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Joseph Campbell Collection
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Title: Joseph Campbell Collection
Physical Description: 58 linear feet(52 boxes)
Repository:
Opus Archives and Research Center
Santa Barbara, CA 93108
Language of Material:
English
Scope and Content Note
The Joseph Campbell collection consists of artifacts and audiovisual materials,
including lecture recordings and film, that were created or collected throughout the
course of his lifetime, as well as his personal library (catalogued separately).
There are approximately 1,200 audio taped lectures and video tapes from during the
decades he taught at Sarah Lawrence College, Eranos, Esalen, and elsewhere. The
approximately 650 audio tape cassettes of Campbell’s public lectures reveal the
scope of his interests in comparative mythology, religious studies, the hero’s
journey, Indian mythology, the literature of James Joyce and Thomas Mann, and the
psychologies of Sigmund Freud and C.J. Jung. Consists of two series: 1) Artifacts
and 2) Audiovisual.
Campbell’s personal library contains approximately 3,000 volumes in the fields of
mythology, literature, art, philosophy, and religion. A number of the volumes are
rare and many of the books contain his marginalia. Search Campbell’s collection of
books at the
Joseph Campbell
Library
.
Campbell’s research notes, lecture notes and syllabi, correspondence files, and
manuscripts are located at the New York Public Library, Manuscripts and Archives
Division.
Biography/Organization History
Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) was an American mythologist, writer, lecturer and
Professor of Literature at Sarah Lawrence College from 1934 to 1972. His work
focused on comparative mythology and comparative literature.
He was born in 1904 in White Plains, New York and studied at Columbia University,
where he received a BA in 1925 and then an MA in Arthurian Studies in 1927. During
the years he was on a traveling Fellowship in Europe to continue his studies at the
University of Paris (1927-28) and at the University of Munich (1928-29), Campbell
was exposed to the modern artists including Pablo Picasso and Paul Klee, the
literary works of James Joyce and Thomas Mann, and the psychological work of Sigmund
Freud and C.G. Jung. These individuals and their work greatly influenced Campbell’s
work, which centered on mythology, literature, and psychology.
In 1938 he married one of his students, Jean Erdman, who would become a major
presence in the emerging field of modern dance, first as a star dancer in Martha
Graham's fledgling troupe and later as dancer and choreographer of her own
company.
In 1942 Campbell became involved in the Bollingen Foundation through the Indologist
Heinrich Zimmer, a colleague of C.G. Jung’s. He contributed an "Introduction and
Commentary" to Bollingen’s first publication
Where the Two Came to their
Father: A Navaho War Ceremonial
, text and paintings recorded by Maud
Oakes, given by Jeff King (Bollingen Series I: 1943). He would then come to edit and
complete four volumes of Zimmer’s posthumous papers:
Myths and Symbols in
Indian Art and Civilization
(Bollingen Series VI: 1946),
The King
and the Corpse
(Bollingen Series XI: 1948),
Philosophies of
India
(Bollingen Series XXVI: 1951), and a two-volume opus,
The Art
of Indian Asia
(Bollingen Series XXXIX: 1955).
His first individual and most widely known book was
The Hero with a Thousand
Faces
(Bollingen Series XVII: 1949), which illustrates the theory of the
archetypal hero’s journey. Campbell would come to write and edit many books,
articles, and essays throughout his prolific career. Other well known publications
include the four-volume set of
The Masks of God (1959-1968),
Myths to Live By (1972),
The Mythic Image (1974), and
five books in his four-volume, multi-part unfinished
Historical Atlas of World
Mythology
(1983-1989). See the Opus Archives and Research Center website
for a
bibliography of Campbell’s works.
Campbell was also a prolific public lecturer and traveled around the world to many
universities and institutions. These include Eranos, Esalen Institute, the Theatre
of the Open Eye in New York City, and many others.
In 1988, a year after his death, the PBS series Joseph Campbell and
The Power
of Myth
with Bill Moyers was broadcast. The effect of this series upon
the culture and the study of mythology and Jungian psychology has been
extensive.
For further biographical history see the authorized biography Joseph Campbell:
Fire in the Mind by Stephen Larsen and Gail Larsen. Also visit the
Joseph
Campbell Foundation website.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Comparative literature
Comparative mythology
Literature
Mythology
Psychology