IMC 2024: Sessions

The sessions organized by the Mystical Theology Network concern various forms of crisis within mystical texts as well as reflections on the 17th century crisis of mysticism. The subjects and texts covered range from the 10th century to the 17th century. Session one treats several case studies of crisis within the genre of mystical hagiography, considering tensions engendered by the themes of clothing (in the hagiographies of Edith of Wilton and Margaret of Scotland), pregnancy (in, among others, the Vitae of Ida of Leuven and Dorothea of Montau), and the ecstatic death of John Duns Scotus. Session two focuses on the crisis of desolation or 'godforsakenness' and the crisis of the imagination in medieval mystical authors such as Angela of Foligno, the Middle Dutch Groenendaal mystics, and the Cloud author and other Middle English mystical texts. Finally, session three turns to the 17th-century crisis of mysticism, focusing on the ways in which Early Modern thinkers sought to retrieve, adapt, and defend medieval mystical ideas. The central thinkers under discussion in the final session are the Jesuit Maximilian Sandaeus, the Benedictine Augustine Baker, and the Lutheran Pietist Johann Arndt.