Mystical Theology: Contemporary Approaches

What are the contemporary afterlives of the medieval mystical tradition? How do its searching questions about subjectivity, language, time, sex, bodies, divine love, and divine absence continue to shape theology, literature, history, Black Studies, psychoanalysis, and gender studies today? This book asks not only how scholars interpret medieval mystical theology, but how turning to premodern insights, practices, and struggles can help articulate urgent contemporary concerns. Offering a thematic overview across disciplines, it traces how contemporary thinkers have received, reimagined, and transformed Christian medieval mystical texts and tropes. It also returns to the medieval sources themselves—to reveal their complexity, open new paths for analysis, and provide essential background for readers newly encountering these traditions.