Second ARDIT International Congress
Senses and sensuality in the Middle Ages
Barcelona, 20-22 May 2015
All this was shewde by thre partes, that is to sey by bodyly syght,
and by worde formyde in my vnderstondyng, and by goostcly syght.
(Juliana de Norwich, Shewings, Long Version, 9, 29-30).
and by worde formyde in my vnderstondyng, and by goostcly syght.
(Juliana de Norwich, Shewings, Long Version, 9, 29-30).
The rose’s red hue, its intoxicating scent and its thorns show us the many faces of this flower’s truth. Senses are the ways through which humans interact with the world and develop their life learning.
For its connection to pleasure and joy, senses have been dually interpreted as sources of sin and immorality yet also as paths of knowledge, since through them we can reach a universe of perceptions which encourage experimentation -and thus, relation- with our surroundings and with our inner self. Julian of Norwich, an English theologian and mystic, expressed with simplicity in the words cited above how she had knowledge of the divine: three types of visions connected to different senses.
In this new researchers’ encounter we seek to open the door to the multiples insights and reflections about senses and sensuality in the Middle Ages, offering a wide range of aspects linked to the multiple narratives which this issue inspires: the ways of knowledge, sensory and spiritual pleasure, or artistic and literary forms which have captured the sensorial universe in the Middle Ages.
With a distinctly interdisciplinary intention, the congress aims to give voice to innovative researches on multiple and corresponding fields, such as History, Philosophy, History of Art or Philology, among others. Our main objective with this call is to help build new spaces of creation and of transmission of knowledge, thus confronting the specialization and compartmentalization of expertises usually attributed to the academic world. The accepted papers will define the final sections in which the congress will be divided.
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