Gender and Medieval Mysticism from India to Europe

Alexandra Verini is an Assistant Professor of English at Ashoka University. Abir Bazaz is an Assistant Professor of English at Ashoka University.

1 Introduction

Alexandra Verini

Part I Mysticism as Resistance

2 Weeping as Resistance in Islamic and Christian Contemplative Hagiography

Ayoush Lazikani

3 Mysticism between Women in Early Medieval England

Kathryn Maude

4 Public Scandal and Mystical Marriage: Margery Kempe and Mīrābaī

Katherine Zieman

Part II Reimagining the Female Mystic

5 Tongue Untied: Women and Forbidden Speech in Medieval India

Subhashree Chakravarty

6 Enclosed Life and Mystical Form in the Ancrene Wisse

Aparna Chaudhuri

7 Gender Fluidity in Sìrīvaisònòava Theology: The Status of the Cowherd Women

Manasicha Akepiyapornchai

Part III Shaping Mystical Femininity

8 The Discipline of Mahadevi and Lalla: Religious Ambiguity in the Gendering of Ascetic Female Hindu Saints

Dean Accardi

9 Imagined femininity in Sant Mysticism

Galina Rousseva-Sokolova

10 Invoking Mirabai: Elision and Illumination in the Global Study of Women Mystics

Nancy Martin

Part IV Women Mystics Across Time

11 Swaying in the Presence of the Saints: Women's Mediation of Spiritual Authority in the Sidi Sufi Devotional Tradition of Gujarat

Jazmin Graves

12 Love Knows no Bounds: Contemporary Artist Engagement with Marguerite Porete and Hadewijch

Louise Nelstrop

13 Afterword

Liz Herbert McAvoy