XIDS 2100-03/Mythology and Religion
Dr. Lori Wilson Snaith
Midterm Exam
Due Dates: Drafts—Tuesday, October 7th at the beginning of class
Final version—Thursday, October 9th at the beginning of class
Choose any combination of the following topics and write FIVE coherent, precisely-worded, and
thoroughly documented one-to-two paragraph responses. I will be assessing each response
according to the criteria of the English Department grading rubric for English 1102 (see
accompanying link):
1 and/or 2. Mythology and Contemporary Society/Current Events: Choose two examples per
response paragraph(s), and examine them as follows:
Select a news story that you think directly connects, at its foundation, to a mythological
theme that you’ve read in either Joseph Campbell or David Adams Leeming, or which
we’ve discussed in class. How does the current-day story you’ve selected connect to a
timeless mythological theme? Include a brief description of the story, and excerpts from
the readings/lecture notes to which you’re connecting it.
3 and/or 4. The Four Functions of Religion
In class discussion about Joseph Campbell’s “Myth and the Modern World,” we’ve
explored Joseph Campbell’s assertion that religion serves four major functions in our
individual and/or collective lives. Choose two examples per response paragraph(s), and
correlate them to any of the myths from our Leeming readings.
5 and/or 6. Class Speakers and Huston Smith’s “Six Aspects of Religion”
Choose two examples from our guest speakers’ presentations—that is, two per response
paragraph(s)—and write about the ways in which their respective religious traditions, as
they have explained them, correlate with three of Huston Smith’s six-point framework
about the aspects of religion that constitute both its grandeur and ability to inspire and
motivate, as well as its tendency to corrupt. Refer to your class notes, and/or refer to this
brief online article:
http://citizensofculture.com/2014/05/07/huston-smith-the-six-features-of-religion/
NOTE: in class, we talked about religion’s “speculations” about the unknown meanings,
beginnings, and endings of life, whereas in the above article, the author refers this aspect
of religion as “explanations.”
7 through 10: Leeming, The World of Myth
In his introduction to the first chapter of The World of Myth, David Adams Leeming
asserts that a myth “establishes our reason for being, the source of our significance…To
be in the world is to be a part of the life-defining struggle to create order out of chaos.
The bodies we live in, the chairs we sit in—all in process of decaying—are models of
that struggle and, as such, models of creation” (16).
Choose one myth from one (or all) of the chapters we’ve read thus far—“Myths of
Creation,” “The God as Archetype,” “The Apocalypse,” and “The Pantheons,” and
discuss it with respect to what that myth suggests about humans’ cosmic significance, and
how it might enable one to make some sort of orderly sense out of an essentially chaotic
lifetime. Cite excerpts from the myth that illustrate your points.