Expert Symposium: Mysticism and imagination – how do they relate?

Rob Faesen is emeritus professor at KU Leuven (Jesuitica Chair), the University of Antwerp, and Tilburg University. His research focuses on Middle Dutch mystical literature and the history of Jesuit spirituality. He has published extensively on Ruusbroec and Hadewijch and recently contributed to The Oxford Handbook of Mystical Theology (OUP, 2020) and The Oxford Handbook of Deification (OUP, 2024).

John Arblaster is director and associate professor at the Ruusbroec Institute (University of Antwerp) and visiting professor at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven. He specializes in the mystical tradition of the medieval Low Countries, the imagery of mystical literature, and the development of the Christian doctrine of deification. He has contributed to The Oxford Handbook of Mystical Theology (OUP, 2020) and The Oxford Handbook of Deification (OUP, 2024), and co-edited Medieval Mystical Women in the West: Growing in the Height of Love (Routledge, 2024) and Spiritual Literature in the Late Medieval Low Countries: Essays by Thom Mertens (Brepols, 2024). He is also co-organizer of the Mystical Theology Network.

Lieke Smits is a postdoctoral researcher at Leiden University within the ERC-StG project Pages of Prayer. The Ecosystem of Vernacular Prayer Books in the Late Medieval Low Countries, c. 1380–1550, and affiliated researcher at the Ruusbroec Institute, University of Antwerp. In 2020 she defended her PhD on the influence of bridal mysticism on the visual culture of the late medieval Low Countries.

Ineke Cornet is assistant professor in Spirituality at the Protestant Theological University. She is specialised in the late-medieval mystical tradition from the Low Countries and the interaction between mysticism and liturgy. Her current research focuses on late medieval mysticism on the one hand, and spiritual resourcing for pastors in the Protestant Church of the Netherlands on the other hand.

Louise Nelstrop is Professor of Church History at the Protestant Theological University and affiliated with the University of Cambridge. She specializes in the study of Christian mysticism and publishes widely on the relationship between mysticism, imagination, and prayer. At this symposium, she will act as respondent and moderator.