University Libraries Promotion and Tenure Recognition

This short and polemical book, first published in French as L'invention de la mythologie in 1981, redefines the modern study of ancient myth and mythology by questioning, sometimes daringly, the foundational assumptions of the discipline. Reading this work for the first time caused me to recalibrate my own thinking about ancient myth in fundamental ways. Detienne's clear call for an understanding of mythic discourse within the framework in which it was created and his censure of those who would do otherwise are always present in my mind as I read, and write about, the myths of the ancient Greeks and Romans.