Joseph Campbell: Myth & Storytelling as a Gateway to Psyche and Soul
A PGI graduate certificate program in partnership with the Joseph Campbell Foundation
August 22, 2024 – November 7, 2024
12 week course | 0 CECs | Offered Live via Zoom
Program Description
What you will receive:
- 12 Live Interactive Discussion Groups (via Zoom) with Q&A (listed in Pacific time)
- 12 Pre-Recorded Learning Sessions with Campbell practitioners
- A Learning Resource Guide with Recommended Readings and Resources
- A Private, online Discussion Forum
- An Advanced Certificate in Joseph Campbell: Myth & Storytelling as a gateway to psyche and soul from Pacifica Graduate Institute
Pacifica Graduate Institute, in partnership with the Joseph Campbell Foundation, is proud to introduce an enriching Graduate Certificate Program dedicated to the study of Joseph Campbell’s work and its mythic relationship to storytelling. This unique program offers a deep dive into key ideas from Campbell’s expansive body of work, providing students with a nuanced understanding of his influential ideas and concepts, and then applying these ideas to the discipline of storytelling. Each week, a Campbell practitioner will guide participants through Campbell’s work, unpacking core ideas for understanding their mythic relationship to the understanding of storytelling.
Course Overview:
Module 1 – Call To Adventure Separation Phase of the Adventure
Week 1 – August 22: The Power of Myth: The life, work, and influence of Joseph Campbell
Live Zoom Session: August 22, 2024 – 12:00 Noon – 1:30 PM Pacific Time
Instructors: John Bucher, Joanna Gardner, Brad Olson, Stephanie Zajchowski
Description: The mythic life and work of Joseph Campbell has continued to draw interest and find audiences around the world since his death in 1987. In this opening session, leaders from the Joseph Campbell Foundation will present and unpack Campbell’s life, the scope of his work, and the impact that it has had in the world.
Week 2 – August 29: Campbell, modernism, and psychology
Live Zoom Session: August 29, 2024 – 12:00 Noon – 1:30 PM Pacific Time
Instructor: Brad Olson
Description: To properly appreciate and understand Campbell and his work, one must understand modernism. In this course we will explore the influence of modernism on Campbell as well as its influence on psychology, particularly psychoanalysis, itself a production of modernism.
Week 3 – September 5: Campbell, characters, and archetypes
Live Zoom Session: September 5, 2024 – 12:00 Noon – 1:30 PM Pacific Time
Instructor: Scott Neumeister
Description: In this class, we will explore how Campbell viewed characters in mythic stories as expressions of what psychologist Carl Jung described as archetypes. These recurring patterns or motifs occur in both the characters themselves and the situations they experience. We will cover several of Campbell’s most frequently discussed archetypes, including the hero, the mentor, the threshold guardian, and the trickster.
Week 4 – September 12: Campbell and creativity
Live Zoom Session: September 12, 2024 – 12:00 Noon – 1:30 PM Pacific Time
Instructor: Joanna Gardner
Description: Joseph Campbell’s book The Hero With a Thousand Faces (1949) won the Contribution to Creative Literature award from the National Institute of Arts and Letters, and the book continues to inspire artists, writers, and creative people from every field. Campbell himself said that he wrote for students and artists, and his own work clearly constitutes an important creative contribution in itself. In this session, you’ll learn about Campbell’s creativity, his creative process, and how his work and his way of working can breathe new life into yours.
Module 2 – Mythic Storytelling Initiation Phase of the Adventure
Week 5 – September 19: Campbell and Arthurian Romances
Live Zoom Session: September 19, 2024 – 12:00 Noon – 1:30 PM Pacific Time
Instructor: Stephanie Zajchowski
Description: Arthurian Romances and stories of the Holy Grail connect with myths from all over the world. In this session, we will trace these connections, paying careful attention to each myth’s particularities while applying Campbell’s comparative lens to explore key themes and patterns. You will gain a greater understanding of the narratives behind the Grail legend and its enduring resonance.
Week 6 – September 26: Campbell and fairy tales
Live Zoom Session: September 26, 2024 – 12:00 Noon – 1:30 PM Pacific Time
Instructor: Joanna Gardner
Description: “The folk tale is the primer of the picture-language of the soul,” Joseph Campbell writes in his 1944 introduction to Pantheon’s edition of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Using that essay as a starting point, this session situates Campbell’s ideas in the contemporary study of wonder tales, surveying approaches including depth psychology, decoloniality, feminism, and the new materialism. You’ll learn how to apply these theories as well as Campbell’s four functions of myth to the interpretation of fairy tales, concluding with an analysis of the film Pan’s Labyrinth.
Week 7 – October 3: Campbell and Hindu myths
Live Zoom Session: October 3, 2024 – 12:00 Noon – 1:30 PM Pacific Time
Instructor: Priyanka Gupta
Description: In Myths to Live by, Campbell spoke of mythology as the key to the lock of the human psyche and potentialities. In this session, we will plunge into the rich and timeless tapestry of Indian mythology. The myths of Somakasura stealing the Vedas, Creation and Svayambhuva Manu, Origin of Govardhan Parvat Puja and others will be explored as the vernacular of the collective unconscious. As Campbell puts it, the mysteries we live by shall be introspected through the archetypal apotheosis of the self, inner wisdom and transformation from the Indian mythic lore to apply to our song of life.
Week 8 – October 10: Campbell and the tales of Homer
Live Zoom Session: October 10, 2024 – 12:00 Noon – 1:30 PM Pacific Time
Instructor: Scott Neumeister
Description: What did Campell’s work reveal about the two greatest epics of the Ancient Greeks, The Iliad and The Odyssey? This week’s class will investigate the two mega-themes of these works—warfare and the return home—as well as Campbell’s insights on how this tale of a Bronze Age war still resonates today.
Module 3 – Mythic Journeys Return Phase of the Adventure
Week 9 – October 17: The hero’s journey, The heroine’s journey, & The collective journey
Live Zoom Session: October 17, 2024 – 12:00 Noon – 1:30 PM Pacific Time
Instructor: John Bucher
Description: Joseph Campbell’s articulation of the Hero’s Journey has had an impact on the world since it was first published in his book, The Hero with a THousand Faces in 1949. Since that time, alternatives on and amplifications of the journey have found their own resonance. In this session, we will explore Campbell’s Hero’s Journey along with The Heroine’s Journey and a recent model called The Collective Journey.
Week 10 – October 24: Campbell and personal myth
Live Zoom Session: October 24, 2024 – 12:00 Noon – 1:30 PM Pacific Time
Instructor: Stephanie Zajchowski
Description: Myths help us see our personal lives within the archetypal patterning of the human experience. Campbell considered such self-revelation the ultimate call to adventure; to bring our unique gifts to the world is the realization of our personal myth. In this session, you will learn about Campbell’s understanding of personal myth, focusing on his fourth function of myth, the psychological function. Applying this approach, you will learn how to interpret your life mythically, developing your own personal mythology as a way to find deeper meaning in your lived experience.
Week 11 – October 31: Campbell in the age of metamodernism
Live Zoom Session: October 31, 2024 – 12:00 Noon – 1:30 PM Pacific Time
Instructor: Brad Olson
Description: Metamodernism is the most recent evolution of Critical Theory and a potentially unifying response to the individualism of Modernism and the fragmentation of Postmodernism. Its attention to identifying novel ways of addressing and recreating the process of personal development, the way in which societies are governed, the need for continued adaptation to an increasingly complex world, and reimagining the human relationship to nature itself, make it an ideal perspective from which to read Joseph Campbell. In some sense, Campbell was made for metamodernism
Week 12 – November 7: Reading Campbell in the 21st century
Live Zoom Session: November 7, 2024 – 12:00 Noon – 1:30 PM Pacific Time
Instructors: John Bucher, Joanna Gardner, Brad Olson, Stephanie Zajchowski
Description: In this final session, Campbell’s work will be tied together and viewed through the lens of the culture we now live in. While many of Campbell’s ideas continue to be meaningful in the world today, other ideas invite discussion and even critique. Leaders from the Joseph Campbell Foundation will guide students through the nuanced journey of reading Campbell in the 21st century.
Program Details
Live Session Dates:
All classes from 12:00 Noon – 1:30 Pacific Time
- August 22, 2024
- August 29, 2024
- September 5, 2024
- September 12, 2024
- September 19, 2024
- September 26, 2024
- October 3, 2024
- October 10, 2024
- October 17, 2024
- October 24, 2024
- October 31, 2024
- November 7, 2024
Registration
$1,095.00 – General Rate
$995.00 – Pacifica Alumni, Full Time Students, & Senior Rate
$795.00 – Pacifica Student Rate
You have the option of putting down a 50% deposit when registering for the program and paying the remaining balance in installments of your choice until September 26, 2024. You can select this on the registration form.
Limited scholarship and reduced tuition opportunities are available for this program. Please email retreat@pacficia.edu to request a scholarship application form. The deadline for scholarship applications is July 25, 2024.
No Continuing Education Credits (CECs) are being offered for this program.
All of the live Zoom sessions will be recorded and made available to everyone registered for the program. If you watch the recordings and keep up with the online discussion forum you will qualify for the certificate of completion. Live attendance to the Zoom sessions is not necessary.
About the Teachers
John Bucher, PhD, is a mythologist and story expert who has been featured on the BBC, the History Channel, in the LA Times, and on numerous other international outlets. He serves as Executive Director for the Joseph Campbell Foundation and is a writer, podcaster, storyteller, and speaker. He serves on the Board of the Philosophical Research Society and the Harvardwood Literary Prize. He has worked with government and cultural leaders around the world as well as organizations such as HBO, DC Comics, Paramount Pictures, Nickelodeon, A24 Films, Atlas Obscura, and The John Maxwell Leadership Foundation. He has served as a producer, consultant, and writer for numerous film, television, and Virtual Reality projects. He is the author of six books including the best-selling Storytelling for Virtual Reality, named by BookAuthority as one of the best storytelling books of all time. John has worked with New York Times Best Selling authors, YouTube influencers, Eisner winners, Emmy winners, Academy Award nominees, magicians, and cast members from Saturday Night Live. He holds a PhD in Mythology & Depth Psychology and has spoken on 6 continents about using the power of story and myth to reframe how individuals, organizations, cultures, and nations believe and behave.
Joanna Gardner, PhD, is a writer, mythologist, and magical realist whose research focuses on myth, creativity, wonder tales, and goddesses. Joanna serves as adjunct professor in Pacifica Graduate Institute’s Mythological Studies program, and as director of marketing and communications for the Joseph Campbell Foundation, where she also contributes to the popular MythBlast essay series. She is the lead author of Goddesses: A Skeleton Key Study Guide and a co-founder of the Fates and Graces, hosting webinars and workshops for mythic readers and writers. You can find Joanna’s blog and additional publications on her website, joannagardner.com.
Priyanka Gupta, PhD, holds a doctorate in Psychology with a specialization in Jungian psychology and mythology from the University of Delhi, India. Her doctoral thesis explored the hero archetype, delving into the Campbellian structure of the hero’s journey through the distinctive prism of Hindu mythology and Native American mythology. As a researcher,she is captivated by the interplay of the meaning of symbols, life, and religions, drawing inspiration and contemplating on the perspectives laid out by Joseph Campbell and prominent Jungian thinkers. Beyond academia and research, she is a writing enthusiast and a passionate painter.
Scott Neumeister, PhD, is a literary scholar, author, TEDx speaker, and mythic pathfinder from Tampa, Florida, where he earned his PhD in English from the University of South Florida in 2018. His specialization in multiethnic American literature and mythology comes after careers as an information technology systems engineer and a teacher of English and mythology at the middle school and college levels. Scott coauthored Let Love Lead: On a Course to Freedom with Gary L. Lemons and Susie Hoeller, and he has served as a facilitator for the Joseph Campbell Foundation’s Myth and Meaning book club at Literati.
Bradley Olson, PhD, is an author, speaker, and a psychotherapist. He serves as the Publications Director for the Joseph Campbell Foundation, as well as the Editor of the MythBlast Series and the host of JCF’s flagship podcast, Pathways With Joseph Campbell. Dr. Olson holds a PhD in Mythological Studies from Pacifica Graduate Institute. Dr. OIson is also a depth psychologist in private practice in Flagstaff, Arizona, where he has lived since 1995. Dr. Olson has graduate degrees in psychology from the University of Oklahoma. Dr. Olson offers mythic life coaching at What’s Mything in Your Life (bradleyolsonphd.com).
Stephanie Zajchowski, PhD, is a mythologist and writer. She serves as Director of Operations for the Joseph Campbell Foundation and works in instructional design in the airline industry. Stephanie is a contributing author of Goddesses: A Skeleton Key Study Guide and co-founder of the Fates and Graces, hosting webinars and workshops for mythic readers and writers. She holds a doctorate in Mythological Studies and Depth Psychology, and her research focuses on the intersection of mythology, religion, and women’s studies. For more information, visit stephaniezajchowski.com.
General Information
Location
Hosted Online
Cancellations
Cancellations 14 days or more prior to the program start date receive a 100% refund of program registrations. After 14 days, up to 7 days prior to the program start date, a 50% refund is available. For cancellations made less than 7 days of program start date, no refund is available.
For additional information, including travel, cancellation policy, and disability services please visit our general information section.
Registration Details
August 22, 2024 – November 7, 2024
Number of Classes: 12
Class Length: 1 hour 30 min.
Class Time: 12 Noon – 1:30 PM PT
CECs: 0
Dates: August 22, 2024 – November 7, 2024
The presentations will be recorded and shared after each session for those unable to attend live.
All of the live Zoom sessions will be recorded and made available to everyone registered for the program. If you watch the recordings and keep up with the online discussion forum you will qualify for the certificate of completion. Live attendance to the Zoom sessions is not necessary.
