Photo by Adrián Navigante
Alain Daniélou Foundation’s Forum “Transcultural Encounters 2016” will host grantees of 2015 and 2016 who are working on subjects related to Hinduism, in order to pursue the question of transversality within the framework of a three-day workshop.
The concept of “transversality” can be understood as a variation on the subject of Alain Daniélou Foundation’s Forum last year: “differences”, since the logic of transversality, in spite of joining heterogeneous elements, allows no synthetizing sublation in an identitary grid. Coined in the field of mathematics, this notion is generic, non-linear and dynamic: it seeks connections in multiplicity, the creation of space is not limited to logical frameworks, and the notion itself is intrinsically linked to the most complex modality of becoming. However, it cannot be said that there is no “logic” of transversality, since another “order” emerges when the dynamics of transversality are exposed.
In this sense Alain Daniélou Foundation’s Forum proposes an exploration of transversal values, practices and events in Hinduism. How does aesthetics relate to soteriology? Is there a cultural model differential to both the democratic and the nationalistic that includes nevertheless elements of both? What is the intersection of the experiential spaces of extase and enstase in the religious practices and conceptions of Hinduism? Can tradition be reshaped in artistic form through modern and/or feminine schemes? Can knowledge be only ascribed to certain social layers in the practice of the Hindu religion? Is there a differential metaphysics in Hinduism with regard to the West?
The workshop Transversality in Hinduism will also open up a space of debate on a possible application of the notion of transversality in the work of Alain Daniélou, especially his relationship with issues like the caste system, the dynamics of tradition, the value of orthodoxy and the politics of difference. Last but not least, Alain Daniélou will also be considered as a “fictional author”.