Religious imagination in the late medieval Low Countries

The current state of research on the late medieval religious imagination, with highly developed methodologies but a lack of interdisciplinary synthesis, asks for more collaboration within disciplines. The workshop aims to intervene by bringing scholars from different fields together, to discuss how text- and image-based, cognitive and embodied approaches, and the study of popular and intellectual imagination can be fruitfully combined to develop interdisciplinary approaches and to arrive at new insights into the question how different media – textual, visual, material – were used to engage the medieval religious imagination, and to what effects.

Specifically, we will focus on the religious imagination as a spiritual skill in the late medieval Low Countries, and the role of religious texts, images, and objects in imaginative spiritual practices. How were devotees trained in the proper use of the imagination? How did texts, images, and objects guide their readers’ imagination, for example through their performative character or the shaping of a devotional habitus? And how do these objects reflect the needs of devotees at different stages of their spiritual progress?

The core of the workshop will consist of a discussion of draft articles meant for publication in the journal OGE. Journal for the History of Spirituality in the Low Countries. The workshop will also aim to inspire new research networks and ideas for joint projects or publications. Moreover, on the last day a masterclass for MA and PhD students on the theme of the workshop will take place.