Myth, Society and Profanation

This work challenges the dominant pejorative view of myth by showing how myth is implicated in the deepest layers of society, politics, individuality and temporality.

This work draws upon European cultural theorists, particularly Schelling, Nietzsche, Freud, Bataille and Baudrillard, to challenge the dominant pejorative view of myth. It argues that myth has been subjected to an intensive process of profanation yet nevertheless is always implicated in society, politics and temporality. The work examines sacred dimensions of myth, the modern myth of desire and some cultural effects of the profanation process.

The intended audience is undergraduate and postgraduate students in the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences.

William Pawlett is Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Wolverhampton, UK. He is author of Georges Bataille: The Sacred and Society, Violence, Society and Radical Theory and Jean Baudrillard: Against Banality.