1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910818383203321

Autore

Hollywood Amy M. <1963->

Titolo

Sensible ecstasy : mysticism, sexual difference, and the demands of history / / Amy Hollywood

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Chicago, : University of Chicago Press, 2002

ISBN

1-282-50425-8

9786612504259

0-226-34946-2

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource  (xv, 371 pages)

Collana

Religion and postmodernism

Disciplina

248.2/2/09

248.2209

Soggetti

Mysticism - Psychology - History

Women mystics - Psychology - History

Philosophy, French - 20th century

Psychoanalysis and religion - France - History - 20th century

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 279-357) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations -- Introduction -- 1. Georges Bataille, Mystique -- 2. (En)gendering Mysticism -- 3. Feminism, Mysticism, and Belief -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

Sensible Ecstasy investigates the attraction to excessive forms of mysticism among twentieth-century French intellectuals and demonstrates the work that the figure of the mystic does for these thinkers. With special attention to Georges Bataille, Simone de Beauvoir, Jacques Lacan, and Luce Irigaray, Amy Hollywood asks why resolutely secular, even anti-Christian intellectuals are drawn to affective, bodily, and widely denigrated forms of mysticism. What is particular to these thinkers, Hollywood reveals, is their attention to forms of mysticism associated with women. They regard mystics such as Angela of Foligno, Hadewijch, and Teresa of Avila not as emotionally excessive or escapist, but as unique in their ability to think outside of the restrictive oppositions that continue to afflict our understanding of subjectivity, the body, and sexual difference. Mystics such as these, like their



twentieth-century descendants, bridge the gaps between action and contemplation, emotion and reason, and body and soul, offering new ways of thinking about language and the limits of representation.