Art in a living tradition calls for concerted effort, writes artist and philosopher K.G. Subramanyan (1924-2016), whose sculptures, murals and paintings reflect cubist influences in indigenous folk motifs. Subramanyan straddled genres, experimenting with mediums, while searching for artistic truth. A similar polyvalent quality of inquiry is found in Israeli scholar David Shulman’s work, whose mastery over languages, Islamic, Judaic and Hindu traditions, anthropological fieldwork and political activism, evoke notions of a cultural zeitgeist, that is panoptic. It takes Shulman, scholar extraordinaire, concerted effort to access alien traditions, which he does, instead of letting his work remain confined to the familiar and the known. Shulman catalyzes a mode of inquiry that is comparative, dialogical and Archimedean, which nearly a century ago, Jung found for himself, in his confrontations with the unconscious.
This seminar looks at conversations between borders, the social, political and spiritual impulses around which the psyche is shaped, as it forms and unforms constantly. Finding a cultural zeitgeist involves heroic attempts in befriending the strange and the absurd. The seminar will offer glimpses of cultural zeitgeists catalyzed across borders, their significance for depth work, and how pioneers and thinkers have invested in such explorations across ages, confronting the unknown and building new gestalts.