Abstract:
This research project visits the site of mysticism through works by mystic women of the Middle
Ages and the early modern period in Europe. It explores the manner of speaking that emerges
in these texts, which are translations of their authors’ direct encounter with the divine.
The Lingua Ignota, a secret language received by the twelfth-century German mystic Hildegard
of Bingen (1098–1179), and the Interior Castle, written in 1577 by the sixteenth-century
Spanish mystic Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582), are focused on as works of ‘particular and
ecstatic invention’ that bypass ecclesiastical structures. They are explored in relation to
Édouard Glissant’s concept of errantry, and I argue that these texts reveal an errantry produced
through enjoyment.
Through these two works, which privilege experiential knowledge because of the
circumstances of their authors, and considering filmmaker Trinh T. Minh-ha’s statement that
family background and personal experience allow one to begin to understand a structure ‘from
within ourselves out’, I examine the view from a body like mine, one put in motion by the
categories of ‘East’ and ‘West’. I argue that the particular and ecstatic works of Hildegard and
Teresa, which draw on first-hand experience to produce scripts of the body as it moves always
in relation to an other, offer ways in which a body like mine might approach the subjects she
films.
