Thursday, August 04, 2022

New article on Traditionalism in South America

A new article, Mark Sedgwick, "The Glocalization of Esotericism: Guénonian Traditionalism in South America" has been published in Nova Religio 26, no. 1, pp. 35-58, https://doi.org/10.1525/nr.2022.26.1.35. It brings together three earlier articles on South America. It is aimed at readers interested in religious studes who do not know Traditionalism. The abstract is:
This article traces the history of the South American reception of the work of the esoteric philosophers René Guénon and Julius Evola, and of the Maryami Sufi Order of Frithjof Schuon, focusing on Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Peru. It compares South American forms of Traditionalism with those found elsewhere, primarily in Europe and North America, understanding differences between these in terms of “glocalization,” the local adaptation of the global. Traditionalism in South America was most localized in its religio-political form, which was more important for the Right in South America than elsewhere, and least localized in its purely religious form, which was less significant in South America than elsewhere. The impact of Traditionalism in South American academia, notably in philosophy and anthropology, also reflects local conditions, as does an unusual interest in indigenous peoples.