Radboud Summer School 2017:

Mysticism & Modern Critique

The Radboud Summer School Mysticism & Modern Critique offers a promenade through some well-known mystical texts showing how the critical dimension is present at the very core of their argument. In times when the Cartesian Ego was not yetestablished, it was already ‘deconstructed’ in the writings of Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross. In the works of Thomas a Kempis and Ruusbroec, the criticism of the emerging ‘bourgeois’ mentality is an important aspect. The ‘Letter to Louis XIV’, for instance, by the 17^th century French catholic mystic François de Fénelon, is one of the harshest criticisms of political absolutism of his time.

Programme.

Programme

Monday 14.08

                10.00-12.00:

The critical dimension of Christian mysticism (Marc De Kesel, TBI)

14.00-17.00:

Michel de Certeau on Critical Mysticism (Eveline van Buijtenen & Inigo Bocken, TBI)

Tuesday 15.08

10.00-12.00:

Critical Dimension of Medieval Mysticism: Eckhart (Kees Schepers, Ruusbroecgenootschap)

14.00-17.00:

Ruusbroec’s Critical Reception by the Jesuits (Rob Faesen, Ruusbroecgenootschap)

Wednesday 16.08

10.00-12.00:

Modern Art, Modern Spirituality and Modern Criticism (Marc De Kesel, TBI)

14.00-17.00:

                                Trip to Sloss Moyland (Museum Joseph Beuys)

Thursday 17.08

10.00-12.00:

The critical Relation Between Monasticism and Mysticism (on Bernard of Clairvaux and Hildegard von Bingen) (Thomas Quartier, TBI)

14.00-17.00:

Mysticism as a Critique of Modernity in Poetry and Theology: Reading Marie Noël and John Caputo(Peter Nissen, FTR)

Friday 18.08

10.00-12.00:

The Critical Place of Mysticism in Early Modern Protestantism in The Netherlands (Herman Westerink, TBI)

14.00-17.00:

                                               General discussion with lecturers and participants