Session Abstract
In many religious traditions, as well as in the history of poetry, the notion of “mysticism” plays an important role. In its common use, the term refers to moments of intense experience of the divine or of nature. Sometimes it means ecstatic pleasure, sometimes just a delightful moment of being carried away by a beautiful sight or sound. Based on a few examples, the lecture will ask the question of what we can learn from these different meanings of mysticism about the importance of human imagination.
Speaker Bio
Niklaus Largier is the Sidney and Margaret Ancker Professor of German and Comparative literature. His research and teaching focuses on the role of mysticism and religious traditions in the history of human imagination, affects, and sense-perception. He is particularly interested in the intersection of religious, philosophical, and literary imagination, foregrounding in his research the role of specific literary and visual practices that are meant to produce new forms of experience. Among other works, he is the author of In Praise of the Whip: A Cultural History of Arousal and of Figures of Possibility: Aesthetic Experience, Mysticism, and the Play of the Senses.