Myths, Rituals and the Sacred: Mircea Eliade and the History of Religions

Prof. Davíd Carrasco

W 3-5pm

This seminar is an intensive introduction to the writings of Mircea Eliade and his influence on the “Chicago School” of the History of Religions. We will read selections from his scholarly works, literary writings and journals (Myth of Eternal Return, The Quest, Shamanism, Myths, Dreams and Mysteries, Patterns in Comparative Religions, History of Religious Ideas, The Old Man and the Bureaucrats, Two Tales of the Occult, In the Shadow of a Lily) in order to gain a broad and deep understanding of his revisioning and deprovincializing the study of religion. The course also studies the work of three other scholars who took Eliade’s contributions in new and sometimes critical directions. These include Charles H. Long (Significations), Jonathan Z. Smith (Imagining Religion), and Wendy Doniger (Other People’s Myths, The Implied Spider).

Jointly offered with Harvard Divinity School as HDS 2458