Blog Posts by Subject: Ancient, Medieval and Asian Philosophy

Subject heading of the month: Eschatology.

Many of the NYPL's worldly readers may know that the end of the world concept, or eschatology (Dewey call number 236), has its own heading in the Catalog for readers who want to browse books, ebooks, and DVDs on the subject.

April 2011 marks the 16th anniversary of National Poetry Month, and we shall embark on this sweet 16 with an appreciation of everyone's favorite Sufi mystical poet, Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī, otherwise known as Rumi (1207 - 1273 AD). Born in a remote Persian village in the region now known as Tajikistan, Rumi wrote poems of longing and ecstacy that made sweeping parallels between romantic and spiritual love. He was particularly fascinated with the use of music, dance, and poetry as the means for acheiving communion with the divine. We will discuss the following poem, which is a translation by Coleman Barks. Translated versions of poetry may risk appearing as a 

"All profound life is heavy with the impossible."
                                                  —Georges Bataille

If you're anything like me, you'll be walking down the street thinking about science fiction and think to yourself, "Say, what is the Ur-phenomenon of humanity's Utopian drive(s)?" Let's explore this in the best para-academic fashion possible.