Dr Darrelyn Gunzburg BA(Hons), PhD

Teaches on the MA distance learning course run by the Sophia Centre for the Study of Cosmology in Culture at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David and contributes to the design of two of the six taught modules: Foundations and Sacred Skies module. Grades student essays, organises the Techniques of Scholarship online training skills tutorials, and supervises MA dissertation students.

Modules taught:

• HPCA 7015 Foundations in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology
• HPCA 7027 Sacred Skies

 Occasional teaching on:

• HPCA 7014 Sacred Geography

She established the Alumni Association of the Sophia Centre in 2014 and was its Inaugural Chair (2014–2018). From 2010–2014 she was a tutor for the History of Art at the University of Bristol.  

I completed my BA (Hons) after moving to the UK from Australia. Although I began with a module of Shakespeare, having worked extensively as a playwright in Australia, my academic interests moved to History of Art and both my BA (Hons) awarded by the Open University in 2006, and my PhD, awarded by the University of Bristol in 2014, specialising in European medieval history of art. My doctoral thesis is entitled: ‘Giotto’s Salone: an astrological investigation into the fresco scheme of the first floor Salone of the Palazzo Della Ragione’.

In 2009 I joined the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, in 2010, teaching on the MA in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology.

Alongside this position, from 2010–2015 I taught undergraduate History of Art and History students at the University of Bristol (HIST13015: Approaching The Past, HART10215: Introduction to Medieval Art, HART20009: Early Italian Art, HART22225: Special Field Project, HART22223: History and Theories of Art, and HART10215: Introduction to Medieval Art).

Teaching

My current teaching is now solely focused on the MA in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology.

AHAN7002 Introduction to Cultural Astronomy and Astrology      
This module introduces the study of astronomy, astrology and cosmology in relation to culture.

AHAN7003 History of Astrology
This module examines the history of astrology from its origin in Mesopotamia through its transmission to Greece, Egypt and classical Rome and its revival in the nineteenth and twentieth-centuries.

AHAN7024 Heavenly Discourses
This module explores human relationship with the sky through zodiacs, astrolabes, maps, poetry, literature, music, architecture and the visual arts.

Past MA module, no longer taught:
MARCH7820: The Medieval Cosmos.

2021

• Space, Place and Religious Landscapes: Living Mountains, edited by Darrelyn Gunzburg and Bernadette Brady, London: Bloomsbury Academic.
• ‘Building Paradise on the Hill of Hell in Assisi: Mountain as Reliquary.’ In Space, Place, and Religious Landscapes: Living Mountains, edited by Darrelyn Gunzburg and Bernadette Brady, 99–120. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2021.

2020

• ‘Time Pursued by a Bear: Ursa Major and Stellar Time-Telling in the Paduan Salone.’ In Visualising Skyscapes: Material Forms of Cultural Engagement with the Heavens, edited by Liz Henty and Daniel Brown, 158–176. London and New York: Routledge.

2019

• ‘Reflecting on Mary: the Splendor of the Madonna in the Lower Church of Assisi’ in Medieval Franciscan Approaches to the Virgin Mary: Sanctissima, Misericordia, Et Dolorosa, edited by Steven J. McMichael and Katie Wrisly Shelby. The Medieval Franciscans, 302-334. Leiden; Boston: Brill. 
• Guest Editor: ‘Special Issue: Inside the World of Contemporary Astrology.’ Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture 13, no. 1.
• ‘The Horoscopic Place: The Encounter between Astrologer and Client.’ Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature & Culture 13, no. 1 (2019): 44–60.

2018

• ‘Al-Qabisi.’ In Astrology through History: Interpreting the Stars from Ancient Mesopotamia to the Present, edited by William E. Burns,17–19. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO.
• ‘Art.’ In Astrology through History: Interpreting the Stars from Ancient Mesopotamia to the Present, edited by William E. Burns, 27–33. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO.
• ‘Medieval European Astrology.’ In Astrology through History: Interpreting the Stars from Ancient Mesopotamia to the Present, edited by William E. Burns, 218–222. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. 218–222. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO.

 2017

• ‘The Reception of Islamic Astrology in the Images of the Palazzo della Ragione, Padua, Italy’ in Religious Offerings and Sacrifices in the Ancient Near East; Astrology in the Ancient Near East; the River Jordan, edited by Shafiq Abouzayd, 177–194. Oxford: ARAM Society for Syro-Mesopotamian Studies.

2016

• ‘The Orientation of Cistercian Churches in Wales: A Cultural Astronomy Case Study.’ Cîteaux – Commentarii cistercienses 67, no. 3–4 (2016): 275–302. Coauthored with B.Brady and F. Silva.
• Editor: The Imagined Sky: Cultural Perspectives. Sheffield: Equinox Publishing
• ‘Giotto’s Sky: The Fresco Paintings of the First Floor Salone of the Palazzo Ragione, Padua, Italy’ in The Imagined Sky: Cultural Perspectives. edited by Darrelyn Gunzburg. 87–113. Sheffield: Equinox Publishing.
• Guest Editor: ‘Special Issue: The Imagined Sky, Cultural Perspectives’, Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture 7, no. 4.

2013

• ‘Giotto’s Sky: The fresco paintings of the first floor Salone of the Palazzo della Ragione, Padua, Italy.’ Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture 7, no. 4 (2013): 407–433.
• ‘The Perugia Fountain: An Encyclopaedia of Sky, Culture and Society’. In Sky and Symbol, edited by Nicholas Campion and Liz Greene, 103–118. Ceredigion:  Sophia Centre Press, University of Wales Trinity Saint David.
• ‘How Do Astrologers Read Charts?’ In Astrologies: Plurality and Diversity, edited by Nicholas Campion and Liz Greene, 181–200. Ceredigion: Sophia Centre Press, University of Wales, Trinity Saint David.

 2011

• ‘Looking Back: The Transgression of Social Codes Explored through the Direct Gaze in Fra Angelico’s San Marco Altarpiece When Compared with Madonna and Child with Eight Saints’. St Andrews Journal of Art History and Museum Studies 14 (2010), 31–44.

From 2008–2015 I wrote regularly for The Art Book (Wiley) and Cassone: The International Online Magazine of Art and Art Books and I was on the editorial board of Cassone 2011–2015.