Creating Myths as Narratives of Empowerment and Disempowerment: International Conference Proceedings (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781917130103)

Creating Myths as Narratives of Empowerment and Disempowerment brings together international scholarship examining how myths construct, sustain, and contest power. Originating in the University of Jendouba (Tunisia) conference, this collection-edited by Sihem Arfaoui, Jacqueline Bacha, M. Kamel Igoudjil, Sämi Ludwig, and J. S. Mackley-explores how myth functions as both a tool of domination and a source of liberation across literary, religious, and political discourses.

Essays trace the re-use of ancient archetypes-from Biblical and Qur'anic creation stories to classical and nationalist myths-to reveal how symbolic narratives continue to shape modern identity and ideology. Through readings of writers including Zola, Faulkner, Rushdie, Kingston, Morrison, and Coetzee, the contributors show how myth mediates the tensions between individual agency and cultural constraint.

Five interlinked themes define the volume:

1. Myth and Power Structures - myth as a mechanism of political and social control;
2. Gender and Identity - feminist and postcolonial re-interpretations of patriarchal myth;
3. Religious and Archetypal Myth - reinterpretations of sacred and classical traditions;
4. Narrative and Ideology - structuralist, semiotic, and post-structuralist frameworks;
5. Cross-Cultural Literary Exchange - the transformation of myth across global literatures.

Engaging with theorists such as Jung, Eliade, Kerényi, Barthes, and Derrida, the essays combine myth criticism, philosophy, and literary analysis to reveal the narrative grammar of power itself.

Published in a new scholarly edition, Creating Myths affirms the enduring relevance of myth as both an analytical method and a living force in the modern world.