Myth and Audiovisual Creation
24-26 October 2018
Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Facultad de Filología
Organization:
Collaboration:
ACIS, the Mythcriticism Research Group, has organized the four previous mythcriticism conferences. For the V Conference, the group will organize the sessions on “Modern Myths” (Complutense University of Madrid, October 24-26, 2018). It will be an opportunity to reflect on the role played by modern myths from the 1900s to the present day in film, TV series, video games, comics, manganime and the performing arts. We define modern myths as those that emerged after the Middle Ages (Faust, Don Juan, Frankenstein, Dracula).
Among the four themes of the Conference (“Germanic Myths”, “Classical Myths”, “Biblical Myths” and “Modern Myths”) ours is undoubtedly the most open: we intend to offer a space for proposals that do not fit in the other venues. For this reason, we will welcome oriental mythologies, pre-Columbian, Celtic, Slavic and “mythical syncretism”, or the concentration of various mythologies (characteristic of our modernity), for example, the comic Fables or the TV series American Gods where the mixture of myths reveal the tension between the old and the new divinities.
American Gods, by Bryan Fuller (2017)
We will also pay special attention to the myths that emerged in science fiction that are rewritten or subverted through science and technology: cyborgs, androids, gynoids, AIs and robots that –following other classical myths like Prometheus, Pandora and Frankenstein- problematize issues as the concept of life itself or the conflict between the human and the divine: TV series like Westworld or Black Mirror, animes like Ghost in the Shell or Akira and video games like Mass Effect or Deus Ex.
Finally, superheroes (Iron Man, Super Woman, Thor or Batman) will also be welcomed at our venue. Some of them derive from classical or Germanic myths while others are new creations whose mythological influence will have to be evaluated by the participants.
Only Lovers Left Alive, by Jim Jarmush (2013)
Bloodborne, by From Software (2015)
Ghost in the Shell, by Mamoru Oshii (1995)