The Legacy of Henry Corbin: Perspectives on Byzantium and Islam: A Symposium

"...the Imagination (or love, or sympathy, or any other sentiment) induces knowledge, and knowledge of an 'object' which is proper to it..."

Henry Corbin (1903-1978) was a scholar, philosopher and theologian. He was a champion of the transformative power of the Imagination and of the transcendent reality of the individual in a world threatened by totalitarianisms of all kinds. One of the 20th century’s most prolific scholars of Islamic mysticism, Corbin was Professor of Islam & Islamic Philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris and at the University of Teheran. He was a major figure at the Eranos Conferences in Switzerland. He introduced the concept of the mundus imaginalis into contemporary thought. His work has provided a foundation for archetypal psychology as developed by James Hillman and influenced countless poets and artists worldwide. But Corbin’s central project was to provide a framework for understanding the unity of the religions of the Book: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. His great work Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn ‘Arabi is a classic initiatory text of visionary spirituality that transcends the tragic divisions among the three great monotheisms. Corbin’s life was devoted to the struggle to free the religious imagination from fundamentalisms of every kind. His work marks a watershed in our understanding of the religions of the West and makes a profound contribution to the study of the place of the imagination in human life.

Monday, April 16, 2012

Perspectives on Byzantium and Islam: A Symposium

The Destruction of Images in Eighth-Century Palestine

Robert Edwin Schick - Research Fellow, American Center of Oriental Research, Amman, Jordan

Untidy History: The Cairo Geniza Documents and Inter-Confessional Contacts

Arnold E. Franklin - Assistant Professor of History, Queens College, The City University of New York

Images in the Heartland and Images in the Southern Periphery of the Byzantine Empire

Gabriele Mietke - Curator for Byzantine Art, Skulpturensammlung und Museum für Byzantinische Kunst, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin—Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz

Transmission of Images in the Mediterranean

Annie Labatt - Chester Dale Fellow, MMA

New Interpretations of the Entrance Facade at Qasr al-Mshatta, Jordan

Claus-Peter Haase - Director Emeritus, Museum für Islamische Kunst, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin—Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, and Honorary Professor of Islamic Art and Archaeology, Freie Universität Berlin