ארכיון deification - Prof. Marianna Ruah-Midbar Shapiro (PhD)

Lecture: How the Deluge Myth became a Symbol of the Ecological Crisis – A Comparative Cinematic Study

The deluge myth was used by generations of commentators as a tool for social criticism - it provided them with an opportunity to explain what kind of humanity deserved total annihilation. In recent films, connections are made between the current ecological crisis and the deluge... Are we (yes, we!) this generation that deserves to be destroyed, and why? This lecture presents a comparative study of Hollywood films throughout the last century, all of which have allusions to the biblical flood myth. The focus will be on how the flood becomes a symbol of the worsening ecological crisis nowadays.

0 Comments

May 26, 2024

Art (music\film\literature etc.) / Critical theory / Magic and paganism / Methodology and models / Mind and psychology / Popular culture and mass media / Postmodernism / Science/medicine and technology / Typology and comparative study

Lecture: Versions of Theme Design Reality Creation in New Age Culture

We create our own reality - this is a major idea in the contemporary cultural discourse. But how? From the Matrix to a magic stick, from positive psychology to mind control technics. Various lectures presented the research on this spiritual (or perhaps actually secularized) theme...

0 Comments

December 5, 2022

Art (music\film\literature etc.) / Critical theory / Magic and paganism / Methodology and models / Mind and psychology / Popular culture and mass media / Postmodernism / Science/medicine and technology / Typology and comparative study

Article: The Creating-Our-Reality Motif in Contemporary Western Popular Spirituality

One of the most prominent themes in the contemporary spiritual discourse, as well as in the general popular discourse, is that we are those who create our own world. This idea has various versions. For instance, the positive psychology version depicts how thoughts and expextations may create a reality through the change of behaviour; the science fiction version sees us as players in a virtual space that choose and shape their enviroment; the magical version teaches us to cast spells of reality; and more. This research analyses the popular spiritual discourse on the creation of reality, and thereby reviels a few insights on the contemporary cultural tendencies, the cultural contradictions, and the emergence of a new ethic.

0 Comments

December 4, 2022

Art (music\film\literature etc.) / Critical theory / Disputation or conflict / Feminism gender and sex / History / Judaism and Kabbalah / Myth / Popular culture and mass media / Science/medicine and technology / Typology and comparative study

Article: “Not Your Grandmother’s Bible”—A Comparative Study of the Biblical Deluge Myth in Film

Do you know the story of Noah and the deluge? Well, every generation had its interpretations and versions of the story. And when the deluge is retold - they actually talk of a humanity worthy of annihilation. Why? Every commentator has its own explanation, where lies criticism of the society they live in or encounter. The deluge as presented in current cinema isn't the flood as depicted in old traditions, since the story continues to evolve and get renewed. In this comparative study, we've surveyed Hollywood films that present the deluge iver the last century - in each of them the humanity is presented as facing annihilation, while offering an a current critic. Recently, for instance, the deluge myth is linked to the ecological discourse.

0 Comments

November 30, 2022