Lecture
LAMS Lecture Perennialist Traditionalism and Modern Philosophy
- Date
- Thursday 14 March 2024
- Time
- Location
-
Gravensteen
Pieterskerkhof 6
2311 SR Leiden - Room
- 1.11
The Leiden Centre for Late Antique and Medieval studies is pleased to announce a lecture by Prof. Mark Sedgwick, professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at the Aarhus University, Chair of the Nordic Society for Middle Eastern Studies and president of the European Network for the Study of Islam and Esotericism.
Perennialist Traditionalism and Modern Philosophy
Perennialist Traditionalism was developed by the French esotericist René Guénon (1886-1951) and today inspires people from the Islamic philosopher Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad of Jordan to the Russian philosopher Aleksander Dugin. It differs from much modern philosophy, however, in that it entirely rejects secularism. In this lecture, Mark Sedgwick will ask in what ways Traditionalism is, despite this, a philosophy. He will argue that its contemporary political applications, in Russia and in the West, are in many ways ideological, but that its core applications remain both philosophical and modern.
About
Mark Sedgwick is a professor in the department of the Study of Religion at Aarhus University and a visiting fellow at Leiden University’s Institute of Security and Global Affairs. He was educated at the universities of Oxford and Bergen, and taught at the American University in Cairo before moving to Denmark in 2007. His most recent book is Traditionalism: The Radical Project to Restore Sacred Order (London: Pelican; New York: Oxford University Press, 2023).
All are welcome!