Lecture at the Samuel Jordan Center, UC Irvine

& The Program in Religious Studies

of the University of California at Irvine

 Present

A Country the Color of Heaven:

Islam, Iran and Imagination

in the Work of Henry Corbin
by
Tom Cheetham

3:30 p.m., Tuesday, 

May 10, 2011

Humanities Gateway 1030

Henry Corbin (1903-1978) was a uniquely creative Protestant theologian and a prolific and important scholar of Sufism and Islamic mysticism in general, with a particular focus on the religious thought of Shi’ite Iran. His vision of the unity of the grand sweep of the religions of the Prophetic Tradition - Judaism, Christianity and Islam - is of vital importance for the contemporary world. Corbin taught in Paris and in Teheran and lectured annually at the Eranos Conferences from 1949 until his death. He was a friend and colleague of C.G. Jung and shared his view of the central importance of the active imagination in human life. His works have had a lasting impact on scholars of religion, visionary thinkers and poets. His great book 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 spirituality and liberal theology in the contemporary world.

This illustrated lecture will introduce the life and work of Henry Corbin and provide an orientation in the basic themes of Islamic and Iranian spirituality as he understood them. We will outline his vision of the unity of the Religions of the Book. Topics include the mundus imaginalis and creative imagination, spiritual alchemy and the meaning of ta'wil, divine and human love, and the role of the Angel Holy Spirit in the life of the soul.

Event is open and free to the public.

Driving and parking directions

EVENT DETAILS

Center for Persian Studies and Culture

For my other Los Angeles and Seattle Lectures 
this May see West Coast Lectures