierung scheint ins Stocken geraten zu sein und offenbart, dass Widersprüche zum Kult der Vernunft und zur Dialektik der Aufklärung fortbestehen. Die sich erneut abzeichnende Mythologisierung der politischen Sphäre bedroht eine rationale Debatte. Das EU-finanzierte Projekt MYTH wird die erste systematische Studie zur Entstehung der germanischen Mythologie im 19. Jahrhundert durchführen. Das Projekt möchte zeigen, wie deutsche Intellektuelle ein germanisches Mythologiesystem schufen, das auf typischen Elementen sowohl des nordischen Mythos als auch der griechisch-römischen Mythologie fußt. Dieser germanische Mythos entstand als alternatives Modell zum klassischen Mythos und zur Bildung nationalistischer politischer und kultureller Identitäten.
Ziel
We are witnessing today a renewed mythologisation of the political sphere: myth has returned to occupy a persuasive and central role in modern political and cultural life, taking on the form of fictional narratives, “false myths” and ideologies, which are dangerously replacing rational debate. The process of demythologization (Entmythologisierung) of religious, political, cultural and social dynamics that began after the Second World War seems to have reached a standstill, revealing the unresolved contradictions inherent to the cult of reason and the Dialectic of Enlightenment. The question of the need for myth in every culture, modern culture not excluded, is still unanswered. Critical awareness of myth and its function as a cultural agent in today’s climate is critical, although the all too obvious demonization of myth should not be supplanted by the facile—and equally mythical—valorization of reason. As Jan Assmann argues, the function of myth in the modern world goes beyond a simple elaboration of the past. Indeed, all mythopoetic activity has immediate productive value and can be characterized as a dominant historical agent. A critical-historical study of the origins and development of the modern concepts of myth and mythology is of capital importance if we are to redefine our categories of thought and understand the pervasive phenomena that have dominated European culture for the last two centuries. My research takes on the first systematic study of mythology by way of a very telling case study: the birth of German Mythology studies. My aim is to show how German intellectuals created a system of Germanic mythology based on materials appropriated from Nordic myth and the model prevalent in European culture at the time: Greco-Roman mythology. This newly established Germanic myth imposed itself as an alternative model to the classical one, providing a new foundation for the construction of nationalistic cultural and political identities.
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MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Koordinator
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Dänemark