COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY AS AN INTRODUCTION TO CROSS-CULTURAL STUDIES

In teaching women one is confronted with different sets of academic demands from those of men. Whereas men generally are preparing for specialized careers, the demands of which determine the order and organization of their studies, women are comparatively free to follow the lead of their own interests. In a women’s college (at least, of the kind in which I have been teaching), there is, so to say, an open-field situation. We do not have required courses; nor do we have examinations. On the other hand, we do have a strict and very demanding system of education by dialogue and discussion. I see every one of my students individually, in conferences, for at least one half-hour every fortnight. This makes it possible to follow the growth, direction, and dynamics of each student’s individual development.

The instructor in such a situation has to be willing not only to give generously of his time but also to participate in the student’s discovery of interests—even to the point, on occasion, of abandoning his own academic plans and point of view. It was in such a fluid environment as this, then, that the course which I am going to describe came into being—in relation to a context of interests not primarily academic but experimental.

During my first two or three years, I taught a survey course in comparative literature, but at the close of the second year, three students came to me, separately, to ask for a course in mythology. Apparently my interest in this subject had become more evident in my teaching than I had supposed. I was excited by the idea and decided to give three separate courses—one to each—the following year, based on three quite different reading lists from three different approaches.

At the end of that year, four students came to me for such a course. I brought them together in one classroom, basing the readings and approach that year on what I had learned the year before. Then the year following, there were seven; and from that time on, this course has been both an established part of our curriculum and one of the great joys of my life. I have given up teaching anything else, and since about 1939, have been busily trimming it here, expanding it there, and keeping it up to date.

The departmental organization of Sarah Lawrence College is somewhat atypical. We do not have strictly separated departments. There is a literature and language faculty, which is the group with which I am officially associated. Since Sarah Lawrence students have generally professed great interest in the arts, we have strong departments in the fields of dance, theater, music, painting, and sculpture. There is, of course, a large and rather aggressive department in social science, which includes, for some reason or other, philosophy. Psychology is strong and important at Sarah Lawrence—particularly in relation to a greatly appreciated nursery school. And finally, there is a faculty of mathematics and natural science.

In describing this course, I shall be dealing with something out of an age that is long past. My observations about this course—antecedent and indifferent as it is to all academic departmentalization—may be of some use after all even to those faced with the problems of an elaborately structured