Joseph Campbell

Joseph Campbell (New York City, March 26, 1904 - Honolulu, October 30, 1987) was an American professor, writer, and orator best known for his work in the fields of comparative mythology and comparative religion.

Criticism

Soon after Campbell's death, Brendan Gill criticized him in an article, "The Faces of Joseph Campbell," published in the New York Review of Books on September 28, 1989, accusing him of "reactionary" political beliefs. Gill reported that some of Campbell's colleagues at Sarah Lawrence came forward to describe Campbell as bristling at the insistence that Biblical myth was history. A National University professor named Tom Snyder wrote an essay in 1991 entitled "Myth Perceptions: Joseph Campbell's Power of Deceit" http://answers.org/cultsandreligions/campbell.html that accused him of launching a single-minded vendetta against organized religion.

Related Topics:
Brendan Gill - New York Review of Books - September 28, 1989 - Sarah Lawrence - National University - Tom Snyder - Organized religion

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Campbell's scholarship has also come under attack; and the American novelist Kurt Vonnegut satirized Campbell's views as being excessively baroque by offering his interpretation of the monomyth, called the 'In The Hole' theory; loosely defined as "The hero gets into trouble. The hero gets out of trouble."

Related Topics:
Novelist - Kurt Vonnegut

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