The Problem of Consciousness in the 20th Century: Gurdjieff and the Cultural Imagery of Awakening
€490
Ipazia Academic Seminar
Non-Credit Bearing
Philosophy · Literature · History of Cultures
Format: 3 hours – Online live seminar
During the 20th century, philosophers, writers, and artists began to ask a fundamental question: does the human being truly live consciously, or operate predominantly in a state of psychological automatism?
Modern culture has progressively challenged the idea of a unitary subject in full command of itself, showing instead a human condition often characterized by inner fragmentation, multiplicity of the self, and a lack of self-presence.
Among the most original figures who contributed to this debate is G.I. Gurdjieff, an early 20th-century thinker whose work influenced not only spiritual spheres but also literature, theater, music, and the philosophy of consciousness.
This Ipazia Academic Seminar explores how the theme of the “awakening of consciousness” was represented and interpreted in 20th-century culture, bringing Gurdjieff’s thought into dialogue with some of the century’s main cultural currents.
Through references to philosophy, literature, and the performing arts, the seminar analyzes a recurring motif in the history of modern ideas: the tension between automatism and awareness in human experience.
The objective is to offer a cultural and philosophical reading of this theme, showing how it has crossed and influenced various forms of intellectual and artistic expression.
The seminar is divided into four main modules:
1. The Sleeping Self: Consciousness in Modern Thought
The crisis of the idea of the unitary subject in modern culture and the birth of the theme of the "multiple self."
2. Gurdjieff in the 20th-Century Cultural Context
Gurdjieff's thought within the European cultural context and the dialogue between East and West in modernity.
3. Theater, Literature, and the Idea of Awakening
The theme of the awakening of consciousness in 20th-century literature and theater.
4. Art as a Vehicle for Consciousness
The relationship between art, perception, and the transformation of attention.
