Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Tara Moore/Getty Images. “Guilty Pleasures” by Laura Miller, August 2019. Int. Eight years ago when I was writing Harry Potter fanfiction (because a 12 year old can write better than a TERF), Serial took the podcast world by storm with the idea that they will tell one story — a true story — over the course of a season .   While it wasn’t the first true crime podcast, their examination of a murder that occurred before I was born introduced many to the genre, and with Adnan Syed’s conviction being vacated on September 20th, 2022, more have witnessed the impact of true crime. But as we all know, eyewitness testimony isn’t reliable…which means we must ask, does this slay? To translate for those among us who aren’t Gen Z, is this ethical? This genre also exists in formats other than podcasts. Please tell me I’m not the only one addicted to Investigation Discovery documentaries…if only true crime trivia was a major! I take comfort in the fact that Ch...

     Our group, along with every other group in our Roman Myths class, was given the task to choose one myth or character from the books The Aeneid or Metamorphoses.  We were to explore the many different instances and representations of that myth across different contexts. While reading Ovid’s Metamorphoses , we came across one origin story of the horn of plenty that was a result of a fight between Hercules and Achelous. Since none of us had ever heard of that story, we thought it would be interesting to explore more interpretations and instances of the cornucopia. The horn of plenty is a symbol that represents abundance, fertility, and fortune in many different cultures. Its roots go back to early Greek and Roman mythology, but its application and representation are still around today. Within this blog post, we want to explore the many different contexts in which the cornucopia has appeared throughout time and see how its meaning and symbolism is similar i...

The Hero's Quest By: Ally Banks, Tatum Jelleberg, and Effy Widdifield Introduction: In myths and legends across the world, a universal story structure can be seen time and time again. While the characters and details of their journey will be unique to each story, the overarching narrative that a Hero's Quest framing provides is a way for the main character to achieve a daunting goal while building experience and proving their strength along the way. The details of each quest and elements of the myths that endure over time are a product of their cultures, not only of when the myth was created but when variations are made to the myth.  This blog post was created as an assignment for ENGL 211 Ancient Literature with the purpose of identifying different versions of one myth/mythological character in different cultures and times. Our group used the character type of Hercules to find other heroes with lengthy and impressive reputations from ancient Mesopotamia to 20th century America...

The Myth of Icarus The Myth of Icarus By Kenzie Kolle, Denise Howie, Brooklyn Elwood, and Keilan Caton | ENGL 211 —————————————————————————————— Table of Contents Introduction Icarus Around the World Icarus in Art Icarus in Poetry Icarus in Music Icarus in Business Icarus in Pop Culture Icarus in Other Media About the Authors —————————————————————————————— Introduction For Ancient Literature 211, our group was tasked with finding a myth from one of our primary texts and creating a blog post detailing how that myth changes in different historical contexts. We chose to focus on the story of Icarus, a widely told story all across the globe. In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, written around 8 AD, we learn the tale of Daedalus and Icarus, a father and son imprisoned in a tower. The father, Daedalus, is an inventor and fashions wings made of leather straps, stray bird feathe...

      Many cultures have some sort of story of a great flood. With our current technology, we can see evidence all around the world of there actually being a historical great flood. With this common history, however, there are still so many differences between the exact details of these flood myths. These variations reflect the culture, geography, and religion of the group that they belong to, and we can learn quite a bit about a culture based on their literature and/or religion involving a great flood.                                                                                                               Deucalion and Pyrrha, printed c. 1690...

Testing the Waters of the Historically Popular Deluge Myths “The wolf swims among the sheep, the tawny lion and the tiger both are carried helplessly upon the waves ... Now unrestrained, the sea conceals the hills, and strange new waves beat at the mountaintops; the greater part are drowned beneath the waves, while those spared drowning perish of starvation.” —Ovid, Metamorphoses (Book 1, lines 420-430) Introduction:           With a massive fire consuming much of Australia, murder hornets wreaking havoc, and a global pandemic caused by an infected bat, it’s only natural to question what new disaster Mother Nature might throw our way. In recent politics, climate change and its many causes have come into the spotlight—some of which being more intense storms and the rising sea level. Assuming that the crazy ride of 2020 has more in store for the human race, a perfect example of, “what else could go massively wrong?”, can be found in the Greco-Roman myth of...