Saturday, June 23, 2007

Upcoming conference in Tübingen

A conference to be held in Tübingen, Germany, July 19-22, may be of interest.

The title of the conference is "Constructing Tradition: Means and Myths of Transmission in Western Esotericism." "Tradition" as used here has a rather broader meaning than it does for Traditionalists, but even so provides one context in which Traditionalism may be situated.

There will also be some papers that deal explicitly with Traditionalism. Eduard ten Houten will give a paper on "Hanific Traditionalism and the Chechen Exceptionalist Discourse."

Two established authorities on Traditionalism feature on the program, though I'm not 100% sure what the subjects of their papers will be: Jean Pierre Laurant (authority on Guénon, giving a paper on "The Myth of the Esoteric Transmission in the 19th Century: The History of a Transformation") and Hans-Thomas Hakl (authority on Evola, giving a paper on "Die römische Tradition").

Also of interest for general context: Christine Maillard ("Ex oriente lux: Zur Funktion Indiens und zum Indienbild in Texten der abendländischen esoterischen Tradition ") and Mark Sedgwick ("Sufis as Mythic Bearers of Esoteric Tradition").

A pdf version of the full program is available online.

I think this should be a very good conference, but I must declare an interest: this is the inaugural conference of the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism, a new learned society with which I am personally involved.

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