{"product_id":"9781907767722","title":"Culture and Cosmos: Vol 18 number 2","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis issue of \u003cem\u003eCulture and Cosmos\u003c\/em\u003e includes seven significant papers on the history of astrology, covering a range of periods and approaches. Roger Beck’s ‘The Ancient Mithraeum as a Model Universe. Part 2’, touches on archaeoastronomy and classical religion [1]. Helena Avelar and Charles Burnett’s analysis of a twelfth century horoscope cast by Abraham the Jew examines the technical practice of medieval astrology. Lindsay Starkey’s paper on Mellin de Saint-Gelais and John Calvin, and Scott Hendrix’s on Galileo, concern theoretical contexts for the European astrology of the middle ages and Renaissance. Richard Angelo Bergen’s ‘\u003cem\u003eParadise Lost\u003c\/em\u003e and the Descent of Urania: from Astrology to Allegory’ deals with literature, Hakan Kirkoğlu’s ‘\u003cem\u003eIlm-i nudjum\u003c\/em\u003e and 18\u003csup\u003eth\u003c\/sup\u003e century Ottoman Court Politics’ examines the political uses of astrology, and Graham Douglas’s ‘Trystes Cosmologiques: When Lévi-Strauss Met the Astrologers’ explores one of the twentieth century’s most important anthropologist’s attitudes to astrology [2]. Anything Lévi-Strauss said about astrology is of interest by definition, in view of his authorship of a remarkable series of seminal works (\u003cem\u003eThe Elementary Structures of Kinship\u003c\/em\u003e (1949), \u003cem\u003eTristes tropiques\u003c\/em\u003e (1955), \u003cem\u003eStructural Anthropology\u003c\/em\u003e (1961), \u003cem\u003eMythologiques\u003c\/em\u003e (1964), \u003cem\u003eThe Raw and the Cooked\u003c\/em\u003e (1964), and \u003cem\u003eThe Savage Mind\u003c\/em\u003e (1966). Lévi-Strauss, coming last chronologically in this journal, also has the last word. In response to a question about the surrealist André Breton, Lévi-Strauss replied:\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI knew André Bréton well – we were very close for a period of time; but I won’t go as far as him. I wouldn’t say that it holds [secrets] – but it is perhaps one of the signs that secrets exist which we don’t understand, and I feel impelled to say, that we will doubtless never understand.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/blockquote\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt is precisely this lack of understanding which motivates historians: with just a little more evidence, we hope, perhaps we will understand the world a little better. And perhaps, then, the papers in this issue will take us a little closer to understanding astrology’s appeal, claims, role, nature, function, ideology, world-view and cultural significance.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDr Nicholas Campion,\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eUniversity of Wales Trinity Saint David\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e[1] Part 1 was published as Roger Beck, ‘The Ancient Mithraeum as a Model Universe. Part 1’, in \u003cem\u003eHeavenly Discourses, \u003c\/em\u003eed. Nicholas Campion (Lampeter: Sophia Centre Press, 2016), pp. 21–31.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e[2] For comparison see Nicholas Campion, 'Surrealist Cosmology: André Breton and Astrology'\u003cem\u003e, Culture and Cosmos \u003c\/em\u003e6, no. 2 (Autumn\/Winter 2002): pp. 45–56.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Sophia Centre Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49833621487856,"sku":"9781907767722","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781907767722","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}