“Medieval Meditation and Embodied Contemplation”

Guest Speaker: Christina Van Dyke, Columbia University

Location: Eddy Hall, Room 200

Contemplative practices (such as meditation, close reading of sacred texts, and prayer) are demanding as well as rewarding – they ask for our focus and commitment as we move between theory and practice, understanding and implementation. Often, the body is seen as a distraction from this process rather than as an integral part of it. Yet the ‘affective’ Christian contemplative tradition developed in the Middle Ages begins from the belief that God became embodied in part to better relate to human beings and our earthly struggles. The idea of meeting people where they are is central to this tradition: the medieval meditations genre encourages its practitioners not to ignore their senses and imagination but rather to actively engage them to deepen love for – and thus understanding of – God. As I show, using examples of texts and images from the 14-15th centuries developed for this purpose, the result is an understanding of contemplation as accessible to everyone (not just the intellectual or religious elites) and grounded in the love that unites us with God and each other.

Event contact: kenneth.shockley@colostate.edu