Godere di dio. La posizione mistica tra devastazione e amore

Chiara Pignatti; Marco Xerra

doi:10.13135/2385-1945/6777

Chiara Pignatti University of Padova
Marco Xerra University of Padova

DOI: https://doi.org/10.13135/2385-1945/6777

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyze the connection between mysticism and love. The analysis, which also, through a Lacanian lens, explains in what consists the specific jouissance of the mystic consists in, will be undertaken through a psychoanalytically-informed reading of a short story by David Foster Wallace contained in Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. The female protagonist of the short story, who never directly appears, sums up a number of features typical of the mystical position. By means of compared readings of various classical mystical texts, we will argue that mystical love implies a peculiar relationship to the body, the Other and language. Mystical love is thus described as a form of radical emptying of the self which coincides with a total openness toward the Other.

Author Biographies

Chiara Pignatti, University of Padova

Graduated in Philosophical Sciences at the University of Padua, she deals with the theoretical relations between Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalysis and Michel Henry’s phenomenology of Life, with particular regard to the themes of repetition and incarnation, in order to bring out a new vision of the subjectivity.

Marco Xerra, University of Padova

Graduated in Philosophical Sciences at the University of Padua, he is interested in the possibility of a non-egological conception of the subject, investigated through various issues, traditions and authors, including Christian mysticism, the question of animality, and Lacanian psychoanalysis.

Enjoying God. The Mystical Position Between Ravage and Love

Abstract

Author Biographies