"...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.

Search The Legacy of Henry Corbin: Over 800 Posts

Monday, December 19, 2011

Tarkovsky & Ibn Arabi ?

If there is anyone among the readers of this blog who can help Javid Anwar in his search please contact him via phone or email -

Looking for a PhD position
Project: Cinema and the Intermediate image; Perceiving the Invisible in the Visible

This is an ontological study of cinema and it focuses on what lies beyond the fast moving images. In cinema movement happens in the imaginative realm of the observer. But the realistic perception of cinema, well-articulated by its staunch exponent Sergei Eisenstein, does not consider the inner realm and they fail to beyond cinema as an episteme to its very ontological roots. The realistic perception of cinema hits roadblock, when we study film makers like Andrei Tarkovsky, Bresson, Majid Majidi and Kirostami etc, whose visions have deeper inner significations? Can we approach their work with an exoteric modality? If it has only an exoteric meaning, what is the significance of cinema in general? In this context the cinema demands a deeper analysis by combining both the ways. Tarkovsky and his films have been foregrounded in this study, though many filmmakers in his ilk are under its purview. The best way to reconstruct the meaning of Tarkovsky’s art is to know the ways human imagination works and for that one has to go beyond the limits of human reason. And the study seeks the help from the universe of Ibn Arabi’s thought to reclaim the potential of imagination to reconstruct the meaning of cinema in such a way that there are more to see in moving images than we actually see.
Contact javidanwar@gmail.com
Mobile +91 9446393396
Posted by Tom Cheetham at 9:24 AM

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)