Interdisciplinarity in Teaching Medieval Mysticism: the Case of Angela of Foligno

This essay addresses two related challenges facing educators who teach about medieval saints, mystics, and their texts. The first is how to relate to the theologies and spiritualities of people who inhabited cultures radically distinct from the modern and postmodern periods. The second regards the c...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Mooney, Catherine M. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Interlibrary Loan:Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany)
Published: 2007
In: Horizons
Year: 2007, Volume: 34, Issue: 1, Pages: 54-77
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Parallel Edition:Non-electronic
Description
Summary:This essay addresses two related challenges facing educators who teach about medieval saints, mystics, and their texts. The first is how to relate to the theologies and spiritualities of people who inhabited cultures radically distinct from the modern and postmodern periods. The second regards the contemporary tendency to evaluate medieval believers in terms of modernist intellectual frameworks, most notably clinical psychological categories. A case study approaching the medieval mystic Angela of Foligno from three disciplinary points of view—clinical psychology, historical theology, and cultural history—illustrates how educators might respond to students' penchant to privilege clinical psychology when considering medieval mystics and saints, and shows not only the complementarity of interdisciplinarity, but also its limitations.
ISSN:2050-8557
Contains:Enthalten in: Horizons
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1017/S0360966900003935