Dr. Zirk’s talk is called, “Tackling the Great Divide in American Culture from a Mythological Perspective”
Where logic, reason, and argument fail, mythology provides new possibilities for healing by engaging with individuals using imaginal methods that reveal the deities and/or archetypes at work. Only when we know who is there, can we create relationships that heal the great divide in American culture.
Dr. Zirk conducted a research survey using a mythic questionnaire that collected perspectives on culture, society, and the great challenges of our time. The questionnaire used a combination of free-form and multiple-choice questions that were text and image-based. Then using the methodology of Mythic Amplification on the survey responses, the results were analyzed to identify trends, cultural beliefs, and areas of contention in archetypal motifs.
The mythic artifacts used in the questionnaire are not necessarily grounded in their cultural lineage, but are floating through a multi-cultural, often polytheistic, postmodern world of mix-and-match beliefs and reveal themselves through film, art, fiction, music, and sacred texts. In other words, the responses to the questionnaire were provided by laypeople who used their own knowledge to provide responses to deep questions of identity, “the other,” and the world around them. This often results in cultural appropriation, misunderstandings of cultural mores, and a method of providing mythic responses to the survey questions. However, Dr. Zirk relies on the socio-historic context of the actual mythic figures in the process of Mythic Amplification.
This presentation intends to provide mythologists with methods on using mythic questionnaires in the field of cultural mythology to understand the great divide in American culture and its underpinnings in our mythic perspectives.
About Dr. Zirk
Dr. Zirk earned her doctorate in Mythological Studies with an Emphasis in Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute where her dissertation focused on enhancing well-being in family caregivers using mythological methods. Her research has been presented at the American Academy of Religion Western Region and National Conferences as well as at the Fates and Graces Mythologium — a conference for mythologists. Her article “The Rainbow Gathering and COVID-19” appeared in Communities: Life in Cooperative Culture, Winter 2020. Her novel, Falling From The Moon, came out early last year. Her recent workshops include “Covid-19 and Mythic Monsters;” “Re-Imagining Our Relationship with Mother Earth;” and “Imaginal Mythology and Climate Change.”