AGE OF THE SERPENT

Workshop with Martin Shaw and Paul Kingsnorth

We live in strange, shifting times. The impossible becomes normal every day, and those who are supposed to understand how the world works – media, pollsters, pundits – look as confused as anyone else. Old political battle lines are dissolving, and too often listening and talking are replaced by anger and intolerance.

What is happening – and might there be another language we could use to understand it? In this day workshop, mythologist Martin Shaw and novelist Paul Kingsnorth will dig deep into the old language of myth and story, and ask if the tales that can really help us understand our world might have already been around for centuries. Through exploring the ancient European tale of the Lindworm, and other old stories, we will seek to understand what myth has to tell us about the times we find ourselves in, and what lessons the old tales might have about our own future.

Martin Shaw

Martin Shaw is a mythologist, author and storyteller. Author of the award winning Mythteller trilogy, he led the Oral Traditions and Mythic Life courses at Stanford University, and is co-designer (with Dr. Carla Stang) of the Myth and Ecology MA at Schumacher College. Director of the Westcountry School of Myth, Dr. Shaw spent four years living in a black tent on a succession of English hills, exploring remaining pockets of English wilderness.

Paul Kingsnorth

Paul Kingsnorth is a novelist, essayist and poet. He is the author of five books, including his award-winning fiction debut The Wake (2014), set a thousand years in the past and written in its own language, and his newest novel Beast (2016). He is also co-founder of the Dark Mountain Project, an international network of writers, artist and thinkers in search of new stories for a world on the brink.