Welcome to
The Sophia Centre Press is a spinout company from the University of Wales Trinity Saint David (UWTSD), established in 2009. It publishes and promotes scholarly work, sponsors and organises conferences and courses related to the work of the University’s Sophia Centre for the Study of Cosmology and Culture, in partnership with the University.
Our work is based in the Humanities and crosses history, anthropology, philosophy and archaeology. We examine the role of cosmological, astronomical and astrological beliefs, models and ideas in human culture, including the theory and practice of myth, magic, divination, religion, spirituality, architecture, politics and the arts in any time period or culture.
Our Staff
Dr. Nick Campion
Dr Nicholas Campion is Associate Professor in Cosmology and Culture, Principal Lecturer in the Institute of Education and Humanities and Director of the Sophia Centre for the Study of Cosmology in Culture at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David.
Dr. Jenn Zahrt
Dr Jenn Zarht is co-director of the press and an Honorary Research Fellow in the Sophia Centre for the Study of Cosmology in Culture at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David. She is also Director of the CAELi Institute and Revelore Press.
Kim Farnell
Kim Farnell is a copy-editor and currently pursuing a Ph.D. focused on the relationship between women’s media and the horoscope column. Kim’s primary interest is the history of astrology and the occult, particularly in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The Star of Bethlehem, the great portent of Christ’s birth in the Gospel of Matthew, has been central to Christian imagery for two thousand years. It is still a popular feature of the modern Christmas card. The star was originally seen as a miracle, sent by God to announce the birth of His son. Since the seventeenth century astronomers have speculated that the star was some astronomical events, such as a planetary conjunction or a comet, or that it possessed astrological significance. In this ground-breaking book Martin Wells shows that these claims are all unjustified. By going back to the original texts Wells argues that we should understand the Star as an imaginative story intended to legitimise Christ’s role as the new Messiah, a story which resonates powerfully down to the present day.
