The Twelfth Annual Sophia Centre Conference
University of Wales Trinity St. David

"The Marriage of Heaven and Earth: Images and Representations of the Sky in Sacred Space"

The Sophia Centre for the Study of Cosmology in Culture,
School of Archaeology, History and Anthropology

28-29 June, 2014
Venue: Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution, Bath, England

Booking:
http://www.historyofastrology.org.uk/conferences/HeavenAndEarth/booking.html

Speakers and Abstracts:
http://www.historyofastrology.org.uk/conferences/HeavenAndEarth/speakers.html

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AnnualSophiaCentreConferences
Speakers:                           
Keynote Speakers:
Juan Antonio Belmonte
(Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, Tenerife)
Cosmic landscapes in ancient Egypt: a diachronic perspective
Dr Nicholas Campion
(University of Wales Trinity Saint David)
Mysticism, Magic and Astrology in Modern Surrealist Art
Professor Kim Malville
(University of Boulder, Colorado)
The Parallelism of Heaven and Earth in Andean Cultures
Speakers:
Faisal Al-Doori
(Tikrit University, Iraq)
The Image of the Marriage of Heaven and Earth in W. B. Yeats’s poem ‘Chosen’
Gerardina Antelmi
(University of Split, Croatia)
Poetry Creation as a Space of Union between Nat! ural and Supernatural:
A Reading of The House of Fame
Jim Cogswell
(University of Michigan)
Jewelled Net of the Vast Invisible: a multi-media experience of cosmological space
Alexander Cummins
(University of Bristol)
The Faces of the Heavens: Early Modern Astrological Image Magic
Edina Eszenyi
(University of Kent)
Thunderbolt: Shaping the image of Lucifer in the Cinquecento Veneto
Harold H. Green
(Maya Exploration Centre)
Zenith Sun as Organizing Principle in the Constructed Sacred Space and Calendrics of Central Mexico
Cheryl Hart
(University of Wales Trinity Saint David)
Sacred or Secular? An Analysis of the Rosette Motif within the Iconographic Repertoire of the Near East, Egypt and the Aegean
Scott E. Hendrix
(Carroll University)
From the Margins to the Image of ‘The Most Christian Science’: Astrology, Theology, and St. Peter’s Basilica.
Liz Henty
(University of Wales Trinity Saint David)
Tomnaverie Recumbent Stone Circle: Earthly Window to the Sacred Sky
Shon Hopkin
(Brigham Young University)
The Joining of Heaven and Earth in Mormon Temples and Sacred Texts
Stanislaw Iwaniszenwski
(National School of Anthropology and History, Mexico City)
Communicating with the Ancestors in the Spiritual Landscape at Yaxchilan, Chiapas, Mexico
Bożena Józefów-Czerwińska
(Pultusk Academy of Humanities)
Signs in the Sky - Beliefs in Polish Folk Culture
Tore Lomsdalen
(University of Wales Trinity Saint David)
Cult, ritual, sacred space and the sky in the prehisto! ric temples of Malta
Patrick McCafferty
(Queens University, Belfast)
The Union of Heaven and Earth in the Boyne Valley, Ireland
Rathnasree Nandivada
(Nehru Planetarium, New Delhi)
The evolution of representations of the Navagrahas in Indian temples and their changing identification with celestial bodies on the ecliptic
Joanna Popielska-Grzybowska
(University of Warsaw)
The Sky in Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts
John David Mooney
(John David Mooney Foundation)
Sacred Geography, Sacred Sky, and Sacred Geometry

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Fwd: panel at the BASR conference: "Research among spirits, ghosts and deities - How to study non-ordinary realities"

by Davide Ermacora

Dear colleagues,

David Wilson and I are organising a panel about "Research among spirits, ghosts and deities - How to study non-ordinary realities" at the next conference of the British Association for Study of Religions (in September at the Open University in Milton Keynes). See the abstract below. Among the confirmed speakers is Dr Fiona Bowie (Kings College London). If you are interested in joining us, please email David and me. Thank you.

Best wishes,
Bettina


Dr Bettina E. Schmidt
School of Theology, Religious Studies and Islamic Studies
University of Wales Trinity Saint David

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Research among spirits, ghosts and deities - How to study non-ordinary realities
Panel at the BASR 2014 conference at the Open University, Milton Keynes

Panel organisers: Dr Bettina E. Schmidt and Dr David G. Wilson

Though anthropologists have discussed the study of experiences "behind the veil" of non-ordinary reality over a number of decades (e.g. Harner 1982, Turner 1993), it is still regarded as contested field. On one perspective it is not for scholars to judge, as Lewis maintained (1971), but, as Glass-Coffin recently wrote in the International Journal of Transpersonal Studies (2013) cultural relativism has 'allowed a side-stepping by the more fundamental question of the transpersonal'. Anthropologists tend to contextualise the local accounts, 'domesticating and dismissing them, colonializing knowledge even as they claim to honour the truth of the Other' (2013: 117).

In this panel we want to discuss this problem, which is at the cutting edge between anthropology and study of religions. The failure to contemplate the possibility that non-ordinary realities might be real inhibits the development of appropriate methodologies for exploring them. Arguably, this failure contributes significantly to thecontinuing difficulty in defining religious studies as a distinct academic field by creating a knowledge boundary that excludes from study potentially core phenomena. We therefore welcome papers from scholars who seek to explore and present new ways of studying non-ordinary realities.

Please submit an abstract of app. 200 words by 1 June to
b.schmidt@tsd.ac.uk and dgmw63@gmail.com.