Languages of Negativity. Ascesis and Mysticism in Spanish Renaissance Texts

• Applicant: Dr. Christina Bischoff
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies
• Term: from 2012 to 2014
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 230510061

The research trip abroad to Spain is intended to be part of my post-doc project “Languages of Negativity in Spanish Renaissance Asceticism and Mysticism”. The project aims at reconstructing the way subjectivity is conceived, reflected and negotiated in the works of Francisco the Osuna, Juan de Ávila, Luis de Granada, Teresa de Jesús and San Juan de la Cruz. The study focuses both on the practices that help the subject train itself in ascetical subjectivity and on the anthropological substratum elaborated to legitimate and stabilize these practices. I analyse the narrative hermeneutics of the self as well as figures of knowledge like memoria, imaginatio, voluntas, intellectus and in particular the soul itself as a mediator, origin and function of the subject. The dynamics between anthropological knowledge and its textual design will be of special interest. Thus I also hope to contribute to the investigation of the ways in which anthropological knowledge in Renaissance Spain was constituted, implemented and transformed.

• DFG Programme: Research Fellowships
• International Connection: Spain
• Host: Professorin Dr. Julia Barella