In this essay, I offer a novel interpretation of Rilke’s first elegy of Duino from the perspective of the homelessness of humanity. Starting with his distinction between angels, animals and humans,... Show moreIn this essay, I offer a novel interpretation of Rilke’s first elegy of Duino from the perspective of the homelessness of humanity. Starting with his distinction between angels, animals and humans, we discover that human life is characterized by the boundary situation between life and death, which renders us feeling homeless in the world. Today, God no longer functions as a stable point of reference, as the one who could alleviate this existential homelessness. Even though we are not always aware of our homelessness, our relationship with the world, characterized by an urge to control the variables of life, attests to it. The emptiness we experience must be fully acknowledged and lived through to determine whether an attitude of radical receptivity to life as a whole, encompassing both life and death, can help us find a home in the world. This human fate is challenging to bear, and perhaps finding a home will ultimately prove to be a futile endeavor. This raises the disquieting question: is being human worthwhile? In contrast to the timeless angelic universe, human life feels limited and inferior. Nevertheless, Rilke does not negate our lifeworld, but instead emphasizes the beauty of this singular existence, derived from the incredible fact that in this transitory life, the eternal shines. Show less
Parvin E’tesami (1907-1941) is among the few Persian female poets, who has gained nationwide popularity, while her authorship was disbelieved. She is celebrated in a plethora of publications every... Show moreParvin E’tesami (1907-1941) is among the few Persian female poets, who has gained nationwide popularity, while her authorship was disbelieved. She is celebrated in a plethora of publications every year in Iran and beyond. E’tesami is the only female poet who has remained part of the daily lives of people in her society for about a century. Her poetry appears in school curricula both before and after the Revolution of 1979. People use her poetry on social media, particularly in critical times. It is also used in public speeches by Ali Khamenei (r. 1989-present) the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic. This book engages with E’tesami in the transformational context of the early twentieth century in Iran to investigate the controversies around her identity as a popular female poet. It demonstrates that the reason for E’tesami’s paradoxical popularity was not merely her gender, but the transgression of patriarchal Iranian-Muslim gender norms. Show less
There are many publications dealing with the political career of Ruhollah Khomeini (1902–1989), who transformed the political landscape of Iran and the Middle East after the Islamic Revolution of... Show moreThere are many publications dealing with the political career of Ruhollah Khomeini (1902–1989), who transformed the political landscape of Iran and the Middle East after the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Most of the research conducted in the West is on Khomeini’s political strategies, while the influential role of mysticism in all facets of his life is ignored. This book is the first study examining Khomeini’s poetry, mysticism and the reception of his poetry both in Iran and the West. It investigates how Khomeini integrated various doctrines and ideas of Islamic mysticism and Shiiism such as the Perfect Man into his poetry. Show less
The twelfth-century Latin West saw the rise of a tradition of bridal mysticism. Based on the Song of Songs, the Old-Testament love dialogue, the relationship with God was envisioned as a love... Show moreThe twelfth-century Latin West saw the rise of a tradition of bridal mysticism. Based on the Song of Songs, the Old-Testament love dialogue, the relationship with God was envisioned as a love relationship with the heavenly bridegroom involving feelings of desire. The leading question in my research is how, in the medieval Low Countries, the affectionate and multisensorial vocabulary related to the Song of Songs engaged reader-viewers in a personal, transformative dialogue with Christ by evoking performative modes of reading and viewing that encouraged devotees to physically or imaginatively play out the text or image.Although originated in the male monastic context, bridal mysticism became a potent way for various groups, including women and laypeople, to participate in the culture of saints and mystics. Access to and ownership of devotional objects provided devotees with agency and possibilities for spiritual development. In spiritual practice, individuals had different options at their disposal, allowing them to choose between different ways of imagining their bridal relationship with Christ. Bridal mysticism accommodated these various options and practices and gave and impulse to the conceptualization of the role of the senses in spirituality. Show less
This dissertation focuses on the Middle Dutch text the ‘Dialogue between Eckhart and the Layman’, an enigmatic spiritual piece of writing from the mid-fourteenth century. A layman and a master... Show moreThis dissertation focuses on the Middle Dutch text the ‘Dialogue between Eckhart and the Layman’, an enigmatic spiritual piece of writing from the mid-fourteenth century. A layman and a master converse about a broad range of religious and social subjects. The student remains anonymous, as the title suggests, and the master is named after Meister Eckhart, the famous German theologian and mystic. In this book I argue that the Dialogue can be considered as a text which sits neatly atop the fault line between the world and its monasteries and convents, between a worldly and a religious experience of faith. The text may well be our most important witness to the beginnings of a process of socioreligious changes, in which ordinary laymen, too, wanted to expand the spirituality they had previously internalized. I provide a reconstruction of the original text, an analysis of the dialectical interplay between the two protagonists and between the different levels of high and low, contemplative and practical theology and a contextualization of this dialogue within the broader intellectual culture of the Low Countries. In particular, I show how the text can be connected to the ideas of Jan van Ruusbroec and Jan van Leeuwen. Show less
This research has been conducted in response to the mystical poems that Ayatollah Khomeini composed during his life. His poems contain multiple mystical topics such as wine, love, annihilation... Show moreThis research has been conducted in response to the mystical poems that Ayatollah Khomeini composed during his life. His poems contain multiple mystical topics such as wine, love, annihilation and adoration of non-Islamic figures. In various poems Ayatollah Khomeini rejects the Kaʿba, the Holy House of God in Mecca. How to interpret these unorthodox poems by the hand of the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran? How to explain the paradox of his personality? His poems are also highly interesting because of their biographical and political elements, such as his references to the Iran-Iraq war. The main question of this research is how to interpret Ayatollah Khomeini’s mystical poetry. Are his poems the expressions of a convinced mystic, or did he copy this poetic framework for other purposes? How to interpret his poems in which he rejects Islamic institutions, such as the Kaʿba in Mecca? Is this topic merely a classical metaphor or does it reflect the personal problems he had with Saudi Arabia? And finally, how did his opponents and his followers respond to his poetry? Show less
Rond het midden van de vijftiende eeuw schreef de minderbroeder Hendrik Herp een mystiek meesterwerk: de Spieghel der volcomenheit. Het was het enige werk dat deze bestuurlijke en spirituele leider... Show moreRond het midden van de vijftiende eeuw schreef de minderbroeder Hendrik Herp een mystiek meesterwerk: de Spieghel der volcomenheit. Het was het enige werk dat deze bestuurlijke en spirituele leider van de franciscaanse observantiebeweging in de volkstaal zou schrijven. De taal stond een snelle verspreiding van de tekst niet in de weg. Herps Spieghel werd een ongekend internationaal succes. In Literatuur en observantie beschrijft Anna Dlabacová dit succes, dat zich afspeelt tegen de achtergrond van een brede religieuze vernieuwing in middeleeuws Europa. De lezer maakt kennis met een wereld waarin het strenge observantie-ideaal hand in hand ging met de verspreiding van nieuwe teksten onder religieuzen en leken. Persoonlijke contacten en netwerken van kloosters, drukkers en leken zorgden ervoor dat de verspreiding van literatuur een nieuwe impuls kreeg. Het verhaal van Herps Spieghel weerspiegelt deze nieuwe dynamiek. Show less
Unity in Diversity presents a fresh appraisal of the vibrant and diverse culture of Stuart Puritanism. This work provides a historiographical and historical survey of current issues within... Show moreUnity in Diversity presents a fresh appraisal of the vibrant and diverse culture of Stuart Puritanism. This work provides a historiographical and historical survey of current issues within Puritanism, critiques notions of Puritanisms, which tend to fragment the phenomenon, and introduces unitas within diversitas in three divergent Puritans, John Downame, Francis Rous, and Tobias Crisp. This study draws on insights from these three figures to propose that seventeenth-century English Puritanism should be thought of both in terms of Familien_hnlichkeit, in which there are strong theological and social semblances across Puritans of divergent persuasions, and in terms of the greater narrative of the Puritan Reformation, which united Puritans in their quest to reform their church and society. Show less
Love mysticism, long viewed as the finest expression of religious experience in Islam, has been displaced in the past two decades with 'frontline/hate mysticism'. This militarized spirituality was... Show moreLove mysticism, long viewed as the finest expression of religious experience in Islam, has been displaced in the past two decades with 'frontline/hate mysticism'. This militarized spirituality was nurtured in the 1980s by Iranian theologues, who during the war with Iraq promised prospective teenage martyrs 'ascendance' to heaven. Soon adopted by Islamist activists in other parts of the world, this vengeful modality of piety was an extension of a politicized spirituality that emerged in the aftermath of World War I by redefining the East as spiritual. Show less
