Articles

‘I shudder that I exist’. Hadewijch’s Mystical Writings as a Wayward Precursor of Autotheoretical Life-Writing

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21827/ejlw.13.41319

Keywords:

affectivity, autotheory, Hadewijch, mysticism

Abstract

The work of Hadewijch, a thirteenth-century Beguine, explores the reflective potential of intimate affective experiences by making deliberate use of literary and religious intertexts. The writings of women mystics like Hadewijch present an understudied current in the genealogy of life-writing, yet they resonate strongly with contemporary autotheoretical practices that combine theory and art with autobiography. At the same time, the fact that Hadewijch is not a contemporary author can offer a critical perspective on the genre of autotheory itself.

Author Biography

Kris Pint, Hasselt University

Kris Pint is Associate Professor of Cultural Theory at the Faculty of Architecture and Arts at Hasselt University. His research focuses on how creative (non-)fiction can be used in artistic research and how literature, interior architecture, and visual arts help propose alternative forms of living, dwelling, and knowing. In addition to a series of articles published on these topics, he is also the author of The Perverse Art of Reading. On the phantasmatic semiology in Roland Barthes’ Cours au Collège de France (2010).

Published

2024-06-24

Issue

Vol. 13 (2024): EJLW

Section

Articles

Copyright (c) 2024 Kris Pint

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