|
Mysticism
and Sexuality:
Exploring the association of eroticism
and transcendence in the premodern imagination
Bibliographic syllabus for a
reading-intensive, advanced-level undergraduate course in the Study of Religion
Overview. The category of “mysticism” has become
increasingly controversial in the study of religion. Recent scholarship has
tended to rely upon more socially–embedded explanatory categories such as
sexuality, gender, and the body. Yet these categories themselves have an
extremely close (but often underappreciated) relationship with the
constellation of religious phenomena that have typically been called mystical.
Indeed, one could almost redefine “mysticism” itself as religiosity expressed
in terms of erotic experience. In traditional descriptions of the apex of
religious experience or of mystical union itself one frequently encounters
remarkably vivid, and occasionally intensely transgressive–– though ostensibly
metaphorical–– expressions of sexuality, eroticism, and / or of the dissolution
of conventional gender boundaries. This is the case even (and especially) in
premodern religious traditions that are concerned with the strict control, if
not suppression, of sexuality, and also with the maintenance of rigid gender
roles. Thus mystical discourse constantly challenges or subverts the very
dominant religious paradigm that supports it. The premise of this course is
that the numerous intriguing cross–cultural examples of the interpenetration of
the erotic and the mystical offer important theoretical insights both into the
premodern religious imagination and into our own construction of interpretative
categories in the study of religion.
Goals and Methods. This purpose of this class is twofold:
first, to encourage theoretical reflection on the central issue across many
conventional geographical, temporal, and conceptual, and disciplinary
boundaries; and second, to provide instruction on the use of, and problems
with, comparative methodology in the study of religion. Emphasis will be placed
simultaneously on the close reading and analysis of historical texts in context
and upon responsible, self–reflexive theoretical comparison across time, space,
and social geography, with a particular awareness of the problems inherent in
our analytic categories. The hope is that students will come away from this
class with a method of thematic comparison that can be applied similarly to
other topics. This course is primarily intended for concentrators in the study
of religion, but given its subject matter, it should also be of interest for
those pursuing many other fields in the humanities, including intellectual or
social history, philosophy, comparative literature, art history, Classics,
various area studies, and the study of gender and sexuality.
Format and grading. The course will be divided into nine
units (1–2 weeks each), each of which will deal with a single theme or a
related constellation of themes. Each unit will begin with a number of primary
texts (in translation) and follow with related secondary literature, and will
conclude with the assignment of a short (<2 pp.) response paper discussing a
single issue of interest that has arisen in the readings, lectures, or class
discussion. Roughly half of the class time will be taken up with lecture, and the
other half with an organized discussion of the readings based upon a list of
theoretical questions that will be provided for each class. There will be
occasional films and slide presentations in class; possibly a visit to a local
museum will be arranged outside of class time. Students will have an
opportunity to workshop their papers in class and to receive feedback from
other students. Grades will be based upon response papers (10%), participation
in discussion and / or class presentation (10%); one midterm exam consisting of
several essay questions (40%), and one final term paper of 15–25 pp.
(40%).
Hypothetical schedule.
[N.B. In each section, the readings
progress gradually from ‘required’ to ‘suggested,’ as time permits]
Unit
I. Introduction. What do we mean by “mysticism” and “sexuality,” and how to
study them? Approaches & Problems
Week
1. Stimuli for reflection: L. E. Schmidt, “The Making of Modern
Mysticism,” Journal of the American
Academy of Religion 71:2 (2003): 273–302. J. Z. Smith, “In Comparison a
Magic Dwells,” pp. 36–52 in Imagining
Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown (U of Chicago P, 1982). D. Halperin, The Social Body and the Sexual Body, pp.
131–150 in M. Golden and P. Toohey, eds. Sex
and Difference in Ancient Greece and Rome (Edinburgh UP, 2003). T. Laqueur,Making Sex: Body and Gender from the
Greeks to Freud (Harvard UP, 1990), ch. 2 (pp. 25–62). R. H. Sharf,
“Experience,” pp. 94–116 in M. C. Taylor, ed. Critical Terms for Religious Studies (U of Chicago P, 1998).
Unit
II. Whence “sexuality”? Some philosophical and medical debates about love,
sex, gender and reproduction in antiquity
Week
2. (1) Love / sex (erôs) as desire
and vision. Primary sources: Plato, Symposium 189c–212c; Phaedrus
244a-257b; Plutarch, Dialogue on Love
764–766; Plotinus, Enneads
III.5[50]. Secondary sources: S. Bartsch, “The Eye of the Lover,” ch. 2
(pp. 57-114) in The Mirror of the Self:
Sexuality, Self-Knowledge, and the Gaze in the Early Roman Empire (U. of
Chicago P., 2006). J.–P. Vernant, “One...Two...Three...Erôs,” pp. 465–478 in D. Halperin et. al., eds. Before
Sexuality: The Construction of Erotic Experience in the Ancient Greek World
(Princeton UP, 1990). D. Halperin, “Why is Diotima a Woman? Platonic Erôs and the Figuration of Gender,” pp.
257–308 in Before Sexuality. E. E.
Pender, “Spiritual Pregnancy in Plato’s Symposium,”Classical Quarterly 42:1 (1992):
72–86.
Week
3. (2) Sex as reproduction and polarity. Primary sources: Plato, Timaeus 90e–92c; selections from
Hippocratic treatise On the Seed, and
from Aristotle, On the Generation of
Animals; Galen, On the Semen I.1–2
and On the Natural Faculties II.3;
selections from Soranus, On the Diseases
of Women and from Porphyry, Pros
Gauron. Secondary sources: G.E.R. Lloyd, “The Female Sex: Medical
Treatment and Biological Theories in the 5th and 4th
Centuries B.C.”= pt. 2 (pp. 58–111) in Science,
Folklore, and Ideology: Studies in the Life Sciences in Ancient Greece
(Cambridge UP, 1983). E. C. Keuls, “The Greek Medical Texts and the Sexual
Ethos of Ancient Athens,” pp. 261-273 in P. J. van der Eijk, H. E. J.
Horstmanshoff & P. H. Schrivers, eds. Ancient
Medicine in its Socio-Cultural Context, vol. 1. (Amsterdam, 1995). A. E.
Hanson, “The Medical Writers’ Woman,” pp. 309–338 in Before Sexuality. Selections from R. P. Das, The Origin of the Life of a Human Being: Conception and the Female
According to Ancient Indian Medical and Sexological Literature (Delhi: M.
Banarsiddass, 2003).
2-Page
Response Paper due
Unit
III. Having Sex with God: “Unio
Mystica” as erotic phenomenon
Week
4. Primary sources: Plotinus Enneads
I.6[1].7-9, VI.9[9].4, 8-9; VI.7[38].35; selections from Pseudo-Dionysius, The Divine Names; Bernard of Clairvaux, On the Song of Songs; Mechthild of
Magdeburg, Flowing Light of the Godhead;
Angela of Foligno’s Memorial; St.
Teresa of Avila, Life of St. Teresa;
Gregory of Nyssa, Homilies on the Song of
Songs; and from Gospel of Philip (NHC II,3). Secondary sources: J.
Kripal, “Eyeing the Burning Wings: Analyzing the Mystical Experience of Love in
Evelyn Underhill’s Mysticism (1911),”
ch.1 (pp. 33–84) in Roads of Excess,
Palaces of Wisdom: Eroticism & Reflexivity in the Study of Mysticism (U
of Chicago P). A. DeConick, “The Great Mystery of Marriage: Sex and Conception
in Ancient Valentinian Traditions,” Vigiliae
Christianae 57 (2003): 307–342.
Week
5. Primary sources: selections from Ibn al–‘Arabi, Bezels of Wisdom; Ibn al–Farid, Diwan;
Ruzbehan Baqli, The Unveiling of Secrets;
Najm al-din al-Kubra, The Blossoms of
Beauty and the Perfumes of Majesty; Rumi, Mathnawi and Divan;
selections from the Zohar and Moses
Cordovero, Tomer Devorah. Secondary
sources: M. Sells, “The Infinity of Desire: Love, Mystical Union, and
Ethics in Sufism,” pp. 184–229 in G. Barnard & J. Kripal, eds. Crossing Boundaries: Essays on the Ethical
Status of Mysticism (NY: Seven Bridges, 2002). M. Tourage, “Phallocentric
Esotericism in a Tale from Jalal al-Din Rumi’s Masnavi-yi Ma’navi,” Iranian
Studies 39:1 (2006): 47–24; M. Idel, “Erotic Images for the Ecstatic
Experience,” ch. 4 (pp. 179–227) in The
Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia (SUNY, 1988), and his Kabbalah & Eros (Yale UP, 2005) pp.
53–152.
2-Page
Response Paper due
Unit
IV. The (human / divine) sexual body as locus of (ritual / sacred) power
Week
6. Primary sources: Paraphrase of
Shem (NHC VII,1); Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1–11; fragments of the Chaldaean Oracles; Epiphanius, Panarion 26; selections from Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies; Hermetic Asclepius 20-21; Augustine, On Heresies 46. Secondary sources:
R. Smith, “Sex Education in Gnostic Schools,” pp. 345-360 in K. King, ed. Images of the Feminine in Gnosticism
(Harrisburg: Trinity, 1988). G. Stroumsa, “Caro salutis cardo: Shaping the Person
in Early Christian Thought,” History of
Religions 30:1 (1990): 25-50. C. W. Bynum, “The Female Body and Religious
Practice in the Later Middle Ages,” ch. 6 (pp. 181-238) in Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender and the Human Body in
Medieval Religion (Zone, 1992). L. Steinberg, The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion
(Pantheon, NY, 1983). E. Wolfson, Through
a Speculum that Shines: Vision and Imagination in Medieval Jewish Mysticism
(Princeton UP, 1994), chs. 6–7 (270–392).
N. Deutsch, The Gnostic Imagination:
Gnosticism, Mandaeism and Merkabah Mysticism (Brill, 1995).
Week
7. Primary sources: selections from the Necklace of Immortality from Tantra
in Practice, D. G. White, ed. (Princeton UP, 2000, pp. 308–325). Selections
from Abhinavagupta, Tantraloka. D.
Wile, Art of the Bedchamber: the Chinese
Sexual Yoga Classic (SUNY P, 1992).Secondary sources: S. Gupta, D. J. Hoens and T. Goudriaan, Hindu Tantrism (Brill, 1979). D. G.
White: The Kiss of the Yogini: “Tantric
Sex” in its South Asian Contexts (U of Chicago P, 2003). D. Harper, “The
Sexual Arts of Ancient China as Described in a Manuscript of The Second Century
B.C.,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies,
47:2 (1987): 539-593. J. McDaniel, “Sexual Sadhana and the Love of the Bodily
God: Auls, Bauls, and Sahajiyas,” ch. 4 (pp. 157-190) in The Madness of the Saints: Ecstatic religion in Bengal (U of
Chicago P, 1989). R. P. Das, “Problematic Aspects of the Sexual Rituals of the
Bauls of Bengal,” Journal of the American
Oriental Society 112:3 (1992): 388–432; E. Dimock, The Place of the Hidden Moon: Erotic Mysticism in the Vaisnava–Sahajiya
Cult of Bengal. (U of Chicago P), 1966.
Midterm
Examination (take-home
essays: a choice 2 out of 3 possible questions that will require the comparison
of specific issues discussed in class, and generalization therefrom; 7–10 pp.
max.).
Film: “The Infinity of Desire: the Erotic
Mysticism Documentary Project,” dir. Z. Mazur & S. Makarova (in progress).
Unit
V. Homoeroticism, heteroeroticism, and gender ambiguity in (forbidden)
mystical discourse
Weeks
8–9. Stimuli for reflection: D. Krueger, “Homoerotic Spectacle and the
Monastic Body in Symeon the New Theologian,” pp. 99-118, and A. Hollywood,
“Sexual Desire, Divine Desire: Queering the Beguines,” pp. 119-133 in V. Burrus
and C. Keller, Towards a Theology of Eros
(Fordham UP, 2006). M. Dakake, “‘Guest of the Inmost Heart’: Conceptions of the
Divine among Early Sufi Women,” Comparative
Islamic Studies 3:1 (2007): 72–97. J. Wafer, “Vision and Passion: The
Symbolism of Male Love in Islamic Mystical Literature,” in Islamic Homosexualities: Culture, History, and Literature, S.
Murray & W. Roscoe (NYU P, 1997). J. Kripal, Kali’s Child: The Mystical and the Erotic in the Life and Teachings of
Ramakrishna (U of Chicago P, 1995), and Roads
of Excess pp. 98–206. H. Eilberg–Schwartz, God’s Phallus and Other Problems for Men and Monotheism (Beacon,
Boston, 1994), chs. 1–7 (pp. 1–196). E. Wolfson, “Crossing Gender Boundaries in
Kabbalistic Ritual and Myth,” ch. 4 (pp. 79–121) in The Circle in the Square (SUNY P, 1995).
Film: Secret
Talk: Interview of Jeffrey Kripal, dir. George Williams, 2004.
2-Page
Response Paper Due
Unit
VI. Erotic relations between human master and disciple
Week
10. Stimuli for reflection: M. Malamud, “Gender and Spiritual
Self-Fashioning: The Master-Disciple Relationship in Classical Sufism,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion
64:1 (1996): 89–109; J. Kripal, “The Apocryphon of the Beloved,” pp. 29–58 in The Serpent’s Gift: Gnostic Reflections on
the Study of Religion (U of Chicago P, 2007). S. Kakar, The Analyst and the Mystic: Psycholanalytic
Reflections on Religion and Mysticism. (U of Chicago P, 1991). A. Hammoudi,Master and Disciple: The Cultural
Foundations of Moroccan Authoritarianism. (U of Chicago P, 1997).
Unit
VII. Sex with nonhuman spirits, angelic and demonic
Week
11. Primary sources: selections from Gospel
of Philip (NHC II,3) and Papyri
Graecae Magicae; Tertullian, Against
the Valentinians 32; selections from H. C. Lea, Materials Towards a History of Witchcraft, 3 vols. (U Penn P.
1939). Selections from Malleus
Malificarum; selections from Sayings
of the Desert Fathers. Secondary sources: I. P. Couliano, Eros and Magic in the Renaissance (U of
Chicago P, 1987), pp. 144–178; selections from D. Elliott, Fallen Bodies: Pollution, Sexuality, and Demonology in the Middle Ages
(U Penn. P, 1999) and W. Stephens, Demon
Lovers: Witchcraft, Sex, and the Crisis of Belief (U of Chicago P, 2002).
Visual
presentation and / or visit to local museum: Mysticism in Art
2-Page
Response Paper Due
Unit
VIII. Asceticism and mysticism: the (negative) power of Eros
Week 12. (1) Ancient. Primary
sources: Plato, Gorgias 491e–495e; selections on Stoics
from The Hellenistic Philosophers; 1st
Corinthians 6–7; Exegesis on the Soul
(NHC II,6); selections from Porphyry,De Abstinentia; Proclus, Hymns; selections from Lucian of
Samosata, De Dea Syria;
Pseudo-Athanasius, Life of Syncletica;.Secondary sources: V. Burrus, The
Sex Lives of Saints: an Erotics of Ancient Hagiography (U of Penn. P,
2004). P. Brown, The Body and Society:
Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (Columbia UP,
1988) esp. ch. 5 (pp. 103-121). A. Rousselle, Porneia: on Desire and the Body in Antiquity (Barnes & Noble,
NY, 1988), ch. 7–9 (pp. 107–159). L. Kohn, “Sexual Control and Daoist
Cultivation,” pp. 251–263 in C. Olson, ed, Celibacy and Religious Traditions
(Oxford UP, 2008). B. Faure, The Red
Thread: Buddhist Approaches to Sexuality (Princeton UP 1998). (2) Modern
echoes. L. Engelstein, Castration and
the Heavenly Kingdom: a Russian Folktale (Cornell UP, 1999). L. Kern, An Ordered Love: Sex Roles and Sexualities
in Victorian Utopias–– the Shakers, the Mormons, and the Oneida Community
(UNC P, 1981). H. Urban, Magia Sexualis:
Sex, Magic, and Liberation in Modern Western Esotericism (U of California
P, 2006).
Final
Paper Proposal Due (2
pages)
Film: Simon
of the Desert, dir. Luis Buñuel (1965)
Week
13. In-class paper proposal
presentations and workshop
Unit
IX. Theoretical Review: the Problem of “Metaphor”: Tradition, Language,
Cognition, Experience?
Week
14. Stimuli for Reflection: A. Sanderson, “Meaning in Tantric Ritual,”
in Essais sur le rituel no. 3, A. M.
Blondeau & K. Schipper, eds. (Louvain: Peeters, 1995). Sthaneshwar Timalsina, “Metaphor, Rasa, and Dhvani: Suggested
Meaning in Tantric Esotericism,” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion
19 (2007): 134–162. J. BeDuhn, “Manichaean Concepts of Human Physiology,” pp.
5–37 in P. Mirecki and J. BeDuhn eds. The
Light and the Darkness: Studies in Manichaeism and its World (Brill, 2001).
R. Jackson, “Ambiguous Sexuality: Imagery and Interpretation in Tantric
Buddhism,” Religion 22 (1992):
85–100. P. Olivelle, “Orgasmic Rapture and Divine Ecstasy: the Semantic History
of Ananda,” Journal of Indian Philosophy
25 (1997): 153–180. H. Urban, “The power of the Impure: Transgression,
Violence, Secresy in Bengali Sakta Tantra and Modern Western Magic,” Numen 50:3 (2003): 269–308.
Final Paper Due (15-25 pp.)
* * * * *
General questions for further reflection,
and / or paper topics:
(1)
If the erotic is not limited to the genital, what does it mean to say
eroticized mystical language is “metaphorical”?
(2)
What role might norm transgression or subversion play in the eroticization of
religious experience / discourse?
(3)
What role might the supression of overt discussion of gender-role ambiguity
play in one or another mystical tradition?
(4)
How might institutional authority and / or orthodoxy inform the discourse (or
experience) of eroticized mysticism?
(5)
How and why is the eye / vision / gaze thought to participate in both worldly
eroticism and mystical apprehension?
(6)
What constitutes “body” in the mystical imagination? What constitutes gender
(“maleness” or “femaleness”)?
(7)
If sexuality is an expression of a power relation, how is this to be understood
in the case of the imagery of human–divine intercourse? Does mystical
discourse conform to, or subvert, the status quo?
(8)
How does the imagined sexual body map onto the imagined structure (social or
metaphysical) of reality, and vice versa?
(9) How do hetero– and homoerotic
mysticisms relate to orthodoxy and heresy?
(10) What are some strategies of religious authority for “explaining” uncomfortable eroticism in traditional discourse?
|