Dr. Penprase has been teaching Archaeoastronomy and World Cosmology at Pomona College for over 20 years, both as a Freshman seminar and as a larger general education course. This topic always engages students, and enables them to explore the human connections to the sky in ways that celebrate the diverse cultural heritages across the globe. These explorations have resulted in a number of remarkable interdisciplinary field trips, as well as in student projects that draw from the artistic and humanities talents that many of the students bring to the class.
In 2010, Dr. Penprase wrote a version of this course into a book entitled “The Power of Stars” which is published by Springer, Inc. This book is a general introduction to the many ways that humans have celebrated the skies across the earth and across the centuries. It has also been used as a textbook at Yale University, Yale-NUS College in Singapore and in colleges and universities across the US and in Europe. In 2014, this book was accepted for a second edition, and Dr. Penprase while in Singapore was able to travel extensively in Asia to visit temples and astronomical sites in India, China, Cambodia and across Asia. The second edition was completed and published in 2017.
Here are some links to some of Dr. Penprase’s work on Archaeoastronomy and World Cosmology.
- “The Power of Stars: How Celestial Observations Have Shaped Civilization” book on Amazon
- Yale-NUS College has an institution known as “Week 7” in which classes stop, and professors can explore the region with students to study interdisciplinary topics in depth. This resulted in a short course entitled “Cosmology and Culture of the Chola Empire” which was co-taught by Dr. Penprase with Yale-NUS anthropology professor Barney Bate.
- http://astronomy.commons.yale-
nus.edu.sg/ includes images from the trip to Tamil Nadu, India where Dr. Penprase for the Week 7 course “Cosmology and Culture of the Chola Empire” with Barney Bates, and also includes images from a recent lunar eclipse taken in Singapore. - June 2015 Native American archaeoastronomy trip to the four corners region (will be posted soon to http://www.crowcanyon.org/
travel_adventures/travel_ domestic.asp
National Geographic – “Known Universe” – (this was part of a series that Dr. Penprase contributed to in 2010 on ancient astronomy):
- http://natgeotv.com/ca/known-
universe/videos/ancient- observers - http://natgeotv.com/ca/known-
universe/videos/ancient- equinox - http://natgeotv.com/ca/known-
universe/videos/ancient-mortar - http://natgeotv.com/ca/known-
universe/videos/ancient-gps - http://natgeotv.com/ca/known-
universe/videos/ancient- astronomy