Mimma Congedo

Mimma Congedo develops her researches mainly in the field of aesthetics, as well as Indian and comparative philosophy. She obtained her degree in philosophy in 2002, at the University of Milan, with a thesis entitled ‘A.K. Coomaraswamy: Arte e Filosofia Perenne’ (supervisor Prof. Giuliano Boccali). In 2007 she fulfilled all the requirements for her PhD in Indological and Tibetan Studies at the Universities of Turin-Milan, submitting and successfully discussing a dissertation on ‘The Indian Sources of the Aesthetics of Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy’.

In the context of the ICI Core Project ‘Tension/Spannung’, she organized an international workshop entitled ‘Reflecting on Images’, during which participants discussed the theme of tension between the visible and invisible in images. Her main research areas include aesthetics, image and imagination, the encounter and interaction between India and the West, the evolution of Indian philosophy – particularly aesthetics – and its interpretation in the West, the representation of India in Italian literature.

The project focuses on the notion of imagination as shaped in the Yoginī-hṛdaya and in Giordano Bruno’s works; such a notion presents many parallels in the texts analyzed. The core of the comparison is represented by the role of imagination, which makes possible a communication between man, cosmos and divine, in a constant tension between immanence and transcendence.

In such a communication, three fundamental aspects are involved: a gnoseological one – inasmuch imagination allows man to acquire new knowledge -, a psychological one – inasmuch imagination allows man to change his own inner world -, and a transformative/practical one – as imagination allows man to intervene in the outer world and magically change it.