In Orientalism and Religion, Richard King provides a genealogy of the term “mysticism,” arguing that this term is both “socially constructed” and “the conceptual site of a historical struggle for power and authority” (9). The label of “mysticism” has been applied to many practices and movements (religious or not) across many social and historical contexts. However, the term itself acquires its coherence not from the cumulation of disparate phenomena it has been appended to but from the very particular historical context in and through which it is articulated as a modern academic category. We aim to examine both the historical contexts in which the term mysticism has been deployed, and also examine whether the term “mysticism” is conceptually useful in pursuing scholarship on religion. For this, we invite papers that discuss both the general usage of the term mysticism (“what does it mean?”) and specific case studies of mysticism as it manifests in religious practice, literature, behavior, ritual, and otherwise. Possible topics include (but are not limited to):
- The relation between mysticism and literature, the classification of texts as mystical vs. literary, e.g. the Daode Jing, The Cloud of Unknowing, and so on
- Mystics as a religious subgroup
- Mysticism and religious experience
- Critical assessments of the nature of mysticism
- Mysticism as a term of exclusion and affirmation.
Please submit a proposal of no more than 150 words to ben.van.overmeire@duke.edu by Sep. 31st.
The colloquium will be held on the Duke Kunshan University campus and virtually Dec. 2–3, 2022
Organizers:
Ben Van Overmeire, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies
Bryce Beemer, Assistant Professor of History
Yitzhak Lewis, Assistant Professor of Humanities
