Most people think of mythology as the stories of long dead civilizations, but a myth is any narrative that’s been collectivized. We want to look at the various instances of that in our modern world — how those narratives quite literally construct that ‘modern world.’
Modern Mythology is interdisciplinary web journal and blog managed by author/artist James Curcio. It has been distributed both online and in the form of anthologies produced in partnership with a variety of publishers.
Modern Mythology began as a personal blog with frequent guest posts in 2007. By 2010, we had over 100,000 views a month, and decided to organize and release our first anthology in conjunction with UK based Weaponized Press, The Immanence of Myth. A second anthology, Apocalyptic Imaginary, was released in 2011 under our own imprint, Mythos Media. Both were included as part of the core curriculum for several courses at SUNY Binghamton 2010–2012. During this period it took on a form as an interdisciplinary journal.
By Fall 2016, many collaborators had moved on to other projects. What is more, the site was cluttered with thousands of posts of varying quality, run on a CMS that had become clunky and out-of-date. So we re-started the project here on Medium, fresh. We publish less frequently than we used to, but try to maintain a higher standard of quality.
Other collections followed. In 2017 we released Narrative Machines with Mythos Media, and in 2020 MASKS: Bowie & Artists of Artifice was released by Intellect Books, distributed in the US by University of Chicago Press.
The pandemic in 2020- has changed both available energy and focus of what’s available, and so since that time Modern Mythology has mostly reverted back to its original form as a personal blog with occasional contributor or guest posts.