I wrote How to Do Things with Myths (hereafter H2D) for both analytic and historical purposes. Its two-part subtitle, A Performative Theory of Myths and How We Got There, advertises as much.
Part I, A Performative Theory of Myths, refers to my analytic purposes. It includes both conceptual and theoretical inquiries.
- Conceptual: What is a myth or myths? What should be marked as a myth? What concept of myth should we “own” or be “responsible” for? (chapters 7 and 8)
- Theoretical: How might myths help explain events in the human world? (chapters 1, 9, and 10)
Part II, How We Got There, indicates that H2D promises historical inquiry into the theory of myth (chapters 2-6).
In his review, Tok Thompson stumbles right out of the box—conceptually. He fails anywhere to reveal what he means by “myths.” (I do in chapters 7 and 8.) Does Thompson think a “myth” is just any sort of, say, story or narrative?If not, what kinds are myths? Does “myth” merit hypostasizing capitalization—“Myth”—that Joseph Campbell and Robert Segal give it (H2D, 155)? If “myths” just refer to stories or narratives, then why markthem with this special name, “myths”? About such elementary conceptual matters, Thompson seems unaware.
As for performatives, Thompson only knows “performatives” as his publication list implies, e.g., involving the performances of “Native American mythic interlocuters.” Citing folklorist Dell Hymes, Thompson effectively invokes Hymes’s functionalism and “performatives” as “kinetic,” for want of a better term. History,however, shows that Hymes owed theoretical debts to the Prague School of functionalism, and thence to Malinowski’s functionalism (chapter 6; see, for example, Frank Korom, “Malinowski's Formative Contribution to American Folklore Studies,” Svetovi, 2024). Far, therefore, from Thompson’s dismissal of my Durkheimian history as “gossipy” trivia about “Parisian scholarly cliques,” Malinowski derived his functionalism from the Durkheimians (chapter 6). Like Malinowski, Durkheim’s intimate collaborator, Henri Hubert, (H2D, chapters 4 and 5) argued that myths had “practical value” (H2D, 10). Thus, ultimately, no Dell Hymes’s or Thompson’s “performatives” without my Durkheimian “Parisian scholarly clique.”
In effect, I linked my Austinian “performative” theory of myth to Malinowski’s functionalist theory of myth. In so doing, I admit coloring my performative theory of myths in pragmatist tones. Myths do things, even absent Thompson’s performers or kinetic performances. In “Myth in Primitive Psychology” (1925), Malinowski said as much:
“Myth fulfills ... an indispensable function: it expresses, enhances, and codifies belief; it safeguards and enforces morality; it vouches for the efficiency of ritual.... Myth ... is not an idle tale, but a hardworking active force; it is not an intellectual explanation ... but a pragmatic charter” (my emphases).
Thus, H2D resurrects Malinowski’s 1925 pragmatic theory of myths in light of J. L. Austin’s performative theory of language, after Malinowski’s pragmatism had devolved into the behaviorism of his Scientific Theory of Culture (1944).
Reading more responsibly, Thompson might have learned that H2D’s performative theory of myth (page 1, line 1) adapts Austin’s performative theory of language to myths. For Austin, the iteration of “I baptize you” in the kinetic act of pouring water over a person’s head, for instance, has its own power. It does something to make watery kinetic performances efficacious. No baptism would occur, if the priest performed the kinetic act of pouring water, but said, “I congratulate you.” By myths being performative, therefore, I mean myths do as Malinowski says—they enhance, codify, safeguard, enforce, and vouch. Myths are a “hardworking active force,” not just tales, symbols, or explanations. H2D does not, therefore, challenge Thompson’s kinetic performance theory of myths, since it articulates a different sense of performance from Thompson’s. Nor, incidentally, does H2D deal with Thompson’s preference for “mythologies or mythologists.” Instead, H2D engages theories and theorists of myths.
Accordingly, in chapter 9, I argue how political myths incite physical action, such as the Aryanist myths of the French Right inciting an antisemitic politics (H2D, 178). Recognizing that Aryan myths do things, recognizing the potency of antisemitic myths, Hubert sought to counter them. Years before Dreyfus was kinetically exiled to Devil’s Island, Aryanist antisemitic myths shaped the thinking of many French citizens. In chapter 10, I record how Vladimir Putin cites the pan-Slavist myth of Moscow, Third Rome, to justify or legitimize his invasions of Ukraine, to rally his forces, to strengthen his domestic political control, and so on (198). In everyday life of course, linguistic performatives and kinetic performances may coincide. But they are analytically distinct, nonetheless.
Regrettably, when not trafficking in virtue-signaling insults, my being “remarkably uninformed, outdated, and (probably as a result of these), rather colonial,” Thompson just makes things up, such as the following claims:
- There is “nothing from any of the extensive twentieth and twenty-first century scholarship emanating from intensive fieldwork and in-depth cultural participation.” But see Malinowski (chapter 6), Lévi-Strauss (chapter 5), both ethnographers.
- “Jonathan Z. Smith,...whose work he dismisses as ‘absurd’.” But compare my quote from Alan Sun: “Smith’s affection for ‘play’, ‘absurdity’...” (H2D, 164).
- “a historical account of Continental (mostly French) mythologists. German scholars are included in the periphery.” Friedrich Max Müller was German, and not peripheral (chapters 1-3); Malinowski is Polish (chapter 6); Slavophiles are Russians (chapter 10).
- There are “just a couple bare mentions of English scholars.” Both Müller (Oxford) and Malinowski (LSE) flourished in England and published all major works in English.
- “The author... repeatedly draws on and praises Campbell’s work.” Just false: “At best, Campbell deploys a rubric, headline, or shortcut, not a durable concept of myth” (H2D, 130).
Thanks to JFRR’s editors for a chance to respond to Thompson’s review. No enemy of folklorists, I will always be grateful for gentleman folklorist, the late Alan Dundes, and his encouragement. I hereby invite folklorists to challenge my concept of myth, or anything else in H2D. “Why should we, or not, mark ‘myth’ with capitalization as ‘Myth’?” Is “What is/are a myth/myths?” the right question? Or, should it be, “What and why should we mark something as a myth/myths”?
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[Review length: 993 words * Response posted on January 24, 2026]