Past Event, Arts & Culture
Aesthetics and Spirituality: A Dialogue with Professor Norman Cornett
Donald Woods Winnicott (1896-1971) conducted seminal research in pediatrics and psychoanalysis. He endeavoured to understand how a newborn relates the womb to the world, the internal to the external. He proposed that a transitional object, such as the mother's breast, enables the newborn to make such connnections. Based on this concept, Professor Norman Cornett maintained that the ''arts create a transitional space between the material and spiritual realms so that aesthetics constitute the threshold of spirituality.'' He concluded that ''the arts thus provide a paradigm whereby we may develop a postmodern construct of spirituality.'' As a result, "the arts serve as the axis of his dialogic philosophy of religious studies." Professor Norman Cornett led a dialogue on this topic.
Speaker Bio
Educator, religious studies scholar, and art critic, Norman Cornett, Ph.D, publishes in Canadian and American journals. He “guest teaches” at universities throughout North America and Europe. He also leads workshops in French and English on ‘dialogic’ teaching, creative vision and artistic development. Further, Cornett authors and translates texts for museums, galleries, and individuals. He forms the subject of a National Film Board of Canada documentary directed by Alanis Obomsawin, Professor Norman Cornett: 'Since when do we divorce the right answer from an honest answer?'. After reading Denise Desautels’ poetry, he undertook its translation into English.
Co-Presented by
SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement and School for Contemporary Arts
