Joseph Campbell

Joseph Campbell (New York City, March 26, 1904 - Honolulu, October 30, 1987) was an American professor, writer, and orator best known for his work in the fields of comparative mythology and comparative religion.

Life

Campbell was born and raised in New York City in an upper middle class family. As a child, Campbell became fascinated with Native American culture when his father took him to see the American Museum of Natural History in New York. He soon became versed in numerous aspects of Native American society, primarily in its mythology. This led to Campbell's lifelong passion with myth and its similar, seemingly cohesive threads among all human cultures. At Dartmouth College he studied biology and mathematics, but later transferred to Columbia University, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1925 and a Master of Arts degree in 1927.

Related Topics:
New York City - Native American - Culture - American Museum of Natural History - New York - Its mythology - Myth - Dartmouth College - Columbia University - Bachelor of Arts - 1925 - Master of Arts - 1927

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Campbell is considered by some to be one of the most famous autodidacts, or 'self-educators', and is sometimes seen as a poster child for this way of learning. After completing his master's degree, Campbell decided not to go forward with his plans to earn a doctorate; instead, he went into the woods in upstate New York, reading deeply for five years. According to poet and author Robert Bly, a friend of Campbell, Campbell developed a systematic program of reading nine hours a day. According to Campbell, this is, in a sense, where his real education took place, and the time when he began to develop his unique view on the nature of life.

Related Topics:
Autodidacts - Poster child - Learning - Doctorate - Robert Bly

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He went on to study Old French and Sanskrit at the University of Paris and the University of Munich. He learned to speak at least French, German and Sanskrit in addition to English. Campbell began his literary career by editing the posthumous papers of Indologist Heinrich Zimmer. With Henry Morton Robinson he wrote A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake, for which generations of puzzled readers of James Joyce have been grateful.

Related Topics:
Old French - Sanskrit - University of Paris - University of Munich - French - German - English - Heinrich Zimmer - Henry Morton Robinson - Finnegans Wake - James Joyce

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Campbell studied the ideas of the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, who had been a colleague of Sigmund Freud. Campbell's work in mythology sought to bridge the seemingly disparate stances of Jung and Freud and their pivotal debate over the collective unconscious. Campbell also edited the first Eranos conference papers and helped to found Princeton's Bollingen Press. Another dissident member of Freud's circle who influenced Campbell was Wilhelm Stekel (1868 - 1939), who pioneered the application of Freud's conceptions of dreams, fantasies of the human mind, and the unconscious to such fields as anthropology and literature.

Related Topics:
Swiss - Psychiatrist - Carl Jung - Sigmund Freud - Collective unconscious - Eranos - Princeton - Bollingen Press - Wilhelm Stekel - 1868 - 1939 - Human mind - Anthropology - Literature

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Campbell was a professor at Sarah Lawrence College from 1934 until 1972. He married his student, Jean Erdman, a dancer, in 1938.

Related Topics:
Sarah Lawrence College - 1934 - 1972 - Jean Erdman

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