{"product_id":"figures-of-possibility-aesthetic-experience-mysticism-and-the-play-of-the-senses-9781503631045","title":"Figures of Possibility: Aesthetic Experience, Mysticism, and the Play of the Senses","description":"\u003cp\u003eFrom medieval contemplation to the early modern cosmopoetic imagination, to the invention of aesthetic experience, to nineteenth-century decadent literature, and to early-twentieth century essayistic forms of writing and film, Niklaus Largier shows that mystical practices have been reinvented across the centuries, generating a notion of possibility with unexpected critical potential. Arguing for a new understanding of mystical experience, Largier foregrounds the ways in which devotion builds on experimental practices of figuration in order to shape perception, emotions, and thoughts anew. \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eLargier illuminates how devotional practices are invested in the creation of possibilities, and this investment has been a key element in a wide range of experimental engagements in literature and art from the seventeenth to the twentieth century, and most recently in forms of \"new materialism.\" Read as a history of the senses and emotions, the book argues that mystical and devotional practices have long been invested in the modulating and reconfiguring of sensation, affects, and thoughts. Read as a book about practices of figuration, it questions ordinary protocols of interpretation in the humanities, and the priority given to a hermeneutic understanding of texts and cultural artifacts.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eNiklaus Largier\u003c\/b\u003e is the Sidney and Margaret Ancker Professor of German and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Stanford University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50911405768978,"sku":"9781503631045","price":24.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_38da7115-e931-4ccb-afdf-23fa25068085.jpg?v=1738739923","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/figures-of-possibility-aesthetic-experience-mysticism-and-the-play-of-the-senses-9781503631045","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}