Dictionary

mythogeography en · NOUN

Etymology

From mytho- + geography.

Meanings

1. (countable, uncountable) The myths and/or folklore associated with a place.
   • These contemporaries, in effect, amount to all peoples of the world known at the time of our author, with the exception of the Indians and the Chinese, knowledge of whom was, curiously, largely confined to the lore of mythogeography and of fantastic ethnology. 1982, ʻAzīz ʻAẓmah, Ibn Khaldūn, an Essay in Reinterpretation, →ISBN, page 9:
   • It constitutes a mythogeography of the ancient world, a fabulous bestiary, a botanical thesaurus, a dictionary of natural science, a catalog of geological substances and rare jewels, a guide to portents and omens, a register of medical ailments, an apothecary's handbook, and a medley of folkloric and ethnological material... 1994 May, Anne M. Birrell, “Studies on Chinese myth since 1970: An appraisal, part 1”, in History of religions, volume 33, number 4:
   • As a result, the perceived differences in economic systems and domestic institutions—as well as the moral characteristics associated with these systems and institutions—became “laminated onto the landscape” of the South, creating a “mythogeography” to be dissected and disseminated by Northerners made mobile by the war. 2012, Kaci Nash, " On our way for the Sunny South, land of Chivalry": Northern Imperial Attitudes in the Civil War South: MA Thesis, University of Nebraska-Lincoln:
   • The mythogeographies of Australian Aborigines, for example, recount the peregrinations of founding ancestors and civilizing heroes, who leave peoples, languages, and cultures in their wake (Berndt and Berndt 1970, 15-29). 1987, Michael J. Sallnow, Pilgrims of the Andes, page 11:
2. (countable, uncountable) The creation of an assemblage of interpretations about a place based on various symbols, ideas, stories, and patterns that it evokes.
   • The contrast between a single, monolithic meaning or interpretation and multiple perceptions of an event is similar to the distinction between mythogeography and the conventional presentation of 'heritage'. 2015, Victoria Hunter, Moving Sites: Investigating Site-Specific Dance Performance, →ISBN, page 326:
   • He specialises in creating performances related to walking, site-specificity, mythogeographies and countertourism. 2015, Victoria Carrington, Jennifer Rowsell, Esther Priyadharshini, Generation Z: Zombies, Popular Culture and Educating Youth, →ISBN, page xi:
   • This paper considers the exploration of, and performance on, a single street in Exeter, UK, as guided by an idea of 'mythogeography' and a determination to address a place as a multiplicity of meanings, objects, accretions, rhythms and exceptions. 2014, Kathleen Gallagher, Jonothan Neelands, Drama and Theatre in Urban Contexts, →ISBN, page 115:
   • To get at these different aspects of place and space, mythogeography draws on all kinds of 'low theory'; amateur and poetic assembling into manifestos of things I have learned (mostly from others) while out on the road. 2014, Phil Smith, On Walking: A guide to going beyond wandering around looking at stuff, →ISBN:

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