Angela Voss
BA, MA, PhD
Lecturer in Religious Studies
Office: CNW210
Tel : 01227 824411
Email: a.voss@kent.ac.uk
Profile
Angela completed her first degree in Combined Arts at Leicester University, specialising in music and modern languages. She went on to obtain a Diploma in Early Music at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, followed by an MA in Music Performance at the City University, London. Her Ph.D, also at City, was on the astrological music therapy of the 15th century Italian philosopher Marsilio Ficino.
Her main research interests lie in the art, philosophy, cosmology and magical practices of the Renaissance and Western esoteric traditions, although she is also interested in the broader field of the role of the imagination in spiritual knowledge and contemporary expressions of this in divinatory and therapeutic practices. She has been a full time lecturer at Kent since 2006, and currently directs the MA programme and convenes the BA module in the Cultural Study of Cosmology and Divination. Central to these programmes is the desire to bridge the gap between theory and practice in the new area of divination studies, which is being pioneered at Kent thanks to the sponsorship of the Sophia Trust. Since being at Kent Angela has convened three international conferences, ‘The Imaginal Cosmos’, ‘Seeing with Different Eyes’ and ‘Divination and Dialogue’ (co-convenor with Patrick Curry). She is also a musician who has masterminded three recordings, Thomas Lupo, Consort Music; Secrets of the Heavens (a re-creation of Ficino’s astrological hymn-singing) and Images of Melancholy (John Dowland’s Lachrimae with readings from the Corpus Hermeticum).
Research
Publications
Ficino and Astrology' in Astrology: the Astrologers' Quarterly vol.60 (1986) no. 3, :126-38; no. 4, 191-99
'The Renaissance Musician: Speculations on the Performing Style of Marsilio Ficino' in Temenos 11 (1990), 31-52
Review of Performance: Revealing the Orpheus Within by Anthony Rooley (Shaftesbury 1990) in Early Music vol. XIX no.3 (1991), 451-3
'The Natural Magic of Marsilio Ficino' in Historical Dance vol. 3 no.1 (1991) 25-30
Review of Ficino, Three Books on Life eds. C. Kaske & J. Clark in Aries vols. 12-13 (1992), 68-73
'On the Knowledge of Divine Things: Ficino's concept of notio; Divinatory versus 'Scientific' Astrology' in Sphinx: A Journal for Archetypal Psychology and the Arts vol.6 (1994), 149-72
'The Book of the Sun' by Marsilio Ficino, translated by G. Cornelius, D. Costello, G. Tobyn, A. Voss and V. Wells in Sphinx vol. 6, 124-48
'The Music of the Spheres; Marsilio Ficino and Renaissance Harmonia' in Culture and Cosmos vol.2 no.2 (1998), 16-38
'Marsilio Ficino, the Second Orpheus' in Music as Medicine, The History of Music Therapy since Antiquity ed. P. Horden (Ashgate, 2000), 154-72
'The Astrology of Marsilio Ficino, Divination or Science?' in Culture and Cosmos vol. 4 no.2 (2000), 29-45
'Orpheus redivivus: The Musical Magic of Marsilio Ficino' in Marsilio Ficino, his Theology, his Philosophy, his Legacy (Brill, Leiden 2002) 227-41
'Father Time and Orpheus' (Abzu Press, Oxford 2003)
'From Allegory to Anagoge; the challenge of symbolic perception in a literal world' in Astrology and the Academy (Cinnabar Books 2004)
'The Secret Life of Statues' in Sky and Psyche, the Relationship between Cosmos and Consciousness eds. N. Campion & P. Curry (Edinburgh: Floris Books, 2006)
Marsilio Ficino (California: North Atlantic Books, Western Esoteric Masters Series, 2006)
‘Father Time and Orpheus’ in The Imaginal Cosmos: Astrology, Divination and the Sacred ed. with Jean Hinson Lall (Canterbury: University of Kent, 2007)
‘The Power of a Melancholy Humour; Divination and Divine Tears’ in Seeing with Different Eyes; Essays on Astrology and Divination ed. with Patrick Curry (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, forthcoming 2008)
Recordings
Secrets of the Heavens with Mark Rylance, Mark Tucker, Catherine King and the Marini Consort (Riverrun Records 2001)
Images of Melancholy with John Line, Lynda Sayce, Andrew Wilson-Dickson and the Marini Consort (Riverrun Records 2003)
Thomas Lupo: Consort Music The English Fantasy Consort of Viols (AS&V Gaudeamus, 1995)