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The next INIMKOND will feature Polina Tserkassova who will deliver her talk entitled: “Cut the head for the heart to see”: on creative turns, auditory faculties and knowing among the Sufi practitioners in Turkey

Polina is a PhD candidate in the School of Humanities and lecturer in the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology. Her research interests include the relationship between sound and experience, music, the creative process, and contemporary religious practises. In the past, she has researched Estonian integration policy from a multi-sited perspective.

Abstract:

In this presentation I will talk about the aesthetic, epistemological and metaphysical aspects of a particular Sufi ritual called sema, also known as a Sufi whirling practice in Turkey and Iran. Grounded in theoretical framework and based on my one-year-long ethnographic fieldwork in Turkey, this talk will be aimed at engaging with our experiences of space, time and sound.

Through sound recodrings from the ceremonies, poems and other ethnographic materials I will introduce some paradoxical questions of creation, creativity and innovation in relation to the act of listening and hearing, as well as learning and undertaking any practice. I will propose further questions such as: who is the listener; how do we create or invent something; and what is the aim of a practice?