For the first time ever, the Mythic Journeys Conference will bring together some of the very best minds in the fields of mythic scholarship, psychology, and art for a weekend of conversation, round table discussions, workshops, performances, and interviews.
The topics will cover a wide spectrum, all related the subject of myth in contemporary life, culture, psychology, and art. All of our guests and speakers are in some way involved in keeping myth alive today, rather than simply remembering it as a quaint reminder of a forgotten age.
The conference will have two segments over a four-day weekend. We will begin with a small gathering, allowing a strictly limited number of attendees to meet and interact with our guests in an intimate and engaging environment. The remaining days will be open to more attendees.
Depth Psychologists use myth to help patients probe the depths of their own minds and the patterns of their lives. Authors bring it out of the forest of long ago and into today's gritty urban streets. Filmmakers, as surely as advertising executives, have created mass machines for developing new mythology. Artists and musicians make us recognize the timeless archetypes in new guises. Now, these people, the very best in their fields, will have a chance to come together and explore.
Artists will talk to psychologists to explore the deep places in the mind where symbols are born. Filmmakers, academics and media experts will discuss creating new myth with today's powerful communication tools. Dancers will work with authors to show how words and movement breathe life and meaning into mythic forms, and keep archetypal patterns relevant even in the jaded information age.
We will craft a warm, community atmosphere and a comfortable, welcoming forum where brilliant and talented people with widely contrasting views, disciplines, backgrounds, and opinions, can come together for common exploration.
While some guests will give talks, others may be interviewed conversationally, as Bill Moyers interviewed Joseph Campbell in The Power of Myth, or they may simply be invited to participate in round table discussions with others from diverse but related disciplines. We'll also have breakout sessions allowing attendees to interact more intimately with our guests.
For example, imagine James Hillman and Robert Johnson discussing myth and archetypal psychology with Robert Bly and Michael Mead. Or listening to Terri Windling, editor of Tor Books' adult fairy tale fiction series, and authors Charles de Lint and Jane Yolen discussing retellings of myths and folktales in contemporary settings with Marion Woodman and Marina Warner. The possibilities for speculative discourse are limitless.
In addition to the programming, we will present evening concerts, a cocktail reception, an art exhibition, theatre, bookstore, and more. In short, we hope to combine the content and resonance of the very best academic conferences with the fun, popular accessibility, and community-building atmosphere of a literary science fiction convention.
The conference will last four days, beginning on a Thursday with an introduction, a dinner and reception, and a concert, followed by three days of conference events. The first two days, the Thursday and Friday, will be strictly limited to around 250 attendees.
The following Saturday and Sunday, the main event days, will be open to a larger number of people, perhaps as many as 2,000. After all, myth belongs to all people-and this is an unprecedented opportunity to give the community a chance to witness so many great minds in one place at one time. We want to be inclusive, reach a wide and diverse audience, and perhaps even introduce some powerful new ideas to the public.
Perhaps most importantly, we want to foster a sense of community. In J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Rivendell, the great house of the elf lord Elrond, boasts a magnificent room called the Hall of Fires. This is a place where the wise masters of lore come together with singers, poets, and storytellers to share knowledge, art, good conversation, and fellowship. We intend to create just such an atmosphere at Mythic Journeys.