I Believe in America

Titus & Paul Cantor talk about David Milch's most famous achievement, Deadwood--the movie & the TV show both: A lawless, but orderly vision of America. An America with commerce but without religion, with freedom but without equality--what kind of community & what kind of justice is possible in such a situation? Podcast

Titus & Paul Cantor discuss Frankenstein on its 200th an.--the novel, its history on the stage in the 19th c., & various movie adaptations in the 20th c. We talk about the genius of Mary Shelley & the rarity of a new myth being created by a single person under the historical spotlight! We talk about Enlightenment, Romantic poetry, & how new technologies of communication provoke nostalgic storytelling. Podcast

The introductory lecture in Prof. Cantor’s course “Myths of Creation.” It explains the importance of creation myths in Western civilization; it lays out the classical and biblical traditions of creation; and outlines the readings in the course and its focus on the Romantic creation myth, which seeks to overturn in gnostic fashion the values of traditional creation myths. Lecture

The ancient Greek accounts of the creation differ greatly from the one in the Bible. In his Theogony, Hesiod produces a polytheistic account of the origin of the world. Lecture

Milton’s Paradise Lost as an attempt to synthesize the Biblical and classical accounts of the Creation. Lecture