Rapture and Repair: Unveiling the Sacred in Academia
Publication information:
Abstract
This paper addresses the desacralisation of knowledge and hermeneutical injustice in academia, reimagining post-traumatic epistemic growth through transdisciplinary entanglements between Doctrinal Sufism and Neuroscience. It foregrounds the emotional dysregulation of epistemic agents, the transformation of social identity into epistemic liability, and the marginalisation of subaltern knowledges within dominant epistemic grids. Epistemic erasure is framed as relational rupture, while rapture is theorised as neuroplastic reintegration enabling higher cognition, promoted through Cardiognosis and the Ninety-Nine Beautiful Names of Divinity undergirding Sufi neuroaesthetics. This paper advocates reparative justice, biopsychosocial safety, and a fundamental ontological shift aimed at restoring the Sacred in academia.
Presenter Biography
Sumaya Durrani is a transdisciplinary artist & academic working at the intersections of Trauma-informed Reparative Justice, Doctrinal Sufism & Neuroscience. Durrani studied at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor. She is presently a Doctoral candidate at UNSW Sydney. Durrani serves as Director of Shahkaar Research Hub & Shahkaar MetaMuseum Sydney.