Welcome to the 'Astrologies' Conference

Saturday 24 - Sunday 25 July 2010

Sophia Centre for the Study of Cosmology in Culture
Department of Archaeology, History and Anthropology,
University of Wales, Lampeter

Sponsored by Culture and Cosmos
with the aid of generous funding from the Urania Trust

Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institute
16-19 Queen Square,
Bath BA1 2HN,
UK

Conference Theme
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. 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.

This conference will, for the first time, bring together academics to investigate the theory and practice of astrology in the modern world, from roughly 1800 to the present day.

The conference will be held in the gracious surroundings of the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institute, one of the most elegant buildings in eighteenth-century Bath. Bath itself is a UNESCO World Heritage site, one of the most beautiful cites in the world.

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