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Artificial Mythologies A Guide to Cultural Invention Craig J. Saper |
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Proposes a new approach to considering cultural problems. Cultural critics teach us that myths are artificial. Cultural innovators use the artificial to make something new. In this exhilarating guide, Craig J. Saper takes us on an eye-opening tour of the process of cultural invention—willfully entertaining foolish, absurd, even fake, solutions as a way of reaching new perspectives on cultural problems. Saper deploys this method to reveal unsuspected connections among major cultural issues, such as urban decay, the dangers of television's power, family values, and conservative criticism of higher education. The model Saper uses builds on the later works of the revered French cultural critic Roland Barthes. These works, Saper argues, suggest poignant, playful, and productive ways of engaging dominant methodologies and mythologies. Artificial Mythologies shows us how, by allowing the artificial—our received ideas, common responses, and cultural mythologies—full play, we can arrive at provocative new solutions. The book demonstrates that the very conceptions of media and sociocultural issues that stymie innovation can be made to serve the cause of invention. "Not only is Saper inventing a theory, but he is creating a method (a world), such that in reading his work one discovers possibility as brutally fresh and near pure potential. I am on the edge of my seat everytime I hear Saper speak—I wanted to fall off reading this book." —Other Voices "Saper's project is timely, his audacity commendable, his sense of humor invigorating, and even if the sheer scope of his project is daunting, it is nonetheless worthy of serious critical attention." —College Literature Craig J. Saper is professor at University of Central Florida, and is the author of Networked Art (2001). 208 pages | 1997 Contents
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