Evola’s two translations of the Dàodéjīng

In a new article, Davide Marino has traced the development of Julius Evola’s thought by comparing his two translations of the Dàodéjīng, one published in 1923 and the other in 1959. It is “The Tao of Julius Evola,” Vienna Journal of East Asian Studies (2024), available here (open access).

According to the abstract,

Evola had no knowledge of the Chinese language, and his works were retranslations of materials available at his time to which he added his own personal ideas…. [He moved] from an interpretation of the Dàodéjīng characterised by a mix of Dadaism, Hegelian Idealism, and occultism to a version in line with Traditionalism… [but] despite changing his vocabulary and sources, Evola continued to seek confirmation of his solipsistic theory of the ‘Absolute Individual’ in the ancient Chinese text.

Evola and José Ortega y Gasset

A new article looks at the influence of the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955) on Julius Evola, Ayn Rand, and Pierre Bourdieu. It is Björn Boman, “Left, right or something else? José Ortega y Gasset’s intellectual influence in the ideological realm,” SN Social Sciences 4, 204 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43545-024-01008-2 (open access). 

Conclusion with regard to Evola: Ortega’s influence was not great, but it is there. Wider significance: the article is one more step in tying the Traditionalists into the wider tapestry of the intellectual history of the Twentieth century.

Dugin and Queer Theory

A new article looks at an aspect of Alexander Dugin’s thought that has not received much attention before: Queer Theory. The article is Trevor Wilson, “Normative anti-normativity: when Dugin reads queer theory.” Studies in East European Thought (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11212-024-09695-6 (open access). 

 The abstract runs: 

In line with a recent rise in anti-LGBTQ discourse within conservative Russian politics, Aleksandr Dugin has increasingly critiqued “postmodern” theories that allegedly underpin social diversity (sexual, gender, racial, etc.) within the West: queer theory, post-structuralism, and other theoretical accounts of identity and alterity. In Dugin’s argument for a political philosophy of Eurasianism, the Western endorsement of multiculturalism and pluralism is indicative of individualism and “Atlanticist” liberalism, therefore at odds with the traditional, nationalist collectivism of Eurasia. In this light, queer theory is a Western imposition whose philosophical premises directly contradict native, Russian traditions. Dugin’s attack on queer theory, however, mark a departure from the philosopher’s earlier career within the National Bolshevik movement. Throughout the nineties, Dugin was relatively sympathetic with the nascent LGBT movement in Russia: specifically within the political and philosophical circles of National Bolshevism, in which such figures as Eduard Limonov and Slava Mogutin coalesced with fascists and communists around a broad critique of Western capitalism and openly embraced homoeroticism and countercultural, queer dissidence. Dugin’s links to the LGBT movement are even relatively mainstream: his first wife, Evgeniia Debrianskaia, was a prominent gay activist, and both Debrianskaia and Dugin for a time viewed the Eurasianism’s goals as aligned with that of LGBT activism in Russia. This article examines the development of Dugin’s political philosophy in the context of his reading of queer theory. It first discusses the link in historical terms, in the connections between Dugin’s early post-Soviet career and post-Soviet Russian gay activism. The article then focuses on Dugin’s philosophy of “multipolarity,” as a form of resistance to universalist, American hegemony, in order to illustrate how Dugin’s Eurasianist account of political “anti-normativity” both aligns and contradicts with his reading of queer theory. The article concludes with comments on the globalization of queer theory, cultural imperialism, and its relationship to Dugin’s geopolitics.

Against the Modern World in Persian

 

Against the Modern World is now available in Persian, as ستیز با جهان مدرن (سنت‌گرایی و تاریخ فکری پنهان سدۀ بیستم), published by نشرنو in Tehran. Many thanks to Alireza Bashardoost and Sina Bastani, who pursued this project despite many obstacles. The translation includes a short preface written for the Iranian edition.

Copies available from https://nashrenow.com/product/against-the-modern-world/.

Traditionalist-inspired Bosnian art

A new article deals with a Sufi- and Traditionalist-inspired Bosnian artist, Meliha Teparić (born 1978). It is “Diving Deep into the Word of God: A Sufi Approach to Religious and Trans-Religious Images” by Haris Dervišević and Meliha Teparić, Religions 2024, 15(12), 1525, available open access here. 

Shown to the left is one of three versions of Teparić’s Gens Una Sumus [We are one people] (2017-2018), which shows the Virgin Mary in a mihrab, and is inspired by Frithjof Schuon’s conception of the transcendent unity of religions, and also by the Maryami understanding on the figure of Mary. It is especially relevant in Bosnia, where the sectarian divisions that emerged during the Bosnian War of 1992-1995 are still not fully resolved.

As well as the work shown, Teparić has also worked with re-imagined Arabic calligraphy, as can be seen on her website at http://melihateparic.com/paintings/.

Her work is inspired not only by Islam and Maryami Traditionalism, but also by “the abstract forms of artists like Kazimir Malevich, Piet Mondrian, Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko, and Ad Reinhardt.” This synthesis might be seen as not very traditional, but “Her deconstruction of Islamic calligraphy is not an act of rejection but rather a method of renewal—an attempt to bring the script into conversation with contemporary art while preserving its spiritual significance.”

Teparić graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts at the University of Sarajevo in 2002. In 2003 she joined the Naqshbandi tariqa of Shaykh Mesud Hadžimejlić (1937-2009), who came of a long line of Bosnian Naqshbandi shaykhs, and whose son Ćazim Hadžimejlić (born 1964) was teaching calligraphy at the Academy of Fine Arts. Professor Hadžimejlić later succeeded his father as Shaykh Ćazim.