Myth by Santiago Guillén Rozo
Guest: Santiago Guillén Rozo
Recorded : Monday 18th May, 2026, online.
Published : Tuesday 26th May, 2026.
Recording language: English
Keywords
myth; semiotics; mythology; media discourse; ideology; ecological discourse; artificial intelligence; transhumanism; science fiction; digital culture; rhetoric; institutions; collective identity; religion; ritual; discourse analysis; symbolic systems; political semiotics; systems of meaning and value
Summary
In this episode of Sign(e)s, Sophia speaks with semiotician and linguist Santiago Guillén Rozo about his ambitious new book Sémiotique du mythe — a ten-year research project tracing theories of myth from Ferdinand de Saussure and Claude Lévi-Strauss to Roland Barthes, Ernst Cassirer, Bruno Latour, and beyond. The conversation moves from Barthes’ Mythologies and contemporary media discourse to ecological narratives such as Gaia theory, political symbolism, AI anxiety, transhumanism, and science fiction as the mythology of technological modernity. A rich discussion on semiotics, language, ideology, and the enduring human need to narrate the abyss.
Sommaire
Dans cet épisode de Sign(e)s, Sophia reçoit le sémioticien et linguiste Santiago Guillén Rozo pour parler de son ambitieux ouvrage Sémiotique du mythe — un projet de recherche de dix ans retraçant les théories du mythe, de Ferdinand de Saussure et Claude Lévi-Strauss à Roland Barthes, Ernst Cassirer, Bruno Latour, et bien au-delà. La conversation traverse les Mythologies de Barthes, les discours médiatiques contemporains, les récits écologiques comme l’hypothèse Gaïa, le symbolisme politique, les angoisses liées à l’IA, le transhumanisme, ainsi que la science-fiction envisagée comme mythologie de la modernité technologique. Une discussion foisonnante sur la sémiotique, le langage, l’idéologie et le besoin profondément humain de raconter l’abîme.
Chapters (machine generated)
00:00 Introduction to semiotics and myth
01:29 Myth as a semiotic object
04:26 Exploring surface and profound myths
09:41 The role of myth in institutions
17:52 Religion and contemporary myths
19:30 The pragmatic approach to belief
20:13 Confronting the unknown: the role of myth
21:17 Contemporary myths and environmental crisis
22:10 Gaia hypothesis: science meets myth
24:31 Myth as a rhetorical tool in science
27:19 The social function of myths
29:39 Myth and accessibility in science communication
30:54 Myth in the age of digital systems
32:30 Critique of evolutionary views on myth
34:23 Myth in the context of environmental and technological unknowns
36:29 Science fiction: a modern mythology
38:11 The comprehensive study of myth
Santiago GUILLÉN ROZO holds a PhD in Language Sciences and Semiotics from Université Lumière Lyon 2. Since 2024, he has been a fixed-term lecturer in Language Sciences and Semiotics at the LESLA Faculty (Letters, Languages, Linguistics and Arts) of Université Lumière Lyon 2. He has been teaching at university level since 2015. He has taught, among other subjects, courses in semiotics, pragmatics, discourse analysis, semantics and general linguistics.
His book Sémiotique du mythe was published in 2026 by Classiques Garnier in the “Sémiotiques” series, edited by Astrid Guillaume, Senior Lecturer with HDR at Sorbonne Université (https://dx.doi.org/10.48611/isbn.978-2-406-18801-8).
He was a member of the editorial board of the international scientific journal Les Cahiers de Sémiotiques des Cultures between 2023 and 2025. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the French Semiotics Association (Association Française de Sémiotique).
He is multilingual: He speaks French, English, Spanish and Portuguese, and he is currently learning German, Italian and Ancient Greek. He is the author of conference papers in French, English and Spanish presented at international conferences and congresses. He has taught courses in Language Sciences and Semiotics in French, English, and Spanish at university level, and he was admitted in 2015 to the University College London.
He also served as a Spanish language tutor within the international MINERVE programme, which brings together the following universities: Université Lumière Lyon 2 (France), Goethe Universität Frankfurt am Main (Germany), Universitat de Barcelona (Spain), and Università degli Studi di Bergamo (Italy).
Book details :
Santiago GUILLÉN, Sémiotique du mythe, Classiques Garnier, collection « Sémiotiques » dirigée par Astrid Guillaume, maître de conférences avec HDR à Sorbonne Université, 2026. ⟨10.48611/isbn.978-2-406-18801-8⟩
https://classiques-garnier.com/semiotique-du-mythe.html
Résumé : Le mythe peut être appréhendé comme notion et forme discursive en sciences du langage et en sémiotique. Des lectures critiques (1858-2025) de courants variés : linguistique (Bréal, Saussure), sémiotique (Jakobson, Cassirer, Greimas), histoire des religions (Frazer, Müller, Dumézil, Eliade, Vernant), anthropologie (Lévi-Strauss, Leenhardt, Ingold, Moiseff), philosophie (Platon, Blumenberg) permettent de proposer des cadres théoriques et méthodologiques pour étudier les mythes contemporains dans des domaines différents comme la science, l’économie ou la philosophie.
Abstract: Myth may be approached both as a concept and as a discursive form within the fields of language sciences and semiotics. Critical readings (1858–2025) drawn from diverse intellectual traditions—linguistics (Bréal, Saussure), semiotics (Jakobson, Cassirer, Greimas), the history of religions (Frazer, Müller, Dumézil, Eliade, Vernant), anthropology (Lévi-Strauss, Leenhardt, Ingold, Moiseff), and philosophy (Plato, Blumenberg)—make it possible to propose theoretical and methodological frameworks for the study of contemporary myths in various domains such as science, economics, and philosophy.
ISBN : 978-2-406-18801-8
Nombre de pages : 790
Personal professional page : https://icar.cnrs.fr/membre/sguillen/
Linkedin : www.linkedin.com/in/santiago-guillén-rozo-ph-d-194ba2ab
Transcript (machine generated)
Sophia (00:05)
For this ninth episode of Sign(e)s I'm delighted to welcome Santiago Guillen Rozo. Santiago holds a PhD in language sciences and semiotics from the Université Lumière Lyon 2, where he currently teaches semiotics, discourse analysis, pragmatics, semantics, and general linguistics. He is the author of the recent book, Semiotique du Mythe, published by
Classiques Garnier in the semiotic series and serves on the board of directors of the French Semiotics Association.
Sophia Burnett (00:44)
I'm delighted today to receive you, Santiago. today you're going to talk object myth
as a semiotic, right? So here we have the cover of your book, La semiotique du mythe.
Before we begin though, many listeners might instinctively think of the semiotic object as something relatively tangible or perceptible, like an image or a text or a gesture, like we've discussed in previous episodes. But myth seems so much more abstract and more diffuse. So just to ease us in, please.
How can something as intangible as myth become a semiotic object?
Santiago GUILLÉN ROZO (01:29)
Yeah, thank you so much for inviting me. I'm very glad to be here today with you to discuss this work on my book, Sémiotique du Myth. So yeah, that is a very good question. How can it become a semiotic object? Well, in reality, myth has always been studied in linguistics and semiotics. Most of the most brilliant linguistics and semioticians did study myth. For example, Ferdinand de Saussure, who was the...
the founder of semiology in Europe. And he studied myth also. He was studying linguistics, of course, but also myth. And before him was Michel Brial, who was his teacher at Paris. And many other semioticians and linguistics such as Grébens, Jakobson, Claude Lévi-Strauss also.
who was very inspired by the linguistics, founded the structuralism with Cassidere also, was also a semiotician, philosopher and semiotician. Semitician we can say because he was developing the works of Ferdinand de Saussure. so, yes, many of the greatest linguists and semioticians did study myth. Peirce didn't do it, but the other ones, most of the other ones did it.
And so in my book, I study all of those works from 1858 to 2025. Then I propose my own methodology in order to study myth as in all the French you say, plan d'immanance or you would say all the imanence planes. I don't know how you would say that. That's the notion of Jacques Fontanille in Pratique Sémiotique in 2008.
And then I analyze contemporary myth in different discourses, philosophy, science, politics, economics and mediatic discourse. But in order to answer your question, so myth can be, as I was saying, myth can be deployed in all the plans d'immanence. I don't know how you say that, but it can be a sign.
It can be a text, can be incarnated in an object, it can take place inside of a practice, inside of a strategy, and inside of a way of life, Lebensform, that is the notion from Wittgenstein. So actually, conceived a form symbolique, symbolic form, that is the notion from Cassirer
For Cassirer there were several symbolic forms. There was verbal language, science, art, but also myth. And what that means, it means two things. means that myth exists in every culture, such as verbal language and science and art. But also it means that it can be deployed. It can be a sign. It can be a system of meaning and value. It can be an object. It can be a practice.
So yeah, myth exists in all the aspects of culture and I think it exists in all cultures and even in our contemporary culture.
And so it can be studied as a semiotic object, course.
Sophia Burnett (04:24)
Yeah.
Yeah, fantastic. Yeah, that's clearer. mean, 'plan d'immanance' apparently, is not translated. from Deleuze. Yeah. Yeah, that does make sense that these people all studied the myth. There's a very famous one, it's Mythologie.
Santiago GUILLÉN ROZO (04:33)
Mm-hmm.
Sophia Burnett (04:45)
I think a lot of people who aren't even semioticians maybe have come across that work.
Santiago GUILLÉN ROZO (04:44)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, super soon.
Sophia Burnett (04:52)
So his description of myth would be a second-order semiological system. Is that something that your book sort of transgresses or pushes back on beyond simple bourgeois mystification?
Santiago GUILLÉN ROZO (05:08)
Yeah, yeah, and so just in order to say something about the plan d'immanance the idea of plan d'immanance is that there is the the idea that ⁓ Minimal units can become higher units in different planes of semiotic level So you have the sign the sign can become a text the text can be incarnated in an object the object can take place in a practice Inside of a strategy inside of a way of life
Sophia Burnett (05:13)
Hmm.
Santiago GUILLÉN ROZO (05:35)
And each plane has its own epistemology. So one to study practice, comes from pragmatics, one to study text, and it comes from linguistics and the symmetry of text, and so on. And yes, for answer your questions, yes, so Roland Barthes writes the Mythologie. It's in 1957 that is published. And the idea behind the book of Roland Barthes is, Umberto Eco has a
has a paper that was published in Spanish in a journal that is called the Signis in Spanish and talking about myth and he was talking about Barthes and he was he was very critic about Greimas and he was very kind to Barthes and what I like about that is that he explains the idea behind
the mythology of Roland Barthes that as you said, it is very well known beyond the semiotic sphere and academics. when Roland Barthes talks about mythology, as you say, it's a second system, second semiologic system. His idea is that mainly mediatic discourse can transform some figures, some objects,
into myths but he was talking about in a very ironic way because he was comparing the myths from the Greek culture to ancient Greece and he was comparing it
to the media discourses of his time, the 1950s in France and in Europe. And so he was saying, look, this is the myths that we have today, compare it to the myths that we have in the ancient Greece. And so for me, when I analyze Barthes, I talk what Barthes was calling mythology, I call it surface myths.
why I call it surface myth and I oppose it to what I call profound myth. So surface myth for me, in my book, I define it as a myth but only in the plane of expression, is the signifiant, the So that means it's a discourse that wants to copy myth but it has not the profound, it's not as profound as
the myths from ancient Greece, for example, who have a conceptual, they are very profound conceptually. And so I oppose these two kinds of myth. And what I do in my book is obviously myth has been studied by many, many scholars in many, disciplines. So what I try to do is to see what are the compatibilities between all these definitions. Because for example, ⁓ when Roland Barthes
writes Mythologie in 1957. Then you have the books by Claude Lévi-Strauss that are called Mythologiques. And for me that is an ironic response from Lévi-Strauss to Roland Barthes in order to say that
Levi-Strauss has another way of defining myth. For him myth are more systems of meaning and value. So mythologies.
And yeah, just in order to develop on that idea, I try, as I was saying, to compare all the different definitions of myth. And I try to see if we can connect all of those definitions. For me, we can do it because we can place those definitions in the different plan d'immanance, it's in the different semiotic planes. So what Roland Barthes calls a myth, it's in the plane of text.
what Klobhavish draws called myth and especially mythologic in his work mythologic is in the plane of system of meaning and value.
And yeah, in order to develop on that, and also you can, there are other definitions of myth. So example for Levi-Strauss also myth can be analyzed as a is the minimal unit of myth.
and you also have other definitions of myth so myth as a practice there will be a rite we call in french a rite or a cult so I try to analyze I do analyze all that in my book
I
Sophia Burnett (09:42)
so this idea of second order with Barthes know, perhaps just like, I don't want you to dumb down your research, but just the second order semiological system. So the way that people have just, you know, people who perhaps are not semioticians access
the meaning of mythologies of myths is through the perceptual, through these objects, these tangible productions that remain in the world. Now, how do some other approaches to the semiotic of myths
differ from
from the access via the objects, as it were.
Santiago GUILLÉN ROZO (10:23)
Yeah, what is the difference between a standard approach to objects to the mythic, to approach to mythic objects?
Sophia Burnett (10:32)
Yeah, to bring it to just to pop culture very briefly, because I think it's a way in for people, you know, there's the new version of The Odyssey by Nolan, by Christopher Nolan, and his choice of representing Helen
Santiago GUILLÉN ROZO (10:38)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sophia Burnett (10:52)
using a black actress, Lupita Nyong'o. that's this...
Is that when the second order semiological system is not successful, for example, in the sense that there are people who are detracting from these filmographic choices about the depiction of Helen.
Where does that sit in perhaps Barthes construction of myth as a semiological system? If we could attach it to something that people might be able to grasp more easily, you know, these representations in the media.
Santiago GUILLÉN ROZO (11:33)
Yes, of course. the, in the Barthes so Barthes proposes a visual representation in order to explain the way that myths are created in contemporary culture. So specifically in media discourse or mainly through media discourse. And so his, his idea is that you have a sign, you have a first sign and that sign is reinterpreted as just being a signi
signified a signifiant and then that sign becomes the signifiant, the signified to a new sign. So you just, take one sign that already exists and then you reanalyze it and you give it another signifier that means another concept and so you transform it a little. That is the idea of Barthes he talks about meta language for met and actually
Actually, the visual representation that Barthes proposes, my research found that was already proposed by someone else It is the idea that you have a meta-language. Myth for him is a meta-language, so something that comes after something else, a sign that already exists. And this idea about re-enunciations of myth. So obviously every text is
has some values, it's axiological. For Greimas there is a difference between axiological and ideological, but the idea is that through text you are always communicating values. And so in the re-enunciation of myth, you have an axiological part. So you have new values that are proposed by new cultures and obviously cultures change during time.
So which generation proposes the values? And obviously there's a confrontation from the people who who like those values, the person who don't like it, or just the fact that you are changing some elements, some figurative elements of the original text. So yeah, I can understand that there is a controversy about that. And the other thing is that myth can be...
Myth is very interesting because it can be used in two ways. That's why I say in my book, several ways, but this specific case in two ways, ⁓ myth can be used to found institutions. So that is the work of Georges Dumézil who was a historian of religion. And his main idea was that mythologies were the way to found new institutions.
For example, he was studying Indo-European cultures, also non Indo-European cultures, but mainly Indo-Europeans in the first part of his work. And Jimézil says that in Indo-European culture, you have three functions, what he called three functions, the priests, the warriors, and the people who work the...
the laborer the paysan you would say in French I forget the word the the people who were the peasants that is thanks so much so the laborers so I have the priests the warriors and the laborers and the idea is that you have that in mythological text but the idea is that those texts were used to found institutions so
Sophia Burnett (14:16)
Peasants
or the laborers, I suppose. Yeah.
Santiago GUILLÉN ROZO (14:33)
In all the Indo-European societies, have the three distinctions of social classes. And from Dumézil the origin of that is mythological texts and there is a relation between mythological texts and the organization of society. So myth can be used to found institutions, but also myth can be used to destroy institutions, to deconstruct institutions. And yeah, so it can be used for both.
Well, thanks.
Sophia Burnett (15:00)
Yes, so that means that the objects that represent the myths in the tangible world can be reinscribed with alternative meanings at any moment. Yeah.
Santiago GUILLÉN ROZO (15:12)
Yes, of course. Yeah, obviously
meaning is always changing. don't have the... so, you don't have the idea that meaning will stay the same because meaning depends on the interpretation. So, it always changes. Of course, the meaning depends on the interpreter for Peirce So, yeah, meaning always changes and that's the idea. Also, you have the same myth, but new generations are going to interpret in different ways. Of course, they're going to appropriate it.
have some kind of appropriation of myths and re-enunciation of myths.
Sophia Burnett (15:43)
I suppose myth as its narrative, essentially, isn't it myth? Its narrative with the pretext of a fictional narrative with the pretext of a real tangible origin, authentic sort of historical value.
That's to me what myth is. So yes, it's really interesting listening to you say about this, you know, the priests, warrior and laborer, how powerful myth can be in the creation of institutions. That is...
Are there any examples of such institutions that you could perhaps share?
Santiago GUILLÉN ROZO (16:20)
Yeah, of course, in my book, study several cases of that several examples. but obviously
there's something that is that I found very interesting about the reflection about institutions. There is a book by Mary Douglas that is called How Institutions Think.
I was asking myself in the book how myth thinks and what is the relation between myth and institutions.
And yeah, normally what what Mary Douglas says in her book, one of the things she says is that institutions always try to say that they're
that their base is in nature, that they're justified by nature. So for example, why do you do that? Because it's natural. So institutions tend to justify its existence by referring to nature, nature laws. So that happens a lot with institutions, but in some cases you cannot use nature. You have to use something that is over nature.
say supernatural in French so overnatured, so something that is fantastic supernatural correct supernatural supernatural supernatural and that's where myth enters and when you can't use a natural basis in order to justify institutions you use a supernatural basis and that's what myth comes into into play
Sophia Burnett (17:21)
supernatural.
Hmm.
Santiago GUILLÉN ROZO (17:38)
And obviously what we call myth is just the religions of other cultures, of polytheist religions of other cultures, or just archaic, ⁓ etap, archaic struts of our own culture.
Sophia Burnett (17:38)
Excellent.
Mmm.
Yeah, I mean, I suppose with Western culture being quite polarized now, have you?
What is the role of religion today in the creation or maintaining of myths? you think that is shifting?
Is it happening on such a long time scale that it's extremely difficult to have any kind of opinion on those sorts of things?
Santiago GUILLÉN ROZO (18:16)
Well, in my book, you see the works of Jean-François Lyotard. Jean-François Lyotard was talking about great narrations, grand récit, great histories. And for him, he was talking about post-modernity. For him, post-modernity is the fact that there is not a big narration. And the characteristic of a big narration, a big story is that ⁓
you have a meaning of value, a ⁓ system of value, an axiology that is defined. so, yeah, for him there was no system of value that was defined because for him, well, there are several big narrations. One, was the Enlightenment in 18th century.
But yes, we can ask ourselves if today we have something like that that unifies us all or not. Yeah, we can ask ourselves that question. Something that I found interesting in my book about religion and mythology, well, there are...
The thing that they have in common, obviously we can find differences, but the thing that they have in common is what in French you talk about modalité, modality, it's the epistemic modality. So that would be the fact of believing in something or knowing something.
and
And so in a pragmatic way of view, we would ask about not deontological question if God exists or the gods exist, but what are the practical effects of the fact that someone believes in something, in the way that he acts, that is the way of William James studies religion.
And yeah, what I found interesting about that is the following. Hans Blumeberg, was a German philosopher, he says that there is never a final winning of the consciousness in relation to, in French you say the abyss. So you never win in face of the abyss, something like that. The conscious.
Sophia Burnett (19:50)
So...
Santiago GUILLÉN ROZO (20:13)
the consciousness will never win in face of the abyss. So the idea is that human being has always something that he cannot know, something that is on a better mind, something that he cannot know. There is always an area that we don't know about. For example, what is going to happen after we die or maybe the origins of life or that kind of questions.
So myth is one possible response to that. You have other responses, but myth is a possible response to that in order to respond to confront what is unknown, to confront the unknown. so that's interesting for me because yeah, correct. that is interesting because it justifies the fact that myth continues to exist.
Sophia Burnett (20:50)
Hmm. Yeah. And to appropriate it. Sorry. Yeah.
Santiago GUILLÉN ROZO (21:00)
Myth will always exist because the unknown will always exist. So myth is always a possibility. So that's why in my book I study contemporary myths, uses of contemporary myths. For example, in relation to environmental crisis or other aspects.
Sophia Burnett (21:05)
Hmm.
Okay, so just for the audience who perhaps hasn't read your book, and just say your book is in French. So, especially for the readers who don't speak French, if you could give us an example of ecologically based myths in contemporary culture.
Santiago GUILLÉN ROZO (21:25)
It is.
Yes, of course. the first I would love to translate my book, so I hope I will do it soon to translate it to English.
Sophia Burnett (21:44)
Good, good, yes.
Santiago GUILLÉN ROZO (21:46)
And yeah, well, in relation to ecological crisis, I studied the way that myth is used in science, in contemporary science. So I study both natural sciences and cultural sciences, with the difference in German. So the natural science, I study the way that James Lovelock uses the figure of Gaia.
So James Lovelock is an engineer from his British and he made these hypotheses that he called Gaia, Gaia hypothesis. And did he do it? Because he was reflecting about the relation between geosphere and biosphere and his idea is that geosphere and biosphere
have complex relationships and that they generate a new system and this new system, its particularity is that it tries to, he tends to auto-regulate itself and so he named this system Gaia. Why he named it Gaia? Because he was friends with William Golding,
the author from Lord of the Flies. And so he proposed this title Gaia. So Gaia is the goddess of Earth for the Greeks. It's called Gaia. So that is the Gaia hypothesis. So it was very criticized. He worked with some researchers that had good reputation in natural sciences, such as Lynn Margulis.
but also ⁓ he was very criticized in the scientific sphere because they said that he was attributing some intention to the earth, like the earth was a human being or had some intentionality. James Lovelick said that he didn't, that he was thinking about Gaia as a system such as a thermostat that auto-regulates itself.
But he was very criticized. So I studied that and I also studied the work of Bruno Latour. Bruno Latour is a sociologist in France. He first studied the sociology of science. So he was interested about how science is created. And he applied sociological and anthropological
methodologies in order to study some science laboratories in the United States in order to see how science is created. And so he was also talking about Gaia, Gaia in his work, because he was developing the works of James Lovelock, but in the domain of social sciences and humanities. So what Bruno Latour says, so in my book, I asked myself why
science is invoking myth, why science is using myth today in the context of environmental crisis. So my hypothesis was that when science uses myth, it's for epistemological reasons. what do I mean about that? Because myth allows science to reflect, to have, yeah, to reflect.
on something that science has not yet the answer. So maybe myth can inspire science about something that science cannot yet explain. That was my hypothesis. But then when I analyze the work of Bruno Latour, I think that is, well, I say that is not for epistemological reasons, but mostly for rhetoric reasons. Why do I say that? Because the figure of Gaia doesn't allow Bruno Latour to think
beyond what science could allow him because he could use another concept. There is the concept of "biogée" for example, proposed by Michel Serres, that is almost the same. But he uses the almost the same as this idea that the Earth is a complex system. But he uses the figure of Gaia. So why? Because I talk about two notions, three notions that I take from ancient Greece.
the notions of Phoibos, Thambos, and again I use Mutos. So what is that? Phoibos for the ancient Greek is the fear of nature, the fear of nature. So you have nature, have fear, that is Phoibos. And that is the case today with the environmental crisis, when you have all this natural phenomena that people are confronted to.
the fires etc on the the on the environmental phenomena so that is phoibos but there is the this other concept of thambos or the greek thambos is the fear of of divinity of religion figures of divinity so for me Bruno Latour uses gaia in order to transform the phoibos into thambos it means that
he sees that the fear of nature is not enough to make people act for the environment. So he says maybe with the use of mythological creatures and religion we have a religious fear that may make people act. So that is the first thing I said, my first analysis about Bruno Latour's work.
And the other one is the notion of genaios mutos. There is a concept developed by Plato and Plato says that myth can have a function. That means that myth can serve society in general. So that is the way that I see for the work that myth, it's
It's used for rhetoric purposes, but in order to serve society, in order to make people act for the environmental crisis, against the environmental crisis. Yeah, and also another thing that I say about Bruno Latour. Bruno Latour says that we have to... He was engaged for the environment, He says in his words that we have to create
the Le peuple de Gaia, so the community of Gaia or the community of Gaia, something like that. A group of persons that have the same interests and that going to act in order to preserve the environment. So myth is also used as a ⁓ totem, a totem figure. And a totem figure is a symbol, a symbol that is used
to give an identity to a community and to make that community function and to join people into our community.
Sophia Burnett (28:13)
Yeah.
And like you said, to give this totem can give, I mean, that's a wonderful explanation. I really enjoyed that explanation of your hypothesis of, you know, of the rhetorical response, not an epistemological one, opposing Phoibos and Thanbos Because, you have the
the collective and the collective able to pin their imaginary upon a singular object of myth. You know, that's very useful and very powerful tool in the, not just the construction of institutions of communities, but also I imagine the coercion and the maintenance of those.
collectives, you know, to have these instantly recognizable totems that ⁓ crystallize quite often quite complex ideologies, I imagine, you know, historical cultural ideologies.
Santiago GUILLÉN ROZO (29:15)
Yeah, yeah. Yes, of course. Yes, of course. There is a social ⁓ function of symbols and myth, mythological symbols in order to make society function. yeah, Franco Saziotta talks about big, big narrations, as I said. So yeah, in order to maintain the meaning of value and the ideology of the community, need signs and you need that signs to be effective.
Sophia Burnett (29:17)
Yeah.
Santiago GUILLÉN ROZO (29:40)
Sometimes you use mythological signs to do that.
Sophia Burnett (29:43)
Yeah, that's particularly interesting. Oh, sorry. I was just very quickly just to, as professors, as educators, we know how there are different levels of access to information by different individuals.
Santiago GUILLÉN ROZO (29:43)
and also... ⁓
Sophia Burnett (30:01)
So, you know, the function of myth also societally as access to science on a level that is perhaps less intellectually demanding than, there must be a hierarchy of science communication and
I imagine that myth is somewhere towards the bottom.
You know, it's a form of, you were saying your example of ecology, if people aren't going to...
If the science of nature, of natural science, isn't scary enough for they need to be scared by God or a religion or some kind of religious event that might cause them pain and suffering. So that's quite a primitive...
Yeah, it's quite a primitive aspect, isn't it, of the myths, communication, use of the myth.
yeah.
Santiago GUILLÉN ROZO (30:55)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't know.
Sophia Burnett (30:55)
So it's
just basically repeating like, it's just repeating what you said about it being an useful social tool, know? Yeah. But, you know, today and today's contemporary media myths are also circulated and repeated with algorithms. So.
and they can emerge even through architectural, you through platform architectures. So do you think semiotics currently has the conceptual tools to analyze the myths that are produced by next, like digital systems, or will that be a whole new sort of field of theoretical?
semiotics.
Santiago GUILLÉN ROZO (31:36)
But I think you understand that you were talking about the thing that myth is at the bottom of the knowing scale in society in relation to science was the first part. And the other part was the use of myth in contemporary context, such as in algorithms and technology.
Sophia Burnett (31:46)
Mmm.
Santiago GUILLÉN ROZO (31:59)
⁓ So yeah, so about the first part, thing that we were saying that myth is very primitive, a sort of narration that is primitive. So yeah, there's some in the studies of myth, some authors may say that there is, for example, George Fraser, is a British, that was a British researcher.
Sophia Burnett (31:59)
Yeah, yeah. I mean.
Santiago GUILLÉN ROZO (32:21)
historian of religions.
And so for Fraser, well, may say to be working...
in anthropology also, history of religions but anthropology. But Fraser, he had this idea that he has a... Well, I criticize a bit Fraser, but I'm not the other one, Wittgenstein does it too, but for Fraser there was this kind of evolutionary vision of cultures in relation to myth. So his idea is that what he calls the primitive cultures had myth in order to explain...
natural phenomena, but then in contemporary society you have science. So for Fraser, science replaces myth in cultures. And so primitive cultures, what he calls primitive cultures, have myth and modern cultures have science. That is one way of thinking. So I do not think that, I criticize that vision, because for me myth continues to exist even in today's culture.
and for other reasons but that is the main reason I criticize that division and why modern cultures have myth because of the thing that Blumenberg said that I talk about in my book and that I just remind the thing that for Blumenberg there is never a final victory from the consciousness ⁓ in relation to the abyss so there's something
there's always something that is undetermined that we don't know. There's ⁓ something that we don't know in nature. Nature is what escapes the culture and human. so there's always something that we don't know. So for example, today, most biggest unknowns for me are the environmental crisis. We don't know what's going to happen and how it's going to happen. We only know
that it may be terrible for humanity. And also the other thing that we don't know is the development of technology. so face in front of these two horizons that we don't know, you have mythical discourses that are created and we have that in contemporary society.
So I talked a bit about environmental crisis. give another example in my book, but there's also myths about technology obviously. So in relation to artificial intelligence and other. So for example, there is the idea about singularity. Singularity is the idea that the machines will be more developed than the human being. And so you have all these discourses today.
and talk about the future where the machines are going to dominate the human or this kind of discourses. And in transhumanism, you also have some uses of mythical themes, mythical themes about the origin, about the relations with other things, like superior to...
to human beings. Transhumanism for example you have some mythical themes that are re-initiated. Something that Blumenberg says also that I like very much is that he says that in the myth of Prometheus you have already said everything that you have to say
in relation to humanity because that is the myth of origin, the origin of humanity. So that is a question that you would very difficultly have a definitive answer to. And for example, what I say in my book also is that the contemporary discourses that are the most...
the most, the closer to mythical texts are the texts in science fiction because in science fiction, because the myth you have a different temporality so it's very far away in the past but in science fiction you have the same but it's very far away in the future as well. Francois Astier talks about this study takes something that is very far and so because of that
you have on the level of figurativity in semiotic terms you have some similarities also in relation to the actor the what we call the actors the actor in french because you have metamorphism the changing of form you have different figures in math and in science fiction
And so I think that today science fiction is a way to think about the unknown, about what would come next. And yeah, so something that I'm interested in.
Sophia Burnett (36:30)
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah.
And that really uses myth in the way that you were saying earlier about that citation that you gave us about the abyss. This need, this desire to fill an area of knowing that it will just remain empty because that's just
our human condition and regarding sort of AI and technology and transhumanism and all of these things. It just made me think of Nina Begus at Berkeley. She's working on, she has worked on the Pygmalion myth, you know, in writing as a kind of vehicle for
Santiago GUILLÉN ROZO (37:21)
Okay.
Sophia Burnett (37:28)
the ideologies and anxieties around the future of artificial intelligence and transhumanism and all of these things. I think there's obviously your book is really interesting and there's lots of interesting work coming out about these, you know, these reflections actually weave in very transdisciplinary aspects.
I find that very stimulating. Is there anything in your book that, there'll be lots of things that we haven't covered because it's, we only have a finite amount of time and it's not very much, but is there anything you want to touch upon before we close up?
Santiago GUILLÉN ROZO (38:11)
Not just the thing that in my, well in my book I, I.
I remind all the theoretical basis and methodological basis of linguistics and semiotics and that allows me to characterize myth in all the different domains, all the different spheres and all the different planes of immanance if you can say that way. Because there obviously before this book there was a lot of authors that
tried to study myth, that studied myth for several years in some cases. But you have had very different definitions of myth. And so I give you an example. is this work in there is an article by a Canadian anthropologist that is called John Levitt from 2005 that is called Le Mythe Aujourd'hui, Myth Today. And he was
making a synthesis of all the current works about myth and past works about myth and his definition of myth is the following he defines myth as an important story that is his definition of myth so it is a definition but for me it is a very vague definition because you can there's a lot of stories that are important so for me that is very troubling for research
So for me, there was a real need for the study of myth in order to have a very consequential work. This work took me 10 years of research in order to compare all the different definitions of myth, analysis of myth. And for me, it was important to do it from the point of view of linguistics and semiotics, because obviously in linguistics you study a verbal language, semiotics you study all the language, verbal but ⁓ also pictures.
also photography, etc. So myth is mainly, not only, but it mainly exists through and inside verbal language, Also in other pictures and other languages, but mainly in verbal language. So for me, it was important to do an analysis of myth from the perspective of linguistics, because in linguistics you have
all these declinations of linguistics, you have a minimal sign, you have a phoneme, have a morpheme, you have a syntax, a sentence, a text that is in a practice, etc. And you have the same thing about myth. You have a minimal unit and then you have a text, you have a system of meaning and value, you have an object, you have a practice. So I think that is the contribution of my work, the way of analyzing myth.
as everything as a minimal structure, mythème I talk about mythologème. So obviously I give very different definitions of myth in all this order of domains. For example, for me, is mythème minite minimal, minimal unit. Then you have ⁓ mythologème that is a narrative structural, intertextual narrative structure. Then you have myth, that is one myth with all its re-elaborations.
Then you have myth as a discourse genre. Then you have mythology as a system of meaning and value. Then you have mythical objects. Then you have mythical practice such as rituals, for example. And then you have myth as a way of life as I live and so on So for me, that is the main contribution of my text. And it's important for me because myth continues to exist today. It was very criticized.
For Cassirer, for example, the use of myth in politics as a book that is called the Myth of States. And so myth continues to exist if we look closely today.
Sophia Burnett (41:41)
Absolutely. ⁓ That's yeah, I think it is too. I think it's a very good book and a very interesting book. And I do hope that you get it translated to English very soon.
Santiago GUILLÉN ROZO (41:42)
So that's why I think my book is important. I hope.
Yeah.
Sophia Burnett (41:57)
⁓
All the links to Santiago's work, to the book, etc. will be on the website page, just remains for me to say thank you so much for coming on to talk about myth as a sign and Semiotique du Mythe And yeah, I wish you the best luck with your future research.
Santiago GUILLÉN ROZO (42:21)
Thank you so much Sophia, I was very happy to be with you today.
Sophia Burnett (42:25)
Okay, bye bye.
Santiago GUILLÉN ROZO (42:26)
Bye-bye.
