Watch/Listen Now: "Compassionate Era: Bahá’í Teachings on the Animal Kingdom" recorded April 16th
Webinar

Derik Smith: "Centering the Pupil of the Eye"

Jun 7, 2020
Centering the Pupil of the Eye

Sunday, June 7, 2020, 2 p.m. Eastern (11 a.m. Pacific, 7 p.m. in London)

Facebook Live Stream

In the late nineteenth century, Bahá’u’lláh likened people of African descent to the “pupil of the eye” through which the “light of the spirit shineth forth.” In this talk I’ll suggest that the “pupil of the eye” metaphor is a deeply consequential, distinguishing feature of the transformative social and spiritual system laid out in Bahá’u’lláh’s Revelation. Discussing the nexus of capitalism, race, and intellectual history, I’ll summarize the arguments of an essay written for the Journal of Bahá’í Studies, in which I historicize Bahá’u’lláh’s elevating metaphor, and argue that it amounts to a forceful refutation of anti-blackness and thus a dismantling of one of modernity’s pivotal ideologies. I’ll finally talk about the way in which the unique integrity and coherence of Bahá’u’lláh’s system for the creation of universal unity and justice is especially manifest through analytical contemplation of the “pupil of the eye” metaphor.

Link to Journal of Bahá’í Studies, Volume 29, number 1-2
View or Download PDF of Slide Show


Prayer for the Departed | BLM
Video:
courtesy Derik Smith & family
Vocals: Walter Heath, on the album “Praise His Name

Contributors

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Derik Jalal Smith, PhD

Derik Smith is a professor in the Department of Literature at Claremont McKenna College; he is currently chair of the Intercollegiate Department of Africana Studies at the Claremont Colleges. His work is anchored in the analysis of American culture and, particularly, African American literary culture. He is the author of many articles, and the book, Robert Hayden In Verse: New Histories of African American Poetry and the Black Arts Era. He and his family live in Southern California.

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