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Still,
poetry is enigmatic. So is human spiritual/mystical experience.Many
a great mystic has lamented the inadequacy of verbal expression.Should
not, then, mystical poetry be the most enigmatic of mysteries?Shouldn’t
it be hard to handle? Shouldn’t it be left to the mystics?Not
so!Another objective of this course
is to explore how playfully – and successfully- many mystics have employed
language to overcome its inherent limitations as well as the enigma in
their own mystical experience.Most
of them have done so by treating poetry as an interactive mode of communication
rather than an exotic art object. This has resulted in less attention to
the formal conventions of the genre. In
return, the process of writing, as well as reading, such poems has become
a way of remaking the self.
We
shall, in this course, explore the above process through reading examples
from the works of great mystics from Jewish, Christian, and Muslim tradition.
To contextualize the readings, we will begin with fundamental questions
such as “what is mysticism?” and “what are some of the better-known mystical
traditions?”Class discussion and
playing around with poems, in between short periods of lecturing, is the
main teaching tool.We shall see films,
and listen to music, to explore the ways in which mystical poems adopt
musical expression.
Carl
W. Ernst, Sufism: An Essential Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice
of the mystical Tradition of Islam (Boston; London: Shambhala, 1997).
Michael
Sells, The Mystical Languages of Unsaying
(selections from as handout).
Fatemeh
Keshavarz, Reading Mystical Lyric: The Case of Jalal al-Din Rumi (South
Carolina University Press, 1998).
Weekly
comments/thought pieces20%
In
class writing (Oct.5)20%
Oral
presentation (approximately
20
minutes)15%
Final
paper due approximately a
Week
after the last class.30%
Introducing the course, and going over the syllabus.
The goals, methods, and strategies.
Learning to enjoy poetry.
Listening to mystical music, appreciating similarities and differences
in traditions.
Week
2 (Sept.5-7)
Hebrew
poems from
St.John
of the Cross.
Jalal
al-Din Rumi.
Week
3 (Sept.12-14)
Approaches
to Mysticism
Mysticism:
the religious encounter with ultimate reality.
Week
4 (Sept.19-21)
A
history of mysticism.
The
structure of mystical experience.
Mysticism
and religious thought.
Week
5 (Sept.26-28)
Mysticism,
worship, and technique, 126-141.
Mysticism
and the sociology of religion.
Week
6 (Oct.3-5)
The Mystic Path.
In
class writing (20% of the overall grade).
Week
7 (Oct.10-12)
An
overview of the main tenets of Islam.
Film:
Loves Confusing Joy. Coleman Barks on Rumi.
The
Book the Messenger, the Heart. The “originality” and “universality” of
Sufism.
Sufi
Music
Week 8 (Oct. 17-19)
The
doctrine, the method, the “exclusiveness” of Sufism.
The
evolution of the idea.
More
Sufi Music.
Week
9 (Oct. 24-26)
Poetry
as a tool for personal self-expression.
Film
and discussion:El Postino
Week 10 (Oct.31- Nov. 2)
Strategies
of expressing the mystical, The Meaning Event.
Michael
Sells on
Ibn al-‘Arabi.
Handout.
Week
11 (Nov.7-9)
Rumi:
the person, the poet.
Rumi’s
use of paradox.
Week
12 (Nov.14-16)
Rumi’s Poetics of silence.
A
comparative perspective.
Week
13 (Nov. 21- 23, The second class of this week is a Thanksgiving holiday)
“Wondrous
Birds Grow from the Palm of My Hand,” the dynamism of imagery
in
mystical expression.
Week 14 (Nov. 28-30)
The
rhythm of mystical expression: the intricacies of the “Sonic Game.”
Film:
a selection of mystical/musical activity.
Week
15 (Dec. 5-7)
Postmodernity
and understanding mystical self-expression.
Film
and discussion, William Stafford and Robert Bly: A literary Friendship.
Summing
up, concluding exchanges.