The Literary and Linguistic Context of the Zohar

Conference on

Late Aramaic: The Literary and Linguistic Context of the Zohar

Monday, November 9th to Wednesday November 11, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1

This conference is part of a a project combining two areas of expertise which have never been put together before: Jewish mysticism and Kabbalah on the one hand, and Semitic languages, in particular Aramaic, on the other hand. The project sets out to examine the Aramaic language in which the bulk of the Zohar—Judaism"s most important Kabbalistic work—was originally written, either—as tradition has it—in 2nd century Palestine, or—as has been held by most scholars under the impact of pioneering work by the late Gershom Scholem—in late 13th century Spain. Scholem had argued that the Aramaic of the Zohar was an "artificial idom" made up from an indiscriminate mixture of Aramaic dialects found in earlier sources, such as the two Talmuds and the Aramaic translations of the Bible. This late medieval Aramaic concoction was produced, according to Scholem, by one man—the 13th century Castillian kabbalist, Moses de Leon, who authored the Zohar anonymously, and who wished to invest his work with the air and authority of antiquity by adopting the vernacular language of the 2nd century Palestinian Sages.

See the full program.

How dangerous is the Ir-rational?

Symposium:

"How dangerous is the Ir-rational?"

ICI Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry
http://www.ici-berlin.org/

Friday, 30 October 2009, 2 – 9 pm

Doomed to a constant oscillation between the realms of the Unknown and the illusion of meaning, we advance regressing. Echoing various other scholars, the American philosopher William James marked “the recesses of feeling the darker, blinder strata of character” as the only places in the world in which “we catch real fact in the making.” Yet, instead of curiously exploring what cannot be known, we push it further away, enveloped with fear and anxiousness. The “darker strata” regularly produce angst, aversion, or awe. In this one day symposium, acclaimed scholars and artists will shed “light” on what has been relegated to the sphere of unreason: magic, the irrational, spectrality, the daemonic. Who is afraid of the irrational? What is “magic philosophy” and who needs it? How much reason is reasonable? The symposium ends with a keynote by the distinguished anthropologist Michael Taussig who will share with the audience his own private fear of the ir-rational.

Program

• 14.00 Welcome, Christoph Holzhey (Director ICI Berlin)
• 14.10 "Reasonable Ghosts: The Dream of Reason and Magic Philosophy in the 1790s," Sladja Blazan (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin)
• 14.50 "Non timebis a daemonio meridiano: Greek Irrational and the Construction of Modernity," Fabio Camilletti (ICI Berlin)
• 15.30 Coffee Break
• 16.00 Artist Presentation: "Visual Languages and Observable Planets," Jesse Bransford (New York University)
• 16.40 "Beyond Cognition? Emily Dickinson, Poetry, and the Brain," Sabine Sielke (Universität Bonn)
• 17.20 "Facing up to Magic: Fascination and Illusion in Bergman’s ANSIKTET (The Magician/The Face, 1958)," Brigitte Weingart (Universität Bonn)
• 18.00 Coffee Break
• 18.30 Keynote: "My Fear of the Rational," Michael Taussig (Columbia University)
• 19.30 Reception

Esotericism, Magic, and Radicalism

Paper proposals are invited for the 4th North American international conference on esotericism, to be held June 17-20, 2010 at Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA. The conference is jointly sponsored by the Association for the Study of Esotericism, the Societas Magica, and JSR: Journal for the Study of Radicalism. The call for papers can be found on the ASE website.

Studying Interpretations of Esotericism and Mysticism

Call for Papers

"Studying Interpretations of Esotericism and Mysticism"

Association for the Study of Mysticism and Esotericism

Ассоциация исследователей эзотеризма и мистицизма

3 - 5 December 2009, Vladimir, Russian Federation

Because of intense public interest in ‘new religiosity’, esoteric and occult currents as well as in consequence of changes in the Religious and Cultural Studies paradigms, new approaches towards the research of Esotericism and Mysticism have appeared and have been intensively discussed over the last two decades. Academic institutes and societies studying these topics and developing new categories, terms and classifications are on the rise. Western European scholars of religion particularly focus on the issues of appropriateness of phenomenological and hermeneutic methods, as well as on the application of various types of discourse analysis. At the same time, the humanities studying esotericism, mysticism and their implications in ‘new religiosity’ in the post-soviet world are just beginning to break ground upon this subject. Conference organizers hope that this scholarly forum will significantly contribute to the cause of development of this promising area of research. The study of the interpretations of esotericism and mysticism prevalent within the esoteric and mystic environment itself, in their public perception and within academic circles may lay ground for further development of the study of mysticism and esotericism in Russia and other post-communist countries.

See the Call for Papers

Conference: Religion, Nature & Progress

The program of the conference Religion, Nature, and Progress (23-26 July at the University of Amsterdam) is now available online. The extensive program includes several papers which deal particularly with issues of Western esotericism:

- William R. Newman, Indiana University (USA): "Isaac Newton and the Perfecting of Nature" (keynote lecture);
- Nina Witoszek, University of Oslo (Norway): "Leonardo da Vinci Our Contemporary? The 'Other' Renaissance and Its Views on Religion and Progress" (keynote lecture);
- Egil Asprem, University of Amsterdam (Netherlands): "Utopia and the Paranormal: Degeneration and Progress in the Parapsychology of William McDougall and J. B. Rhine";
- Patrick Curry, University of Kent (UK): "Enchantment and the Paradox of Progress";
- Michael York, Bath Spa University (UK): "Full of Sound and Fury; Signifying Nothing: Earth Religion and the Experiential";
- Colin Campbell, York University (UK): "The Easternization of the West and the Rehabilitation of Nature" (keynote lecture);
- Graham Harvey, Open University (UK): "Progressive Animism: Sustaining Diversity among the Co-Creators of the World" (keynote lecture);
- Eric Katz, New Jersey Institute of Technology (USA): "The Paradox of Pro-gress: Domination and Autonomy" (keynote lecture).

The Conference Book (complete with introduction, paper abstracts, maps, etc.) will be available online on Friday, 17 July. Online registration for the conference is open until 21 July 2009, either for the entire conference or for a single day.

Conference: Hermes in the Academy

How time flies! It is already ten years ago that the Chair for the History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents was founded at the University of Amsterdam. During the last decade, the chair has made a considerable contribution to the field of study by setting up a BA- and MA-trajectory on the history of Western Esotericism, by publishing the succesfull Aries journal and book series in cooperation with Brill Academic Publishers, by organizing numerous conferences and by stimulating the foundation of ESSWE. Not to mention the many publications produced by the chair's research team...
To mark this milestone, the chair will host a conference on the theme of Hermes in the Academy on 28th August 2009 in Amsterdam, and will also present a book on the subject.
More information and the full program are available at the chair's website. Please note that early registration is required.

Satanism in the Modern World

Call for papers
Satanism in the Modern World
19-20 November 2009
To be held at the Department of Archaeology and Religious Studies,

The Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway.

This inter-disciplinary conference seeks to examine issues surrounding the phenomenon known as Satanism. We welcome papers on all aspects of Satanism, but the conference focus will be on Satanism as a practised religion or life-style, and to some extent on Satanism in culture and the arts, rather than on issues such as Satanic Ritual Abuse or Mass Media constructions of Satanism. Proposals for presentations are welcomed from postgraduates within all relevant academic disciplines. All presentations will be in English.

500 word abstracts (for presentations of no more than 20 minutes) should be submitted by Monday 31st August 2009. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Monday 2nd November 2009. Please submit your abstract to both of the conference organisers, in Word or pdf format, following this order: author(s), affiliation, email address, title of abstract, body of abstract.

We will acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted, and will let all applicants know if their paper has been accepted by Monday September 14th.

Conference organisers:
Jesper Aagaard Petersen, The Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway
(jesper.a.petersen@hf.ntnu.no)
Per Faxneld, Stockholm University, Sweden
(per.faxneld@rel.su.se)

All papers accepted for and presented at this conference will be eligible for potential publication in the anthology we hope to compile, featuring the best contributions.