Various Professors

The best thing about this lecture series was how diverse the mythology covered in it was. It touches on myths from all over the world, though it does feature Greek and Roman myth more heavily than any other, and some cultures are notoriously absent (for example, I don't think Slavic myth was mentioned at all). The thing I liked least was how non-diverse the lecturers were. I was less than thrilled with hearing about, for instance, Incan myths from a white man, Indian myths from a white show more woman, or Chinese myths from a different white man. I appreciated that they all seemed to try to see the myth through the lens of the culture that it belonged to, but it still felt wrong. It was worth it for the overview, but I'll get my deeper look at these mythologies elsewhere. show less

This is a comprehensive 60 lecture series of World mythology. It covers Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the natives of North and South America. In this series, myth is loosely defined as " a story that has meaning or significance beyond the story itself and that carried weight in their cultures investing everyday life with meaning." Thus folklore such as (Arabian Nights) and religious texts like (Book of Job, Bhavagad Gita) are included in the series.,

There are four different lecturers, show more all specialists in their world areas. While all the lectures were well done, I found the series on East Asian myth (China, Japan, and Korea) truly outstanding. Before listening to these lectures knew little of the myths of this part of the world. The lecturer connected the mythology to the history and culture in a manner that was illuminating.

I highly recommend this series. show less

Overall, I enjoyed this enlightening sampling of lectures from various Great Courses series. However, I felt that some of the topics selected weren't as successful as others in a stand-alone format -- for these, some additional fundamental knowledge seemed to be required to fully understand the subjects, particularly while jumping in mid-series, as we are with this type of compilation.

These massive courses finally make sense to me now. I started the series years ago but stopped when it failed to give me the vast knowledge of mythology I wanted. I did not get that kind of grasp from this course, and looking back, I was a little naive. I finished it today, and this is what I’ve come to learn.

Survey courses like this overwhelm you with enough of the discipline (world mythology In this case) to start making sense of the patterns and reasons why this genre exists (why is show more this story myth and not fiction? Why myth but not religious?)

Once you start seeing the patterns, then you get tastes of the different focuses across the entire discipline. For example, after this course, I’m less likely to mix up Greek and Babylonian myth.

The survey course also takes me deep enough in the discipline that I gain a better understanding of many concepts I’ve seen throughout my life but never understood, e.g. the ubiquity of the interesting “trickster” archetype across the world.

Lastly, survey courses give me a good sense of what I don’t know. Moreover, I’m aware of what I don’t care for and what i want to learn more about.

If you never had a big exposure to mythology and want one, get it. If you already have, then move on to an area of mythology you’re interested in and go more in depth. show less