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Mystical Theology
Contemporary Approaches
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What are the contemporary afterlives of the medieval mystical tradition? How do its searching questions about subjectivity, language, time, sex, bodies, divine love, and divine absence continue to shape theology, literature, history, Black Studies, psychoanalysis, and gender studies today? This book asks not only how scholars interpret medieval mystical theology, but how turning to premodern insights, practices, and struggles can help articulate urgent contemporary concerns. Offering a thematic overview across disciplines, it traces how contemporary thinkers have received, reimagined, and transformed Christian medieval mystical texts and tropes. It also returns to the medieval sources themselvesâto reveal their complexity, open new paths for analysis, and provide essential background for readers newly encountering these traditions.
Rachel J.D. Smith, Ph.D. (2012), Harvard University, is associate professor of Theology and Religious Studies at Villanova University (USA). She has published widely on medieval mystical theology and hagiography, including Excessive Saints: Gender, Narrative and Theological Invention in Thomas of Cantimpréâs Mystical Hagiographies (Columbia, 2018).
Prologue
1 Historical Understandings of the Mystical
â1âEarly Christian Formulations
â2âMedieval Formulations
â3âEarly Modern Formulations
â4âModern Formulations
â5âContemporary Studies and Historiography
2 Language
â1âLanguage and Experience
â2âThe Conundrum of Theological Language: Premodern Approaches
â3âContemporary Understandings of Apophasis
â4âLanguage and Politics
â5âThe Materiality of Language: Beyond Representation
â6âLanguage and Practices
â7âLanguage and Feeling, Theology and Affect
â8âConclusion
3 Gender
â1âGender and Definition
â2âBodies and Truth
â3âThe Limits of Gender
â4âMysticism and Transgender Theory
â5âConclusion
4 Sex, Sexuality, Desire
â1âThe Names of Love: Premodern Debates
â2âThe Literal and the Spiritual
â3âModern Concerns
â4âPossible Bodies
5 Blackness
â1âDazzling Darkness: the Metaphorics of Race and Mysticism
â2âMystical Theology and Decolonial Philosophy
â3âBlackness and Mysticism: Fred Moten
â4âApplied Moten
â5âArchives and Ruins
6 Epilogue
Bibliography
Index
1 Historical Understandings of the Mystical
â1âEarly Christian Formulations
â2âMedieval Formulations
â3âEarly Modern Formulations
â4âModern Formulations
â5âContemporary Studies and Historiography
2 Language
â1âLanguage and Experience
â2âThe Conundrum of Theological Language: Premodern Approaches
â3âContemporary Understandings of Apophasis
â4âLanguage and Politics
â5âThe Materiality of Language: Beyond Representation
â6âLanguage and Practices
â7âLanguage and Feeling, Theology and Affect
â8âConclusion
3 Gender
â1âGender and Definition
â2âBodies and Truth
â3âThe Limits of Gender
â4âMysticism and Transgender Theory
â5âConclusion
4 Sex, Sexuality, Desire
â1âThe Names of Love: Premodern Debates
â2âThe Literal and the Spiritual
â3âModern Concerns
â4âPossible Bodies
5 Blackness
â1âDazzling Darkness: the Metaphorics of Race and Mysticism
â2âMystical Theology and Decolonial Philosophy
â3âBlackness and Mysticism: Fred Moten
â4âApplied Moten
â5âArchives and Ruins
6 Epilogue
Bibliography
Index
For academics in the humanities who are not specialists in mysticism; for specialists who are not acquainted with contemporary retrievals of the medieval; for undergraduate and graduate courses on mystical theology.