Colloque sur l'Astrologie

This conference will, for the first time, bring together academics to investigate the theory and practice of astrology in the modern world, from roughly 1700 to the present day. Astrology is 'the practice of relating the heavenly bodies to lives and events on earth, and the tradition that has thus been generated’ (Patrick Curry). It is a part of modern culture which arouses powerful feelings from loyal devotion to passionate hostility. It is feared by evangelical Christians and despised by sceptical scientists, yet is an unquestioned feature of the popular media. It is described as magic or psychology, and as a path to spiritual understanding or scientific truth, and is often classed as a New Age discipline. It is mentioned in passing in books on the sociology of religion yet is almost completely ignored in the literature on popular culture. Where academic studies do exist they are largely sociological or psychological investigations designed to solve the problem of why belief in astrology persists in the modern world.

Organisé par :
The Sophia Centre for the Study of Cosmology in Culture
Department of Archaeology, History and Anthropology
University of Wales, Lampeter
www.lamp.ac.uk/sophia

Sophia Centre Conference
24-25 July 2010
Bath Royal Scientific and Literary Institute, Bath, England