Astrology in Bristol

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If you are going to be in or near Bristol this spring, you might want to consider attending this fantastic-looking conference "Imagining Astrology" convened by Dr. Darrelyn Gunzberg, April 24-25, 2010.

ABSTRACT: Astrology as a way of understanding the world has woven its thread into cultures since Mesopotamian times. Along with its technical descriptions of calculation and interpretation, whether written on clay tablets or vellum, using stylus, quill or printing press, it has also taken form in sculpture, mosaics and painting, as well as inhabiting such esoteric bodies of knowledge as Kabbalah, alchemy and magic. Modern scholarship, viewing astrology from the outside, pays little attention to the language incorporated in such esoteric lore and has assigned it solely a cultural meaning, assuming astrology to be a form of divination, shaped by Aristotlean cosmology and Neo-Platonic philosophy. In so doing the Academy has failed to understand that astrology forms a lingua franca stitching together multiple paradigms of thinking. These fall beyond cultures, and bind, underpin and flow through them, reflective of and inherently part of human experience.

SPEAKERS
  • Ronald Hutton, Professor of History, The University of Bristol, The Strange History of Astro-Archaeology
  • Elliot Wolfson, Abraham Lieberman Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, New YorkUniversity, Theosis, Vision, and the Astral Body in Medieval German Pietism and the Spanish Kabbalah
  • Kocku von Stuckrad, University of Groningen, Jewish Astrological Imagery in Late Antiquity
  • Roger Beck, Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto, Imagery and narrative in an ancient horoscope: P. Lond. 130 (Greek Horoscopes no. 81)
  • Peter Forshaw, Assistant Professor in Western Esotericism, University of Amsterdam, Astronomia Inferior et Superior:Some Medieval and Renaissance Instances of the Conjunction of Alchemy and Astrology
  • Geoffrey Shamos, Postgraduate research student, University of Pennsylvania, Astrology as Sociology: Depictions of the “Children of the Planets,” 1400-1600
  • Liz Greene, Postgraduate research student, University of Bristol, The magical astrology of the British occult revival, 1885-1939
  • Bernadette Brady, Postgraduate research student, Bath Spa University, The visual cartography of the sky since Mesopotamian times
  • Darrelyn Gunzburg, Postgraduate research student, University of Bristol, Medieval frescoes and sculptures as astrological documents