I am thrilled to announce The Occult Humanities Conference, taking place on October 18th-20th at NYU, and co-organized by myself and Jesse Bransford. The weekend will feature lectures, an art exhibition, and entertainment, all of which explore occult subject matter.
Speakers include Susan Aberth, Robert Ansell, Elijah Burgher, Laurent Ferri, Mitch Horowitz, Amy Hale, William Kiesel, Gary Lachman, Mark Pilkington, Shannon Taggart, Jesse, and myself.
The accompanying exhibition, Verbal, Somatic and Material, will contain artwork and esoteric books by Jesse Bransford, Elijah Burgher, David Chaim Smith, Fulgur Esoterica, Ouroboros Press, and Shannon Taggart.
Entertainment will be provided by The Parlour Trick and Acep Hale.
And there will be books vended by Catland, Fulgur Esoterica, and Ouroboros Press. Full info here:
The Occult Humanities Conference
October 18-20, 2013
Hosted by Phantasmaphile, Observatory and the NYU Steinhardt Department of Art and Art Professions
NYU Steinhardt
34 Stuyvesant St., New York, NY
The Occult Humanities Conference is a weekend conference to be held in New York City on October 18-20th, 2013. The conference will present a wide array of voices active in the cultural landscape who are specifically addressing the occult tradition through research, scholarship and artistic practice.
The arts and humanities at present are acutely interested in subjects related to the occult tradition. The tradition represents a rich and varied visual culture that displays a complex set of relations at once culturally specific and global in their transmission. Roughly defined, the occult tradition represents a series of culturally syncretic belief systems with related and overlapping visual histories. Though there are as many ways into this material as there are cultural - and personal - perspectives, universal occult concerns often include a belief in some sort of magic; a longing to connect with an immaterial or trans-personal realm; and a striving for inner-knowledge, refinement of the self, and transformation of one's consciousness - if not one's physical circumstances.
Intensely marginalized throughout most historical periods, these traditions persist and represent an 'underground' perspective that periodically exerts a strong influence on structures of dissent, utopianism and social change. Though history is marked with several so-called "Occult Revivals," the contemporary digital age is a perfect confluence of several factors which make this moment prime for a reexamination of all of the esoteric traditions. While the information age has allowed for easier access to previously obscure writings, imagery, and social contexts, it alternately elicits a deep desire for sensorial experiences and meaning-making once one steps away from the screen.
The presenters at the OHC represent a rich and expanding community of international artists and academics from multiple disciplines across the humanities who share an exuberance and excitement for how the occult traditions interface with their fields of study as well as the culture at large. The small scale of this conference (approximately 100 attendees) will give ticket holders an intimate look at the presenters and their views.
The visually-oriented presentations will be coupled with an exhibition of artworks by several presenters and artisanal books from Fulgur Esoterica and Ouroboros Press.
Schedule:
| FRIDAY October 18 | ||
| 8:00-8:30pm | Welcome from conference organizers Pam Grossman & Jesse Bransford | Jesse Bransford; Pam Grossman |
| 8:30-10:00pm | Wine and Cheese Reception with live music from The Parlour Trick | The Parlour Trick |
| SATURDAY October 19 | ||
| 9:00-9:30am | Welcome, Announcements & Opening Remarks | Jesse Bransford; Pam Grossman |
| 9:30-10:30am | Like A Messenger to the Deep: Deciphering the Occult in Leonora Carrington | Susan Aberth |
| 10:30-11:00am | BREAK | |
| 11:00am-12:00pm | Witch-Hunters in the Book-Shops: the History of the Cornell Witchcraft Collection (1866-2013) | Laurent Ferri |
| 12:00-1:30pm | LUNCH BREAK | |
| 1:30-2:30pm | Isis Resurrected: How Madame Blavatsky Reshaped Our World - A Discussion | Gary Lachman & Mitch Horowitz, moderated by Pam Grossman |
| 2:30-3:00pm | BREAK | |
| 3:00-4:00pm | Alchemical Vessels: Vehicles of the Hermetic Tradition | William Kiesel |
| 4:00-4:30pm | BREAK | |
| 4:30-5:30pm | Artist Talk: Physical Mediumship and the Search for Ectoplasm in Modern Spiritualist Ritual | Shannon Taggart |
| 5:30-6:00pm | BREAK | |
| 6:00-7:00pm | Art as a Spell: Resacralizing Urban Space | Pam Grossman |
| 7:00-9:00pm | DINNER BREAK | |
| 9:00pm | EVENING ENTERTAINMENT: An Occult Magic Show | Acep Hale |
| SUNDAY October 20 | ||
| 10:00-11:00am | Adventures in Limbo: The Neither-Neither World of Austin Osman Spare | Robert Ansell |
| 11:00-11:30 | BREAK | |
| 11:30-12:30 | Artist Talk: Topple the Table of Correspondences | Elijah Burgher |
| 12:30-2:00pm | LUNCH BREAK | |
| 2:00-3:00pm | Symbolic Devices: On the Hieronymous Machine and Other Magical Technologies | Mark O. Pilkington |
| 3:00-3:30pm | BREAK | |
| 3:30-4:30pm | "More Brilliant than Crystal": The Life and Work of Ithell Colquhoun | Amy Hale |
| 4:30-5:00pm | BREAK | |
| 5:00-6:00pm | Artist Talk: The Planets, A Ten Year Working | Jesse Bransford |
| 6:00-8:00pm | CLOSING RECEPTION AND ART VIEWING |
Open to the Public |
And you can read lecture descriptions and participant bios here.
Due to the very intimate size of this event, we anticipate selling out, so we encourage you to grab your tickets as soon as possible, should you care to join us. And we certainly hope you will!
On a related note, Jesse Bransford will have a show opening the night before the conference at Feature Inc on Thursday, October 17th. While this show is not officially associated with the OHC, the timing is certainly synchronistic, and several of us will be at the reception from 6-8pm to celebrate. Do come along to that as well.
Looking forward to seeing you in October at the Occult Humanities Conference, if not sooner.
Comments