Showing 231 articles
The Adventures of Pinocchio – an Alchemical Tale of Self-Transformation
Author: Agostino DominiciJanuary 26, 2023
I am sure that many people will be familiar with the Italian children’s story, The Adventures of Pinocchio, a 19th century novel written by Carlo Lorenzini (pseudonym C. Collodi), which became the most translated Italian book ever (it has been translated into as many as 260 languages worldwide!). The novel tells the story of a [...]
Philosophy and the Sacred
Author: Gilad SommerJanuary 22, 2023
Some of my readers might be confused, asking themselves what is the connection between philosophy, a purely rational discipline, and the sacred? Isn’t mysticism the domain of religion? This misunderstanding is rooted in the fact that today we use the name philosophy for two completely different things. To be more precise, at some point in [...]
SACRED GEOMETRY: In conversation with Adam Williamson
Author: Manjula NanavatiJanuary 10, 2023
Adam Williamson is an award-winning calligrapher and sculptor whose permanent public works can be viewed around the U.K. He is drawn to particular shapes and patterns that embody universal principles found in nature, made visible through the hands of craftsmen. Adam has been commissioned by many prestigious clients including Oxford University, Shakespeare’s Globe London, Westminster [...]
Harmonizing with Nature: The Ashaninka Tribe
Author: Axelle DefrasneOctober 9, 2022
Modern-day living seems to center around finding as much comfort in life as possible and aspiring for some growth, usually material. As a result, we are facing the great challenge of seeing our planet’s resources declining, and a general concern about our survival on earth. The fact that ecological activism is on the rise is [...]
A Lifetime Of Architecture: In Conversation With B V Doshi
Author: Zarina Screwvala and Nupur SampatOctober 9, 2022
“Projects must go beyond the functional to connect with the human spirit through poetic and philosophical underpinnings.” – The 2018 Pritzker Architecture Prize Jury Citation for Mr. Doshi On 30th October 2021, New Acropolis Culture Circle hosted renowned architect Balkrishna Vithaldas Doshi, sharing his life experiences in a talk titled ‘A Lifetime of Architecture’. Charting [...]
Qawwali: Call of the Spirit
Author: Harianto MehtaOctober 9, 2022
This article serves only as an introduction to the legendary origins, metaphysical purpose, and the traditional form used in the practice of Qawwali. It would be impossible to capture the cultural nuances, complex history, and social impact of the genre in this brief work, but I hope to share some principal themes that have emerged [...]
Rethinking Contemporary Art in the Anthropocene – Planetary Aesthetics
Author: Siobhan FarrarJuly 6, 2022
‘Anthropocene’ is the term given to our post-industrial epoch, whereby human activity has irrevocably altered the planet and its environment. The ascent of the anthropocene poses challenges across all areas of life, leading to species loss and looming existential crisis for humanity. For artists, being less tangibly involved in solutions compared to other sciences, it [...]
The Fate of Empires
Author: Gilad SommerJuly 4, 2022
In 1976, at the age of 79, after a lifetime of service in the British army where he held high commands and fraternized with presidents and kings, Lieutenant General John Bagot Glubb, a.k.a Glubb Pasha, wrote a short but penetrating essay about the life cycle of superpowers called “The Fate of Empires”. In this small [...]
Gitanjali by Tagore: An Investigation
Author: Prof. Ananda LalJune 27, 2022
On 29th March 2021, The New Acropolis Culture Circle conducted an online session on Rabindranath Tagore’s Nobel Prize-winning work Gitanjali, with Prof. Ananda Lal. An authority on Tagore, he retired as Professor of English, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, and directs Writers Workshop, the oldest continuing publisher of Indian poetry in English. The professor’s doctoral thesis had [...]
The Role of Shakespearean Tragedies in Society
Author: Akanksha SanghiJune 27, 2022
Today, we often think of theatre as merely a form of “entertainment” or “fiction”, yet in many ancient traditions such as Greek, Indian, and Egyptian, theatre played a very important role in society. It was considered to be educational, even mystical, with the aim of allowing people to connect to some invisible, intangible principles of [...]
Crime – Can we Do Something about it?
Author: Gilad SommerJune 6, 2022
There is a plague that is wreaking havoc in our cities these days, causing distress, pain, and fear. I’m not talking about COVID, but about the pestilence of crime. In the United States it has been a political issue for big city mayors for many decades, much thought and money has been thrown at the [...]
The Gurukul Tradition of Ancient India
Author: Manjula NanavatiMay 25, 2022
Indian philosophy holds that the universe is not confined to what is apparent to our sense perceptions, and that the Ultimate Reality is veiled from us, by a curtain that maroons us in ignorance and illusion. Accordingly, the main purpose of education in ancient India was to pierce this curtain in order to experience the [...]