Dr Nick Campion BA (Cambridge), MA (London), PhD (West of England)
Contact Details
School of Archaeology, History and AnthropologyE-mail: n.campion@trinitysaintdavid.ac.uk
Campus
Lampeter CampusJob Title
Senior Lecturer in Archaeology and Anthropology
Director of the Sophia Centre for the Study of Cosmology in Culture
Role in the University
Senior Lecturer in Archaeology and Anthropology
Director of the Sophia Centre for the Study of Cosmology in CultureBackground
Nick Campion read history at Queens’ College, Cambridge. He gained his MA at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, and was awarded his PhD by the University of the West of England, for a study of contemporary belief in astrology. He has been involved in documentaries on the subject for BBC1 and Channel 4 (UK), and the Discovery and History Channels; he was formerly Senior Lecturer in History at Bath Spa University. His research interests include the history of astrology and astronomy as well as the place of both disciplines in contemporary culture, millenarian and apocalyptic belief, magic, New Age and pagan ideas and practices, the sociology of new religious movements and the nature of belief in general. His most recent book is the major, two-volume History of Western Astrology (London, Continuum 2009).
He is currently working on Astrology and Cosmology in the World's Religions for New York University Press, and A Historical Dictionary of Astrology for Scarecrow. He is currently Chair of the Local Organising Committee of the Seventh Conference on the Inspiration of Astronomical Phenomena (INSAPVII) and is on the Scientific Organising Committee of the Eighteenth Conference of the European Society for Astronomy in Culture (SEAC).
Academic Interests
Nick’s research interests include the history of astrology and astronomy as well as the place of both disciplines in contemporary culture, millenarian and apocalyptic belief, magic, New Age and pagan ideas and practices, the sociology of new religious movements and the nature of belief in general.Research and Publications
Dr. Campion’s research interests include the nature of belief, the history and contemporary culture of astrology and astronomy, magic, pagan and New Age beliefs and practices, millenarian and apocalyptic ideas, and the sociology of new religious movements. This calls for a multi-disciplinary approach and, before joining Lampeter University in 2007, he was, in turn, Senior Lecturer in the Study of Religions and Senior Lecturer in History at Bath Spa University. He is a member of the international executive committee of the conferences on the Inspiration of Astronomical Phenomena (INSAP), is editor of Culture and Cosmos, a Journal of the History of Astrology and Cultural Astronomy and is in the editorial boards of Correlation, the Journal of Research in Astrology and Archaeoastronomy, the Journal of Astronomy in Culture. He is currently external examiner for the MA in Transpersonal Art and Practice at the University of Chichester, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce.Dr Campion lectures and speaks widely on the nature of belief, magic and cosmology. Recent activities include a gallery talk at Bristol's Arnolfini Gallery on Mark Titchner's solo exhibition, in which the artist's hybrid installations furthered his exploration into systems of belief, and which was short-listed for the 2006 Turner Prize; in 2006 he was interviewed for BBC Radio 4's 'Devout Sceptics' series; in 2007 he spoke at the University of Oxford’s lecture series on ‘Paper Moon’, was interviewed by poet Ian McMillan for BBC Radio 4, and interviewed explorer and anthropologist Bruce Parry, presenter of BBC2's 'Tribe', for Stanford's Bookshop at Bristol University. In 2008 he lectured on magic as part of the London Barbican Art Gallery’s ‘Martian Museum of Terrestrial Art’.
Publications
Relevant Publications
2012: Astrology and Cosmology in the World’s Religions, New York: New York University Press.
2012: Astrology and Popular Religion: Prophecy, Cosmology and the New Age Movement, Farnham, Ashgate.
2011, ‘Astronomy and Political Theory’, in David Valls-Gabaud and Alec Boksenberg (eds.), proceedings of the ‘The Role of Astronomy in Society and Culture’, International Astronomical Union Symposium 260, UNESCO, Paris, 19-23 January 2008, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011 (forthcoming).
2011: (Ed.) Astrologies; essays on the history and culture of modern astrology, Lampeter: Sophia Centre Press.
2011: (Ed.) Astronomy and Power: How Worlds are Structured (with Barbara Rappenglück and Michael Rappenglück), Oxford, British Archaeology Reports.
2010: (Ed.) Cosmologies: Proceedings of the seventh Sophia Centre Conference, 2009, Lampeter: Sophia Centre Press.
2011: ‘Enchantment and the Awe of the Heavens’, in The Inspiration of Astronomical Phenomena VI, ed. Enrico Maria Corsini Astronomical Society of the Pacific Conference Series Vol. 441 2011, Astronomical Society of the Pacific, San Francisco, 2011, (forthcoming)
2011: ‘The 2012 Mayan Calendar Prophecies in the Context of the Western Millenarian Tradition’, in Clive Ruggles (ed.), Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoastronomy: Building Bridges Between Cultures, Proceedings of International Astronomy Union Symposium 278, (the 9th “Oxford” International Symposium on Archaeoastronomy), Lima, Peru, 4-14 January 2011, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, (forthcoming).
2011 ‘MA Education in Archaeoastronomy at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David’ (with J. McKim Malville), in Clive Ruggles (ed.), Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoastronomy: Building Bridges Between Cultures, Proceedings of International Astronomy Union Symposium 278, (the 9th “Oxford” International Symposium on Archaeoastronomy), Lima, Peru, 4-14 January 2011, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, (forthcoming).
2011 ‘Was there an Egyptian Revolution in Ptolemaic Astronomy?: Stars, Soul and Cosmology’, Journal of Cosmology, 2011, Vol. 13, 4174-4186. http://journalofcosmology.com/AncientAstronomy125.html
2011: ‘Astronomy and the Soul’, in Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka and Atilla Grandpierre (eds), Astronomy and Civilisation in the New Enlightenment, Analecta Husserliana, The Year book of Phenomenological Research, Vol. CVII (Heidelberg: Springer, 2011) pp. 249-257.
2011: ‘More on the Transmission of the Babylonian Zodiac to Greece’, ARAM Twenty Ninth International Conference on the theme of Astrology in the Near East, University of Oxford, 08-10 July 2010, (forthcoming).
2010: ‘Astronomy and Psyche in the Classical World: Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, Ptolemy’, Journal of Cosmology, 2010, Vol. 9. 2179-2186 http://journalofcosmology.com/AncientAstronomy118.html
2010 ‘A Review of Academic Literature on Astrology: 1. The Ancient World’, Alternative Spirituality and Religion Review, Vol. 1 no 2, 2010. http://www.academicpublishing.org/Journals.html
2010 ‘Astrology’, in Nina P. Azari (ed.) Encyclopaedia of Sciences and Religions,Dordrecht: Springer.
2009 ‘The Antikythera Mechanism: An Archaeoastronomical Artefact in its Literary and Religious Context’, in José Alberto Rubiño-Martín, Juan Antonio Belmonte, Francisco Prada and Anxton Alberdi, (eds.), Cosmologies Across Cultures, Prvo, Utah: Astronomical Society of the Pacific, pp. 160-5.
2011, ‘Astronomy and Political Theory’, in David Valls-Gabaud and Alec Boksenberg (eds.), proceedings of the ‘The Role of Astronomy in Society and Culture’, International Astronomical Union Symposium 260, UNESCO, Paris, 19-23 January 2008, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2009, ‘L’Etat cosmique: astronomie at théory politique’, Planétariums, L’Associations des Planétariums de langue française, May 2009, pp. 33-4.
2008: (with Jarita Holbrook), ‘Cultural Astronomy: A Conversation about Degree Programs & Research Questions from Both Sides of the Pond’, Spark: The American Astronomical Society Education Newsletter, pp. 9-11.
2008: The Golden Age of Astrology: A Cultural History of Astrology Vol. 2, (London: Continuum)
2008: The Dawn of Astrology: A Cultural History of Astrology Vol. 1, (London: Continuum)
2006: Sky and Psyche (with Patrick Curry), Proceedings of the 2005 conference on Sky and Psyche (Edinburgh: Floris Books).
2007: ‘Teaching Cultural Astronomy: On the Development and Evolution of the Syllabus at Bath Spa University’, Proceedings of the EBASI Eclipse Conference, University of Cape Coast, Ghana 2006 (Amsterdam: Springer Verlag 2006).
2007. ‘Horoscopes as Popular Culture’, in Bob Franklin (ed.), Pulling Newspapers Apart: Analysing Print Journalism, Oxford: Routledge.
2007: ‘Babylonian Astrology', Encyclopaedia of Non-Western Science: Natural Sciences, Technology and Medicine, Springer Verlag Berlin.
2007: ‘Astrology’ in The Encyclopaedia of Hinduism, ed. Denise Cush, Catherine Robinson and Lynn Foulston, London: Routledge.
2006: 'Astrology' in Encyclopaedia of Witchcraft: the Western Tradition, ed. Richard Golden, San Diego: ABC.CLIO, Vol. 1, pp. 64-5.
2006: 'Kiddinu’, 'Naburiannu', ‘Augustine’, ‘Cicero’, ‘Thomas Aquinas’, Biographical Encyclopaedia of Astronomers, ed. Thomas Hockey, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
2005: The Inspiration of Astronomical Phenomena, Proceedings of the Fourth Conference on the Inspiration of Astronomical Phenomena, sponsored by the Vatican Observatory and the Steward Observatory, Arizona, Magdalen College, Oxford, 3-9 August 2003 (Bristol: Cinnabar Books).
2005: 'The Sun is God' in The Inspiration of Astronomical Phenomena, Proceedings of the Fourth Conference on the Inspiration of Astronomical Phenomena, Magdalen College, Oxford, 3-9 August 2003, Bristol: Cinnabar Books, pp. 45-56.
2005: Campion, Nicholas, 'The Possible Survival of Babylonian Astrology in the Fifth Century BCE: a discussion of historical sources', in Oestmann, Gűnther, H. K. von Stuckrad, G. Oestmann and D. Rutkin (eds.), Horoscopes and History, Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, pp. 69-92.
2005: ''"Thousand is a perfect number…" quoth Aelfric of Cerne: Millenarianism and the foundation of Sherbourne Abbey', Proceedings of the conference to commemorate the thousandth anniversary of Sherbourne Abbey, Bournemouth University, School of Conservaton Sciences, Occasional Paper 8, eds., Barker, Katherine, David A. Hinton and Alan Hunt, Bournemouth: Oxbow Books, pp. 33-39, ISBN 1-84217-175-5
2005: What do Astrologers Believe? (Cambridge: Granta)
2004: Galileo's Astrology ed., with Nick Kollerstrom (Bristol: Cinnabar Books/Culture and Cosmos Vol. 7 no 1, Spring/Summer 2003).
2004: Astrology and the Academy, (ed. with Patrick Curry and Michael York), papers from the inaugural conference of the Sophia Centre, Bath Spa University College, 13-14 June 2003 (Bristol: Cinnabar Books).
2004: 'Introduction: Cultural Astronomy', in Campion, Nicholas, Patrick Curry and Michael York (ed.) Astrology and the Academy, papers from the inaugural conference of the Sophia Centre, Bath Spa University College, 13-14 June 2003, Bristol: Cinnabar Books 2004, pp. xv-xxx.
2003: 'The Traditional Revival in Modern Astrology: a Preliminary History', Astrology Quarterly, Vol. 74 no 1, Winter 2003, pp. 28-38.
2003: 'Mundane Astrology', in James R. Lewis, (ed.), The Astrology Book: The Encyclopaedia of Heavenly Influences, Detroit: Visible Ink Press.
2002: Astrology, History and Apocalypse (London, Centre for Psychological Astrology).
2002: 'Do Astrologers Have to Believe in Astrology?' The Sceptic, Summer 2002, Vol. 15 no 2, pp. 20-22.
2002: ‘From Stonehenge to Seattle: Eco-Protest, Archaeoastronomy and New Age Cosmology’, in Proceedings of the INSAP III Conference, Memoire della Societa Astrronomica Italiana, Special number 1, pp. 202-5.
2000: ‘Babylonian Astrology: Its Origins and Legacy in Europe’ Helaine Selin (ed.), Astronomy Across Cultures: the History of Non-Western Astronomy, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers 2000.
2000: 'The Milky Way Dreaming (Aboriginal Art of the Stars)', Review Essay, Culture and Cosmos, Vol. 4 no 1, Spring/Summer 2000, pp 54-62.
2000: 'The Age of Aquarius: a Modern Constellation Myth', in Cesar Esteban and Juan Antonio Belmonte (eds.), Astronomy and Cultural Diversity, proceedings of the 1999 Oxford VI Conference on Archaeoastronomy and Astronomy in Culture, Tenerife 2000.
2000: 'The Beginning of the Age of Aquarius', Correlation, Vol. 19 no 1, Summer 2000, pp 7-16.
1994: The Great Year: Astrology, Millenarianism and History in the Western Tradition (London: Penguin).
