Image: Natasha V. Moody, Logos VI, Ph(y)toforms, photograph 8×10’’, 2021
This conference is organized jointly by Centre for the History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents at the University of Amsterdam, the Giorgio Cini Foundation (the Centre for Comparative Studies of Civilisations and Spiritualities), and the Center for Advanced Studies “Alternative Rationalities and Esoteric Practices from a Global (CAS E) at the Friedrich Alexander Universität Erlangen Nürnberg.
The conference focuses on the aesthetics of esoteric practices through materialities, performances, and the senses. It aims to explore the extent to which esoteric practices are socially and culturally constructed and effective because they are practiced, performed, sensorily perceived and embodied by participants as practitioners as well as spectators.
The conference evolves around aesthetics as the relations between esoteric practices and the practicing individual and their social and cultural environment. The concept of aesthetics draws attention to (1) the senses as the interface between practices and practitioners and the possible site of efficacy of esoteric practices, but also to (2) the aesthetic significance of materialities and their central role in the context of esoteric practices and (3) performances as enactments and bodily actions and interactions in the context of esoteric practices that evoke sensory responses, bodily transformations and culturally and socially kindled experience effects.
Contributions that address aesthetics of esoteric practices through materialities, performances and senses, from a theoretical, empirical research based and/or practical perspective are invited; also encouraged are performative contributions that are dedicated to mediating the aesthetics of esoteric practices by making them observable and tangible.
The conference will serve as a forum for exchange on whether and how aesthetics play a key role in the success and omnipresence of esoteric practices in contemporar y (oc)culture.
The conference is organized jointly by the Giorgio Cini Foundation (the Centre for Comparative Studies of Civilisations and Spiritualities), the Center for Advanced Studies “Alternative Rationalities and Esoteric Practices from a Global (CAS E) at the Friedrich Alexander Universität Erlangen Nürnberg, and the Centre for the History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents at the University of Amsterdam.
