Introduces students to astrological divinational systems, methods and thought, with a focus on the astrology of Mesopotamian-Vedic-Greek thought 600 BCE-200 CE and Chinese I-Ching-based divination-astrological systems. Class explores these as key (persistent) examples of what Joseph Needham calls 'correlative thinking,' a mode of thought that attempts to make sense of the world through the prediction/identification of a fundamental, dynamic pattern that is used as a template for making sense of one's place in the world, such as the family, Yin-Yang and Five Element theories, the year and the patterns of the stars day and night, the body, numerological schemas, and so on.
Department of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies