Call for Papers
for a Celebratory Volume

Anthony Damiani on the One: The Heart of Reality

Submission Deadline for Paper Topics Only: March 15, 2021

With the blessing of the Wisdom’s Goldenrod board, we are proposing to publish a collection of original essays by Anthony’s students on the One, the Heart of Reality. These essays will comprise a celebratory volume, which ideally would be published in 2022, the centenary of his birth. The volume will include a short biographical essay, charting the range of Anthony’s philosophical acumen, as well as an essay introducing the contributions. If we can’t find a publisher for it, we will consider self-publishing or print-on-demand.

Ideally, papers will focus on the topic of the One in Plotinus, but we are open to the celebratory volume encompassing a variety of topics, with the essays on the One forming its central core. The important thing is that you bring your heart to the writing. Just write what is meaningful to you. It’s more about honoring Anthony than publishing something that will break new ground in the narrow world of Plotinian specialists. Short essays are welcome as well as longer ones.

If you have not already been in touch with Michael Wakoff about your topic, please send him a one-paragraph description of what you propose writing about. Please send to Michael Wakoff at mbw6@cornell.edu.

Essays can examine, elaborate, or critique any aspect of Anthony’s exposition of the One (as found in Astronoesis, transcripts, unpublished papers), or they can be about the One without directly referencing Anthony’s teachings on the One—that is, contributors are encouraged to explore new directions and pathways. Possible topics: the One as the Source of all, the One as Good, the One and eros, the One and beauty, the One and life, contact/union with the One, positive and negative approaches to the One, the complexity of the One, unities and the One, the double act, the power of the One, the fourfold or sevenfold nature of the One, symbolizing the One, emanation and the One, and the relation of the Intellectual-Principle to the One. We also welcome comparative approaches (e.g., the One and Advaita, the One and PB’s philosophy, the One and emptiness, the One and Kashmir Saivism, the One and Kabbalah, etc.) If you choose to elaborate on the astrological symbolism, you should be prepared to introduce it to readers who are unfamiliar with it.

This project grew out of discussions with the Archive/Legacy Committee at Wisdom’s Goldenrod. The Wisdom’s Goldenrod board has been notified of it and is supportive of it, but this project is not being undertaken by Wisdom’s Goldenrod. Michael Wakoff is leading the editorial effort.

“So if we return to this quote and wish to glimpse the incomprehensible nature of the One, our intellect must be like a bird which in flying through the sky leaves no trace behind, that is, dissolved in stillness. Now we have to do something similar to that. We have to think very intensely about what the nature of the One is. But do not think that the discussions we have on Fridays are pointless. It [the One] is the only important thing you could discuss ever in your life, at any time, any place, anywhere, there’s nothing more important. So it’s not a waste of time, and it’s not just anxiety and frustration, it’s quite meaningful.” (from transcript of class at Wisdom’s Goldenrod, 6/4/82)