Editing Joseph Campbell (section)

==Life==

===Background===
Joseph Campbell was born in [[White Plains, New York]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.jcf.org/new/index.php?categoryid=11|title=Joseph Campbell Foundation|date=May 2, 2016|access-date=March 12, 2009|archive-date=March 24, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110324201327/http://www.jcf.org/new/index.php?categoryid=11|url-status=dead}}</ref> on March 26, 1904, the elder son of hosiery importer and wholesaler<ref>''The Encyclopaedia of World Biography'' (2nd ed.). Vol. 3. Brice- Ch'i Pai-Shih, Gale Research. 1998. p. 253.</ref> Charles William Campbell, from [[Waltham, Massachusetts]], and Josephine (née Lynch), from New York.<ref>The Hero's Journey- Joseph Campbell on his life and works, Centennial Edition, ed. Phil Cousineau, Joseph Campbell Foundation/ New World Library, 2003, p. xxvi</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ke4pAQAAMAAJ&q=%22the%20son%20of%20Charles%20William%20Campbell,%20a%20businessman,%20and%20Josephine%20Lynch%22|title=American national biography|first1=John Arthur|last1=Garraty|first2=Mark Christopher|last2=Carnes|first3=American Council of Learned|last3=Societies|year= 1999|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-520635-7}}</ref> Campbell was raised in an [[upper-middle-class]] [[Irish Catholic]] family; he related that his paternal grandfather Charles had been "a peasant" who came to Boston from [[County Mayo]] in Ireland, and became the gardener and caretaker at the [[Lyman Estate]] at Waltham, where his son Charles William Campbell grew up and became a successful salesman at a department store prior to establishing his hosiery business.<ref>Joseph Campbell: A Fire in the Mind- The Authorized Biography, Stephen and Robin Larsen, Doubleday, 1991, p. 7</ref><ref>The Hero's Journey – Joseph Campbell on his life and works, Centennial Edition, ed. Phil Cousineau, Joseph Campbell Foundation/ New World Library, 2003, p. 3</ref> During his childhood, he moved with his family to [[New Rochelle, New York]]. In 1919, a fire destroyed the family home in New Rochelle, killing his maternal grandmother and injuring his father, who tried to save her.<ref>Joseph Campbell: A Fire in the Mind- The Authorized Biography, Stephen and Robin Larsen, Doubleday, 1991, p. 23</ref><ref name="essortment">{{cite web|url=http://www.essortment.com/joseph-campbell-biography-20639.html|publisher=essortment.com|title=Joseph Campbell Bio|access-date=January 7, 2017|archive-date=July 4, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170704122319/http://www.essortment.com/joseph-campbell-biography-20639.html}}</ref>

In 1921, Campbell graduated from the [[Canterbury School (Connecticut)|Canterbury School]] in [[New Milford, Connecticut]]. While at [[Dartmouth College]] he studied biology and mathematics, but decided that he preferred the [[humanities]]. He transferred to [[Columbia University]], where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in [[English literature]] in 1925 and a Master of Arts degree in [[medieval literature]] in 1927. At Dartmouth he had joined [[Delta Tau Delta]]. An accomplished athlete, he received awards in track and field events, and, for a time, was among the fastest half-mile runners in the world.{{sfn|Campbell|2003|pp=20–25}}

In 1924, Campbell traveled to Europe with his family. On the ship during his return trip he encountered the [[messiah]] elect of the [[Theosophical Society]], [[Jiddu Krishnamurti]]; they discussed [[Indian philosophy]], sparking in Campbell an interest in [[Hindu philosophy|Hindu]] and [[Indian philosophy|Indian thought]].{{sfn|Campbell|2003|pp=20, 29}}<ref>[http://www.esalen.org/page/joseph-campbell Joseph Campbell (1904–1987)]. Joseph Campbell Bio. Retrieved on January 20, 2020</ref> In 1927, he received a [[Scholarship|fellowship]] from Columbia University to study in Europe. Campbell studied [[Old French]], [[Provençal (dialect)|Provençal]], and [[Sanskrit]] at the [[University of Paris]] and the [[University of Munich]]. He learned to read and speak French and German.{{sfn|Campbell|2003|pp=29–35}}

On his return to Columbia University in 1929, Campbell expressed a desire to pursue the study of [[Sanskrit]] and [[modern art]] in addition to [[medieval literature]]. Lacking faculty approval, Campbell withdrew from graduate studies. Later in life he jested that it is a sign of incompetence to have a PhD in the [[liberal arts education|liberal arts]], the discipline covering his work.{{sfn|Campbell|1990|pp=54–55}}

===The Great Depression===
With the arrival of the [[Great Depression]], Campbell spent the next five years (1929–1934) living in a rented shack in [[Woodstock, New York]].<ref>{{cite web|last=Faulkner|first=Larry R.|title=Excerpts of remarks made at a dinner honoring new Phi Beta Kappa members|url=http://www.utexas.edu/president/past/faulkner/speeches/phibetakappa_050299.html|website=Office of the President website|publisher=The University of Texas at Austin|access-date=August 13, 2012|date=May 2, 1999}} Citing a conversation between Campbell and [[Bill Moyers]]. "There was a wonderful old man up in Woodstock, New York, who had a piece of property he would rent out for twenty dollars a year or so to any young person he thought might have a future in the arts. There was no running water, only here and there a well and a pump. ... That is where I did most of my basic reading and work."</ref> There, he [[contemplate]]d the next course of his life<ref>Larsen and Larsen, 2002, p. 160</ref> while engaged in intensive and rigorous independent study. He later said that he "would divide the day into four three-hour periods, of which I would be reading in three of the three-hour periods, and free one of them&nbsp;... I would get nine hours of sheer reading done a day. And this went on for five years straight."{{sfn|Campbell|2003|pp=52–53}}

Campbell traveled to California for a year (1931–1932), continuing his independent studies and becoming a close friend of the budding writer [[John Steinbeck]] and his wife Carol. Campbell had met Carol's sister, Idell, on a Honolulu cruise and she introduced him to the Steinbecks. Campbell had an affair with Carol.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Souder|first=William|title=Mad at the World: A Life of John Steinbeck|publisher=W. W. Norton & Company|year=2020|isbn=978-0-393-29226-8|edition=1st|location=New York|page=120|oclc=1137813905}}</ref>{{sfnm |1a1=Campbell |1y=2003 |1p=52 |2a1=Larsen |2a2=Larsen |2y=2002 |2pp=156, 165}} On the [[Monterey Peninsula]], Campbell, like John Steinbeck, fell under the spell of the [[marine biologist]] [[Ed Ricketts]] (the model for "Doc" in Steinbeck's novel ''[[Cannery Row (novel)|Cannery Row]]'' as well as central characters in several other novels).<ref>Larsen and Larsen, 2002, chapters 8 and 9.</ref> Campbell lived for a while next door to Ricketts, participated in professional and social activities at his neighbor's, and accompanied him, along with [[Xenia Kashevaroff|Xenia]] and Sasha Kashevaroff, on a 1932 journey to [[Juneau]], Alaska on the ''Grampus''.<ref name=Straley>{{cite conference|first = John| last = Straley| author-link = John Straley| title = Sitka's ''Cannery Row'' Connection and the Birth of Ecological Thinking| book-title = 2011 Sitka WhaleFest Symposium: stories of our changing seas| publisher = Sitka WhaleFest  | date = November 13, 2011| location = Sitka, Alaska}}</ref> Campbell began writing a novel centered on Ricketts as a hero but, unlike Steinbeck, did not complete his book.<ref>Tamm, Eric Enno (2005) [http://www.seaaroundus.org/OtherWebsites/2005/Of_myths_and_men_in_Monterey.pdf ''Of Myths and Men in Monterey: "Ed Heads" See Doc Ricketts as a Cult Figure''], seaaroundus.org; accessed August 27, 2016.</ref>

Bruce Robison writes that

{{blockquote|Campbell would refer to those days as a time when everything in his life was taking shape.&nbsp;... Campbell, the great chronicler of the "hero's journey" in [[mythology]], recognized patterns that paralleled his own thinking in one of Ricketts's unpublished [[philosophical]] essays. Echoes of [[Carl Jung]], [[Robinson Jeffers]] and [[James Joyce]] can be found in the work of Steinbeck and Ricketts as well as Campbell.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Robison |first=Bruce uwquieH. |year=2004 |title=Mavericks on Cannery Row |url=http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/mavericks-on-cannery-row |magazine=American Scientist |volume=92 |issue=6 |publisher=Sigma Xi |pages=568–569 |issn=0003-0996 |jstor=27858490 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150810022036/http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/mavericks-on-cannery-row |archive-date=August 10, 2015 |access-date=September 2, 2018}}</ref>}}

Campbell continued his independent reading while teaching for a year in 1933 at the [[Canterbury School (Connecticut)|Canterbury School]] in [[Connecticut]], during which time he also attempted to publish works of fiction. While teaching at the Canterbury School, Campbell sold his first short story ''Strictly Platonic'' to ''Liberty'' magazine.<ref>[[Stephen Larsen|Larsen]] and Larsen, 2002, p. 214; [http://www.online.pacifica.edu/cgl/Campbellchronology Pacifica Graduate Institute | Joseph Campbell & Marija Gimbutas Library | Joseph Campbell – Chronology] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081227072637/http://www.online.pacifica.edu/cgl/Campbellchronology |date=December 27, 2008 }}</ref>{{sfn|Campbell|2004|p=291}}

===Sarah Lawrence College===
In 1934, Campbell accepted a position as Professor of Literature at [[Sarah Lawrence College]] in [[Yonkers, New York]]. In 1938, he married one of his former students, the [[dance]]r-[[choreographer]] [[Jean Erdman]]. For most of their 49 years of marriage they shared a two-room apartment in [[Greenwich Village]] in New York City. In the 1980s they also purchased an apartment in [[Honolulu]] and divided their time between the two cities. They did not have any children.

Early in [[World War II]], Campbell attended a lecture by the [[Indologist]] [[Heinrich Zimmer]]; the two men became good friends. After Zimmer's death, Campbell was given the task of editing and posthumously publishing Zimmer's papers, which he would do over the following decade.

In 1955–1956, as the last volume of Zimmer's posthumous [[treatise]], ''The [[Art of India]]n Asia, Its [[Mythology]] and Transformations,'' was finally about to be published, Campbell took a sabbatical from Sarah Lawrence College and traveled, for the first time, to Asia. He spent six months in southern Asia (mostly India) and another six in [[East Asia]] (mostly Japan). This year had a [[profound]] influence on his thinking about [[Asian religion]] and [[myth]], and also on the necessity for teaching [[comparative mythology]] to a larger, non-[[academic]] audience.<ref>See Joseph Campbell, ''Baksheesh and Brahman: Asian Journals – India'' and ''Sake and Satori: Asian Journals – Japan'', New World Library, 2002, 2003.</ref>

In 1972, Campbell retired from Sarah Lawrence College, after having taught there for 38 years.

===Later life and death===
[[Image:JosephCampbell JonathanYoung.jpg|thumb|right|Joseph Campbell with [[Jonathan Young (psychologist)|Jonathan Young]], 1985]]
Campbell attended a [[Grateful Dead]] concert in 1986, and marveled that "Everyone has just lost themselves in everybody else here!" With Grateful Dead, Campbell put on a conference called "[[Ritual]] and [[Rapture]] from [[Dionysus]] to the Grateful Dead".<ref>{{cite book|title=The Mythic Dimension: Selected Essays 1959–1987|last=Campbell|first=Joseph|publisher=New World Library|year=2007|isbn=978-1-60868-491-5}}</ref>

Campbell died at his home in [[Honolulu]], Hawaii, on October 30, 1987, from complications of [[esophageal cancer]].<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/1987/11/02/obituaries/joseph-campbell-writer-known-for-his-scholarship-on-mythology.html "Joseph Campbell, Writer Known For His Scholarship on Mythology "], ''The New York Times''</ref><ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20160304024212/http://www.jcf.org/new/images/people/joe/grave_marker.jpg Joseph Campbell grave marker]</ref> Before his death he had completed filming the series of interviews with [[Bill Moyers]] that aired the following spring as ''[[The Power of Myth]]''. He is buried in O'ahu Cemetery, Honolulu.