ANANDA COOMARASWAMY ESSAY PRIZE

Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy (1877-1947), was the curator in the Department of Asiatic Art of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. He is recognised as one of the great art historians of the twentieth century. His writings on traditional symbols are some of the most enriching of their kind. No less a scholar than Heinrich Zimmer described Coomaraswamy as “that noble scholar upon whose shoulders we are still standing.”

 

Congratulations to Dr Emily Pott for her winning essay (open category),'The Zaqqūm Tree.'

Dr Pott tutors at The Prince’s School of Traditional Arts in London. She gained her Bachelor of Arts with a major in Politics from The University of California at Berkeley in 1983. In 1999 and 2000 Emily worked at the Islamic Museum and Library in Al Haram al Sharif, Jerusalem, where she rescued, sorted and catalogued ceramic tiles dating from the 16th to 20th centuries originally used for the exterior decoration of the Dome of the Rock. In 2007 she was awarded her doctorate from the The University of Wales, through the Prince’s School of Traditional Arts, for her thesis, ‘The Dome of the Rock: Recognition of a Symbol.’ Emily hopes soon to find time to return to the workshop to continue her work with glazes and explore traditional forms in ceramics. Dr Pott's winning essay features in Eye of the Heart 3 (May 2009).

To read Dr Pott's essay click here

Congratulations to Mr Graeme Castleman for his winning essay (graduate category), ‘The Primordial in the Symbols and Theology of Baptism.’

Mr Castleman is a doctoral candidate at La Trobe University, Bendigo (Australia). His doctoral thesis explores the question of creatio ex nihilo in the Christian tradition. His essays have appeared in Sophia: The Journal of Traditional Studies ('Cosmogony and Salvation: The Christian Rejection of Uncreated Matter') and in Eye of the Heart ('Golgotha, Athens, Jerusalem: Patristic intimations of the religio perennis'). Mr Castleman's winning essay will feature in Eye of the Heart 4 (November 2009).

Each winner receives their choice of books from the catalogues of Fons Vitae Publishing and World Wisdom Books, up to the value of $400 (US).*

All entries in this competition were read by the editor of Eye of the Heart before being sent to members of the editorial board for blind review. The finalists in both the open and graduate categories were then sent to an independent judge for a final decision.

Eye of the Heart and the Philosophy and Religious Studies program would like to thank World Wisdom Books and Fons Vitae for their generous support of the Ananda Coomaraswamy Prize.

WORLD WISDOM BOOKS FONS VITAE PUBLISHING

 

*Each prize is made up of books and postage to the value of $200 (US) from
Fons Vitae Publishing and $200 (US) from World Wisdom Books