November 2, 2023

Mind-reading and Middle English Narrative

Yea Jung Park
STAVROS NIARCHOS FOUNDATION RENDEZ-VOUS DE L'INSTITUT
Reid Hall | 4, rue de Chevreuse, 75006 Paris
Free and open to the public
Register here

Mind-reading can sound like a magical or miraculous ability, but it can also refer to an everyday mental habit, part of how we explain to ourselves how other minds work. Oscillating between the fantastic and the mundane, mind-reading points to a horizon of interpersonal knowledge imagined to be just out of reach. In this SNF RDV talk, Yea Jung Park sketches out a tentative cultural history of mind-reading in the medieval period, and shares a more detailed discussion of the Christian practice of “spiritual discernment” (discretio spirituum) as a productive case-study for exploring the imaginative potential of mind-reading in the later Middle Ages. Her analysis centers on examples drawn from Middle English textual culture, but will also touch on on related religious, intellectual, and literary traditions from elsewhere in western medieval Europe.

Learn more about Yea Jung Park

UPCOMING EVENTS

MAY 1, 2025
Entering Avato
SNFPHI, Event in Kavala
MAY 5, 2025
Translating French into English, via Yazigian
Daniel Levin Becker and Nina Yargekov
MAY 13, 2025
Narrating the Asian American Experience
A conversation with Curtis Chin and Mae Ngai on film, photography, and memoir
We use cookies to enhance your experience of visiting this website. Find out more.
REJECT