The Legacy of Henry Corbin: Powerful Women: Painting and Building in Persianate Culture

"...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.

Friday, October 5, 2012

Powerful Women: Painting and Building in Persianate Culture

Sussan Babaie, Professor of Persian Art and Architecture, The Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London

Women courting princes, visiting mausoleums, bathing and dancing at court, hunting— Persianate book painting of the fifteenth century is extraordinarily rich in images of women. Equally impressive are extant examples of monumental patronage by women of the House of Timur. Explore the implications for patronage in this period of the "female touch." This program is made possible by the American Institute of Iranian Studies.