Crash Course recently launched a series about mythology. Here, we take a little critical look at the books they relied (maybe too heavily) on, especially in regard to two african creation myths, from the Kono people of Guinea and the Bushongo people of Congo.
What went wrong exactly? [Timestamps and link to the script below]
00:00 Introduction
00:45 Part One : What Crash Course Copied In Leeming's Book
11:00 Part Two : The Kono Myth of Alatangana and Death
19:00 Part Three : The Bushongo Tale of Mbumba's Creation
28:21 Part Four : A Reasonable Doubt about the Initial Doubt
34:08 Conclusion : The Problem With Bite-Sized Mythology
41:31 Credits share subscribe etc.
Crash Course Mythology episodes used :
- CCM #1 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeX6CX5LEj0
- CCM #2 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eVFgfQ2694
- CCM #3 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fHDIiqLz9w
TEXT OF THIS EPISODE, WITH FOOTNOTES AND LINKS TO REFERENCES ETC : [on Google Docs]
[EDIT :] Very thankful to Andrew from Religion From Breakfast for mentioning this video in his review of Crash Course Mythology.
Religion for breakfast on youtube.
Of course, the video was written and edited when only a handful of episodes were out, so you can see me guess at what it will entail. I even supposed that it was entirely possible that the omissions were made on purpose, to come back to it later and say to the audience : « gotcha, here is the context of this myth ».
I have to say that I could make another video about their video on the Holy Grail ? I think they completely missed the mark about what happens in Le Conte du Graal by Chrétien de Troyes, as I’ve said in this comment.
I think this is because they relied on Thury&Devinney but I have not been able yet to check the fourth edition where the arthurian chapter was added.
BIBLIOGRAPHY :
(only the most cited works, for the rest, check the script)
HAMILTON, Virginia,
HOLAS, Bohumil Théophile
- Échantillons du folklore Kono, 195?
- Le Culte de Zié, 1955
- Contes Kono, 1975.
LEEMING, David,
- The World of Myth, 1992. (I mistakenly give 1996 as a date, while I used the 1992 edition) [Google Books]
TORDAY :
- Les Bushongos, 1910. [on Gallica]
- On the trail of the Bushongo, 1925. [on archive.org]
VANSINA, Jan,
- Being Colonized, The Kuba Experience in rural Congo, 2010.
ARTICLES etc.
- Plagiarism examples https://www.theguardian.com/education/2007/oct/30/highereducation.uk
- http://time.com/4126853/south-korea-professors-books-plagiarism-authors-publishers/
- Christina Wilkie’s tweet.
- Bryan Logan, « Neil Gorsuch is accused of plagiarism […] », Business Insider (5 apr 2017)
- Andrew Chesnut, « Creative Writing Professor Lifts My Santa Muerte Research in CNN Trailer », HuffPost (20 mar 2017)
- TIME article on the 800 wives (1962)
PICTURES
- Drawings for the Kono creation story are by Togba Traoré Moloumou and found in Holas 1975.
- « Did I Plagiarize » Infographic
- Bas Relief of Marcus Aurelius
- Picture of Lévi-Strauss.
- Photo by João Silas https://unsplash.com/photos/qEL9_TmC1nY
- Photo by Eli Francis https://unsplash.com/photos/_M-DrbiNFa4
MOVIES :
- « They Called It White Man’s Burden » (1956, archive.org)
- Footage from 1915 Guinea
- German airplane factory (archive.org)
.JPG){kind=link}