mythemes
The project Mythemes of the North aims to map the evolution of narrative knowledge of the North in Europe since the Middle Ages by studying its smallest units – the mythemes of the North – and their narrative grammar in cultural circulation. It uses the latest advances of digital humanities and pen and paper based approaches, cross breeding it with productive new readings and sometimes voluntary misunderstandings of (post-)structuralist theories, cultural media studies and studies of geographies of knowledge. A byproduct might be a general Theory of Mythemes of Social Knowledge in Cultural Circulation.
Mythemes of social knowledge refer to the smallest units of discourse. As such, they are the constitutive units of narratives, at the level of the narrated. The analysis of those repertoires of mythemes, their natures and connections, helps us understand the transformations, cultural circulations, and geographical imaginations. In this podcast-series, we document our webinars and research activities.
This channel documents our webinars and similar activtities. For further information and link to articles, you can visit our website: http://mythemes.u-strasbg.fr/
Project members: https://mythemes.u-strasbg.fr/about/
7th Mytheme Webinar: Interiors and Interiority: Mytheme Theory and Herman Bang’s Impressionist Aesthetics [22 avril 2021]
Description
Claire McKeown (Université de Lorraine)
The writer Herman Bang is a key figure of late 19th century Danish culture, and a self-proclaimed literary impressionist. Critical studies of his work have discussed this aspect of his writing, emphasising the stylistic elements, themes and epistemological positioning associated with this intermedial inspiration.
Parallels have often been drawn between Bang’s texts and the works of the artist Vilhelm Hammershøi, referring to melancholy domestic atmospheres and solitary female protagonists, and even to a specifically Danish approach to aesthetics. These intuitive connections between texts and visual art are countered by the tension surrounding the notion of literary impressionism, which is frequently dismissed as vague, facile – or a critical myth. I will apply Mytheme Theory and both paper and digital approaches to several of Bang’s novels in order to explore these visual aspects of his writing within the wider context of Mythemes of the North.
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Part of the Mytheme project and its podcast channel: https://pod.unistra.fr/mythemes/
Mots clés : herman bang mythemes
