Kindly note that this lecture had to be cancelled for health reasons.

Paul Connerton is a scholar in the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge, and author of a number of books, among them How Societies Remember (Cambridge University Press, 1989), How Modernity Forgets (Cambridge University Press, 2009) and The Spirit of Mourning (Cambridge University Press, 2011).

In his JJ Bachofen Lecture called "The Longevity of Myth", he will speak about the interest in Greek myth as shown by great writers such as Freud, Joyce and Thomas Mann despite the advances in scientific investigation. The lecture will be built around two contrasting interpretations: a conceptual one opposing Ernst Cassirer against Adorno and Horkheimer, and a linguistic one opposing Milman Parry against Hans Blumenberg. It concludes by urging the unjustly neglected significance of the great French Jesuit anthropologist Marcel Jousse on the impact of rhythm in mythic transmission.

Dr. Connerton's lecture takes place on May 18, 2018 at the Regenzzimmer 111, Kollegienhaus, Petersplatz 1, 4001 Basel at 5:30 pm. Admission to the event is free and following it there will be an Apéro.

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The JJ Bachofen Lecture Series

The lecture is part of an annual lecture series which follows the tradition of the important anthropological thinker Johann Jakob Bachofen to question existing discourses from scratch. In his main work Mother Right, he challenged gender relations and broke with the established consensus. The questions that Basel-born Bachofen asked are still relevant to this day, even though the way they are answered has changed. Correspondingly, the annual J.J. Bachofen Lecture asks fundamental questions of Ethnology anew.

Previous lectures are published and can be accessed for free here.