Humanities and Social Sciences

English Program

Staff Directory

Research Areas:

• I conduct research in several disciplines and fields of enquiry. These include analytical psychology, literary and cultural studies, continental philosophy, sociology of religion, theology and religious studies.
• Broadly, I have research interests in the recovery of meaning in a postmodern context, and I explore the emergence of spiritual themes and meaning-making in philosophy, literature, youth experience, educational theory, and the experience of nature and environment.
• Presently I am researching the experience and conceptualisation of the sacred in analytical or Jungian psychology.
• From the beginning of my academic career, I have worked as an interdisciplinary scholar, and my first university degree was in philosophy, literary studies, and art history. In my honours degree, I specialised in modernism, existentialism, and surrealism.
• My PhD thesis at the University of Adelaide was in literary studies and analytical psychology, under the supervision of Professor John Colmer and Professor Brian Elliott.
• In 1982 I was awarded a Harkness Fellowship from the Commonwealth Fund of New York, and in the United States I conducted a two-year postdoctoral program in the fields of archetypal psychology and comparative mythology, under the supervision of Professor James Hillman.
• In recent years, I have been researching and publishing in a newly emerging academic field called spirituality studies, an area which has emerged out of the interactions of religious studies and theology, depth psychology, sociology, philosophy, and education theory.
• At La Trobe University, I teach courses on spirituality and cultural studies, analytical psychology, and literature. I teach a 4th and 5th year subject on the theme of transcendence in contemporary philosophy, depth psychology and literature, and I alternate this with a subject on ecocriticism and environmental psychology.

Editorial Boards:

I am a member of the editorial boards of these international journals:

• International Journal of Psychotherapy and Politics (London and Chicago)
• International Journal of Children’s Spirituality (Brighton, England)
• Harvest: Journal for Contemporary Jungian Studies and Culture (London)
• Spirituality and Health International (London)

Publications:

I have published 8 books and 89 essays and chapters in books.

Books:

• How to Read Jung, London: Granta Books and New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. This book is part of the How to Read Series, a series of monographs on major philosophers and cultural figures, edited by Simon Critchley.
• The Idea of the Numinous: Contemporary Jungian and Psychoanalytic Perspectives (edited by Ann Casement and David Tacey), London and New York: Routledge, 2006.
• The Spirituality Revolution: The Emergence of Contemporary Spirituality. Sydney: HarperCollins, 2003; London: Brunner-Routledge, 2004.
• Jung and the New Age. London and New York: Routledge, 2001.
• ReEnchantment: The New Australian Spirituality. Sydney: HarperCollins, 2000.
• Remaking Men: Jung, Spirituality and Social Change. London and New York: Routledge, 1997; Melbourne: Viking Penguin Books, 1997.
• Edge of the Sacred: Transformation in Australia. Melbourne: Collins Dove, 1995 and Sydney: HarperCollins, 1995.
• Patrick White: Fiction and the Unconscious. Melbourne and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.

Journals:

I have published over 60 essays in various international journals. These include journals of analytical psychology, cultural studies, and critical enquiry. These journals include the following:

Analytical Psychology:

• The San Francisco Jung Institute Library Journal (California)
• The Journal of Analytical Psychology (London)
• Spring: A Journal of Archetype and Culture (New Orleans)
• The Round Table Press Review (Philadelphia)
• Harvest: Journal for Contemporary Jungian Studies and Culture (London)
• Psychological Perspectives (Los Angeles)
• Sphinx: A Journal of Archetypal Psychology and the Arts (London)
• Lapis: A Journal of Archetype and Culture (Chicago)

Religion:

• The International Journal of Children’s Spirituality (Brighton, England)
• Spirituality and Health International (London)
• Studies in Spirituality (Leuven, Belgium)
• Interface: A Forum for Theology in the World (Adelaide)
• Zadok Perspectives (Melbourne)
• Journal of the Tertiary Campus Ministry Association (Perth)
• Dialogue Australasia (Sydney)
• The Summit (Melbourne)
• Eremos: Journal of the Eremos Institute (Sydney)
• Sociology, Literature, Culture:
• The Social Ecology Journal (Sydney)
• Australian Humanities Review (Melbourne)
• Psychotherapy in Australia (Melbourne)
• Temenos: Australian Jungian and Cultural Review (Canberra)
• Island (Hobart)
• Quadrant (Melbourne)
• Meridian (Melbourne)
• Meanjin (Melbourne)
• Southern Review (Sydney)
• Australian Literary Studies (Brisbane)
• Australian Book Review (Melbourne)
• Hysteric: Body, Medicine, Text (Melbourne)

Chapters in books:

I have published numerous chapters in various books, and the following is a selection only:

• Tacey, D.J. ‘Negotiating the Numinous: The Challenge of Teaching Jung in the University’. A chapter in Ann Casement (Ed). Who Owns Jung? London: Karnac, forthcoming 2006.
• Tacey, D.J. ‘Spirituality as a Bridge to Religion and Faith’. In De Souza, M., Engebretson, K., Durka, G., Jackson, R., McGrady, A., (Eds). International Handbook of the Religious, Moral and Spiritual Dimensions of Education. New York: Springers Academic Publishers. Forthcoming 2006.
• Tacey, D.J. (2005) ‘Spiritual Perspectives on Suicidal Impulses in Young Adults’. In Richard H. Cox, Betty Ervin-Cox, and Louis Hoffman (Eds). Spirituality and Psychological Health. Colorado Springs: Colorado School of Professional Psychology Press, 107-128.
• Tacey, D.J. (2005) ‘Encountering Tradition in a Postmodern Context’. In Cathy Ota and Clive Erricker (Eds). Spiritual Education: Literary, Empirical and Pedagogical Approaches. Brighton, England: Sussex Academic Press, pp. 175-189.
• Tacey, D.J. (2001). ‘Youth Spirituality as a Response to Cultural Crisis’. In Jane Erricker, Cathy Ota, and Clive Erricker (Eds). Spiritual Education: Cultural, Religious and Social Differences. Brighton, England: Sussex Academic Press, pp. 88-104.
• Tacey, D.J. (2000). ‘Why Jung would doubt the New Age’. In Susan Greenberg (Ed). Therapy on the Couch: A Shrinking Future? Issue No.2. Mindfield: Polemic, Debate and Analysis. London: Camden Press, pp.36-42.
• Tacey, D.J. (2006). ‘What is Religion For?’ In Ross Langmead (Ed.) Re-Imagining God and Mission: Perspectives from Australia. Adelaide: ATF Press (forthcoming, in press).
• Tacey, D.J. (2005). ‘Educating the Heart: spirituality and interiority’. In Peta Heywood and Bernie Neville (Eds). Towards Re-Enchantment: Education, Imagination and the Getting of Wisdom. Brisbane: Post Pressed Publishers, pp. 39-49.
• Tacey, D.J. (2003). ‘Spirit Place: Aboriginal cosmology of David Mowaljarlai’. In John Cameron (Ed). Changing Places: Re-imagining Australia. Sydney: Longueville Press, pp. 243-248.
• Tacey, D.J. (2000). ‘Dimitris Tsaloumas: poet of the mythic imagination’. In Helen Nickas (Ed). Dimitris Tsaloumas: A Voluntary Exile. Melbourne: Owl Publishing, pp. 185-191.
• Tacey, D.J. (2000). ‘Aboriginal Reconciliation as a Spiritual Experience’. In Michael Griffith and James Tulip (Eds). Spirit of Place: Source of the Sacred. Sydney: Centre for Studies in Religion, Literature and the Arts, July, pp. 75-83.
• Tacey, D.J. (1998). ‘Twisting and Turning with James Hillman: from anima to world soul, from academia to pop’. In Ann Casement (Ed). The Post-Jungians Today. London and New York: Routledge, pp.215-234.