There’s a conference in Amsterdam this coming Monday (April 29), on the relationship between esotericism and the sciences. And art, and music, and literature, and other things. “Synthesis: Esotericism & the Sciences” is described as a young scholars conference, which means that it has been organized entirely by a crew of enthusiastic and energetic MA students, and primarily caters to scholars at a very early stage in their careers (i.e. graduate and post-graduate students). Check out the exquisitely looking website for more information on the event, and an overview of the program. In addition to eight papers and several artistic and musical intermezzos, the show starts with a keynote lecture by yours truly. The title of my keynote is “A Nihilist’s View of Scientific Meaning-Making: Analytical Approaches to Synthesizing Minds“. I attach the abstract below:
Synthesis: Esotericism & the Sciences
Esotericism in Russia: “Ways of Gnosis” conference, April 10-13, 2013
The Russian Association for the Study of Esotericism and Mysticism are hosting a large international conference in Moscow this week.
The study of esotericism has been spreading in recent years. One of the often unacknowledged growth areas is eastern Europe, and in particular Russia. With the exception of a few Russian scholars who have attended ESSWE events in recent years, not much contact exists between scholarly communities across this old east-west divide.
This week, a major event takes place in Moscow, which can hopefully start to change all that. The Russian scholarly society, ASEM (Association for the Study of Esotericism and Mysticism), is organizing a major conference at the All-Russia State Library for Foreign Literature (LFL) in collaboration with a number of other educational agencies. The conference is entitled “Ways of Gnosis: Mystical and Esoteric Traditions from Antiquity to the Present Time”, and takes place on 10-13 April. A small number of Western European and North American scholars are participating in this event, which may hopefully lead to more international collaboration and dissemination of research across cultural spheres. An overview of the programme as well as English and Russian summaries of papers to be presented can be found below.
Launching the ESSWE4 conference website
Esotericism and Health: ESSWE4 Conference, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, June 26-29, 2013.
The fourth biannual international conference of the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism (ESSWE) is fast approaching. It’s focused on “Esotericism and Health”, takes place in Gothenburg, Sweden, and – it’s just gotten its own website. The website has all you need to know, from online registration and conference accommodation, to a list of all accepted papers and speakers. Do check it out!
The ESSWE conferences are big events in the relatively small community of esotericism scholarship. With about one hundred accepted papers, plus keynote lectures, roundtable events, and a secret surprise conference concert, this year’s is going to be a major one. So if you’re still on the fence about whether to go or not, take some time to browse the website. You might also want to keep track of developments, as more events might still be added to the programme. Taking on my ESSWE membership secretary hat, I should also remind you that there are substantial fee reductions for Full and Student members of the Society (application forms here)… In any case: Hope to see some readers in Gothenburg in June!
Heterodoxology 