German Mysticism and the Politics of Culture

Ulrike Wiethaus received her PhD in religious studies at Temple University. She is currently Professor in the Department of Religion with a joint appointment in American Ethnic Studies at Wake Forest University. Her publications on medieval Christian spirituality include Agnes Blannbekin, Viennese Beguine: Life and Revelations (translated from the Latin with introduction, notes, and interpretive essay, 2002 reissued in 2012); Ecstatic Transformations: Ecstasies and Visions in the Work of Mechthild of Magdeburg and Transpersonal Psychology (1995); Maps of Flesh and Light: The Religious Experience of Medieval Women (edited, with an introduction and a previously unpublished essay, 1993); and Dear Sister: The Correspondence of Medieval Women (co-edited with Karen Cherewatuk, with an introduction and a previously unpublished essay, 1993).

«This deeply perceptive, original and wide-ranging book builds remarkable bridges between medieval German mysticism and its modern reception and reinterpretation. In each essay, Ulrike Wiethaus draws nimbly on historical evidence, cultural politics, and gender theory to offer sophisticated new arguments about medieval mystics and their writings. She then moves surely and persuasively to show how modern interpreters refashioned these individuals and their texts to serve an array of religious, political, and cultural agenda. Most startling are the links she exposes between the German-ness of some mystics [and] how it was variously redeployed to resist or collude with the Nazi project.» (Catherine M. Mooney, Associate Professor of Church History, Boston College, School of Theology and Ministry; Author (with Caroline Walker Bynum) of ‘Gendered Voices: Medieval Saints and Their Interpreters’ (1999))«This is a remarkable book, by an unusual, innovative and radical thinker who is also an eminent medieval theological scholar. Ulrike Wiethaus’ work brings the tools of contemporary cultural critique and of traditional theological scholarship to bear on a wide range of medieval mystical discourse. While she examines the complicated intersections of formations of cultural memory, of ‘German-ness,’ of gender, and of academic and church hierarchy, she also creates a dialogue between the mystical and the psychoanalytic, between theological and lived experience. In doing so, she repositions and reclaims medieval mystical discourse for a modern audience. This is the best kind of ‘medievalism,’ deeply reflective, scholarly, unflinchingly honest, full of surprising and relevant insights into both worlds.» (Gillian R. Overing, Professor of English and Co-director of Medieval Studies, Wake Forest University; Author (with Clare A. Lees) of ‘Double Agents: Women and Clerical Culture in Anglo-Saxon England’ (2001))

• Contents: Unio Mystica – Blood Mysticism – Masculinity – Who is Hrotsvit of Gandersheim? – Homoerotic Desire – The Punishments of Saint Elisabeth – Love and Death in the Vernacular – The Death Song of Marie d’Oignies.