This lecture will critically reflect upon the alienation of modern (Western) subjectivity in as much as it overrides the animal body and the mystic mind delimiting the human psyche to reason alone. I will explore the resultant unnatural hierarchy of the intellect over and above imagination, feeling, intuition, and the instinctual sensorium within the context of a (re)turn to Affect.
One aim here is to decenter the West’s cognitive empire by opening scholarship to new modes of enquiry beyond merely objective description: for example South Asia religious traditions are philosophies that are simultaneously soteriologies (darshanas, margas) - that transform as well as liberate. The lecture concludes by extending William James' "radical empiricism”, arguing that what we need is less new ideas and thinking, but more a revolution in perception and feeling, that is to say, we have to face the forbidden turn of subjective transformation - the forte of not only South Asian religious praxis but also many traditions across the world. This will require moving from the current linguistic empiricism that assumes "human” temporality as the normative paradigm towards an “ahuman temporality” - that the animal and saint live in - perhaps the only true and stable reference point to see things clearly.
Tea and veg samosas available
Recorded Lecture: https://uci.zoom.us/rec/share/vmMHRq554noYE3ZsNK-cfhbiRfXO04FaNsOI4r3mcvskhbTBJKFIUjO6TShI_upg.DwRtDpps1LFReedk
Sponsored by: UCI Religious Studies / UCI Sikh Studies / UCI Critical Theory / Shri Parshvanath Presidential Chair in Jain Studies
Parking: Lot 7; Pay-by-plate parking now available in this lot