The Center of Applied Jungian Studies Presents a Lecture Series on the Art of Individuation
Giannina Braschi on Lorca’s “Theory and Play of the Duende”
Saturday the 5th of November 2022
5PM London, 12PM Noon New York City (EST)
“Imagination starts in the void where nothing works.”
Giannina Braschi
We will explore the relationship between different figures of artistic inspiration: the daemon, the duende, the angel, and the muses. With touch points from Federico García Lorca’s classic essay Theory and Play of the Duende, we will establish the difference between the duende and the daemon, which Lorca did not see because he did not have daemon, but duende. We will discuss the concept of a Hierarchy of Inspiration—and see how these figures come through different characters and artistic genres. We will also talk about voice—and how one can recognize in the voice whether it has duende or daemon—and how these figures can help to create new shapes, forms, and structures that lead to the creation of new genres. We will see how the creation of a new movement or a new generation differs from the creation of an artistic genre, which is built in space, rather than time. “Imagination starts in that space where nothing works. What is needed is to find that void that analysis tries to fill with theories so that we do not find the gap—but it is necessary to be acquainted with that void—and to not fear that space where nothing works the way it used to—because that is the space where possibilities take place. That is the space where the daemon creates the new,” says Braschi.
For every man, every artist called Nietzsche or Cezanne, every step that he climbs in the tower of his perfection is at the expense of the struggle that he undergoes with his duende, not with an angel, as is often said, nor with his Muse. This is a precise and fundamental distinction at the root of their work.-
Frederico Garcia Lorca
Brief Bio of Guest Speaker: Dr. Giannina Braschi
The United States Library of Congress calls Dr. Giannina Braschi’s writing “cutting-edge, influential, and even revolutionary.” Her best known books include Empire of Dreams, Yo-Yo Boing!, and United States of Banana. She writes on far-ranging subjects from immigration, economy, and colonialism to love, liberty, and creativity. The North American Academy of the Spanish Language honored Braschi in 2022 for her lifetime achievements in American literature written in Spanish, Spanglish, and English. She holds a Ph.D. in Hispanic Literatures from the State University of New York and has published on Cervantes, Garcilaso, Machado, Becquer, and Lorca. She has won awards and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ford Foundation, the Danforth Scholarship, the New York Foundation for the Arts, Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, Rutgers University, PEN America, and Cambio16 News in Madrid. Her life’s work is the subject of a scholarly anthology of essays, entitled Poets, Philosophers, Lovers: On the Writings of Giannina Braschi, edited by Frederick Luis Aldama and Tess O’Dwyer (Pittsburgh, 2020). She was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico and is based in New York.
Art of Individuation Lecture Series 2022 Inspired by Lorca’s Duende
Art of Individuation produced by Stephen Anthony Farah for the Centre for Jungian Studies.
Giannina Braschi 