Prof's Choice
Religion, psychoanalysis, symbols, and meaning.
EMILE DURKHEIM, THE Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (Free Press, 1915)- Durkheim's brilliant magnum opus launched a new approach to culture, religion, and society, replete with bold conjectures on their origins. Scholars remain indebted to this work, which is well worth reading and rereading.
MIRCEA ELIADE, THE MYTH of the Eternal Return or Cosmos and History (Princeton University Press, 1954, 1974) An excellent and most personal account of Eliade's approach to myth and religion, including his mythical account of modern man's second fall into history.
RENE GIRARD, Violence and theSacred (Johns Hopkins Press, 1977) The modern sequel to Freud's Totem andTaboo.
SIGMUND FREUD, TOTEM ANDTaboo (Moffat, Ward, 1918) Late in his life Freud said that this was the most important book he wrote. A classic on the psychoanalytic origins of myth and ritual.
CLAUDE LEVI-STRAUSS, Structural Anthropology, Volume II (Basic Books, 1976) "The Story of Asdiwal" in this volume is one of the best examples of structural analysis of myth.
CLAUDE LEVI-STRAUSS, THESavage Mind (University of Chicago Press, 1966) The best introduction to Levi-Strauss's work on myth and culture.
DAN SPERBER, RETHINKINGSymbolism (Cambridge University Press, 1975) A brilliant, often humorous, reflection on symbol, meaning, and reference, and a trenchant criticism of the notion that myths and symbols conceal a hidden meaning that needs decoding.
ROBIN HORTON, "TRADITION and Modernity Revisited" in Rationality andRelativism, edited by M. Hollis and Steven Lukes, (M.I.T. Press, 1982) The best contemporary representation of the intellectualist approach to myth and religious belief as explanations of the world
HANS PENNER, "FUNCTIONAL Explanations of Religion" in Impasse and Resolution: A Critique of the Study of Religion (Peter Lang, 1989) A comprehensive critique of functional explanations of myth, ritual, and religion in the social and human sciences.
