LECTURE:
The Garden of Earthly Delights
Friday, April 4
Painted in the Late Medieval Ages, Hieronymous Bosch's enigmatic altarpiece provides a wealth of fascinating and provocative images of the sensual and the sacred. It is at once a major interpretive puzzle in North Renaissance art, a reflection of the highly charged spiritual issues of the Late Medieval Ages, and a rollicking visual cartwheel across the sensual skin of the Great Mother. Using slides of the entire triptych, we will explore Bosch’s historical milieu, his frank portrayal of polymorphous sexuality, and the painting’s significance in a Patriarchal Christian culture hostile toward the body, the anima, Aphrodite, and all things Dionysian.
WORKSHOP:
Sexuality and the Religious Imagination: A Seminar
Saturday, April 5
Why do patriarchal religious systems so consistently demean the religious significance of human sexuality? In this one-day seminar, we will explore the Western conflict between religious dogma and the numinosity of the body and sexuality. The conflict runs through biblical materials (Paul), Catholic doctrine (Augustine), medieval sexual heresy, and the claims of Mother Earth and the underworld. We will spend time with vivid dreams, colorful historical imagery, and myth and ritual practices from Graeco-Roman, Tantric and Gnostic traditions.
In each we will see psyche's central male-female dynamism (the syzygy), powerful reflections of the individuation process, and ecstatic spiritual techniques in themselves.
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