The Legacy of Henry Corbin: New Research on the Collections of the Department of Islamic Art

"...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.

Saturday, May 5, 2012

New Research on the Collections of the Department of Islamic Art

Discoveries
New Research on the Collections of the Department of Islamic Art

at the Metropolitan Museum

This two-day symposium celebrates the reopening of the Galleries for the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia. Internationally renowned scholars and curators present recent scholarship in themed sessions.

Part I: Day 1, Morning Session

Keynote Address
Renata Holod, University of Pennsylvania
Book Arts of Iran and India

New Thoughts on New Acquisitions from the Welch Collection
Navina Najat Haidar, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Thoughts on Some Safavid Works on Paper
Sheila Canby, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Literary History and Popular Mythology in a Fifteenth-Century Persian Manuscript
Priscilla P. Soucek, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University

This symposium is made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.