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59.More information
Van Gennep and Initiation in Greek Mythology: premature death of a paradigm? This article considers the paradigm that has developed out of the thought of Arnold Van Gennep, particularly since the translation of the Rites of passage into English in 1960. It responds to the challenge posed by the 2003 volume of Dodd and Faraone, whose overall purpose is to question the continuing usefulness of the initiation paradigm in studies of Greek mythology and society. Though they denounce the 'Kuhnian' nature of the paradigm as exploited since 1960, it is precisely to Kuhn that we should turn for an understanding of sudden shifts in paradigm in the scholarship on Greek mythology. We can see the fall ofCreuzers orientalising symbolism, of Max Milliers solar mythology, maybe ofDumézils trifunctionalism, and growing unease at Freudian pscyhonanalysis. Van Gennep s tripartite analysis became popularised in the era of structuralism and the question is whether it has now run its course, something which can only be tested by the capacity of a significant number of researchers to keep deriving useful results from it and to persist, as they seem to do, in talking to each other in its language.
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