Sex and Sexuality: 2006 Conference Programme Session 10a

Session 10a: Sexual Spiritualities
Chair: Rob Fisher

Sex and Divinity in Lars von Trier’s Breaking the Waves and Flannery O’Connor’s 'A Temple of the Holy Ghost'
Ilana Shiloh
The College of Management, Israel

In contrast to Ingmar Bergman, whose films are about the angst of the unbeliever and the yearning to believe, von Trier's films are about the angst of the believer and wanting not to believe. This apt observation by film critic Thomas Belzter conveys some of von Trier's ambivalence towards Christian dogma, to which he conspicuously refers in Breaking the Waves (1996). The Danish director's powerful and extremely intense film has been criticized from two different perspectives - for being manipulative Christian propaganda, and for being a cynical subversion of the narrative of the Passion. The principal reason for this critique is von Trier's conflation of carnality and Incarnation, his projected vision of the sacredness of the flesh. This vision equally informs Flannery O'Connor's short story "A Temple of the Holy Ghost," in which a child's imagination transforms a hermaphrodite into a Christ figure, discerning an invisible parallel between the freak's flawed sexuality and the Savior's flawed divinity. Both Catholic artists, the Danish film director and the American writer, imaginatively explore the unsettling paradoxes of the body, its simultaneous sacredness and imperfection. These paradoxes are the subject matter of the present paper.

Is My Yearning for You Sexual or Spiritual? Cultivating the Divine Between Us
Tahseen Béa
Visiting Scholar, Columbia University, NYC, USA

Speaking of body and sexuality the feminist philosopher Luce Irigaray says, “body is . . . no longer just a more or less fallen vehicle, but the very site where the spiritual to be cultivated resides. The spiritual corresponds to an evolved, transmuted, transfigured corporeal” (Between East and West , 63).

In my work I intend exploring the extent to which body and spirit correspond on an “evolved, transmuted, transfigured” level. I will research the treatment of female sexuality in the secular and spiritual literature of different cultures. This will include contemporary feminist literature on body and desire mostly written by American and French women writers, as well as women writers in the Sufi and Buddhist tradition. I am interested in looking at secular and spiritual practices that engage both body and soul, with a special emphasis on women’s bodies because of the threat they pose to spiritual traditions. To be linked to a specific cultural or religious tradition should not limit or inhibit women to go beyond their cultural and spiritual inheritance and welcome other modes of accessing the spirit.
Some of the questions I am keen to investigate include: Is gender crucial to spiritual awakening or enlightenment? What is virginal solitude? What does the experience of yearning include? Is there a spiritual connection between language, silence and gender? Is it primitive to link women’s bodies to nature? Is the attraction created by sexual difference pivotal to creating spirituality? How does homosexual love reach divinity? Is body a limit, or a vehicle to reach our spiritual potential? Is spirituality possible only by worshipping a god or a deity outside ourselves or is spirituality a process of creating integrity of self and the other? Is the yearning for god different from yearning for a human being, and how?
My work will include inter-disciplinary feminist literature. In my work I will attempt to liberate desire from previous definitions inherited from rigid theologies. My work will constantly seek equivalence of body and soul, sexual and spiritual, mundane and sacred.

The Whore, The Court, The Church and the Origins of Modern Obscenity
Benjamin Jacob
United Kingdom

Intertwining sex and blasphemy, early pornography is situated at the centre of a complex web which binds Renaissance Classicism, an increasing scientific urge to find material (rather than divine) 'truths', and political tensions which existed between Court and Church. This paper asks why this infamous genre emerged at this time and what purpose(s) it performed. It sketches how sexually graphic, often illustrated, texts incorporated and depended upon the central tenets of the European Renaissance to provide a combination of instruction, revelation, and the most enduring and notorious form of social critique and moral commentary which Europe had ever seen.
Among the social issues and influences that shaped the content of this ostensibly immoral literature, this paper explores parallels with shifting Christian iconography, including increasingly sensual depictions of Christ and, most notably in this age of courtesans with great political sway, the figure of Mary Magdalene.
Starting in Italy with the works of Pietro Aretino (1492-1556) this paper goes on to consider how themes introduced by Aretino compare with those of the infamous poetry of the Earl of Rochester (1647-1680) and the 'anonymous' French erotic classic L'Ecole des filles (1655) - "that" book which Samuel Pepys masturbated over in 1688. What emerges is an exploration of how the obscene brings onto the stage of public life that which an increasingly modern 'civilisation' required to be stifled. It considers how these texts' depiction of bodies as unveiled and opened represents an opening of the eyes - an enlightenment, in a manner that echoes the way Christ traditionally represented a body of light and knowledge - of their readers to a scathing and satirical criticism of civilisation's ruling institutions.



3rd Global Conference Wednesday 29th November - Saturday 2nd December 2006 Pugetow Palace, Cracow, Poland Conference Programme, Abstracts and Papers
Session 10a: Sexual Spiritualities Chair: Rob Fisher Sex and Divinity in Lars von Trier’s Breaking the Waves and Flannery O’Connor’s 'A Temple of the Holy Ghost' Ilana Shiloh The College of Management, Israel In contrast to Ingmar Bergman, whose films are about the angst of the unbeliever and the yearning to believe, von Trier's films are about the angst of the believer and wanting not to believe. This apt observation by film critic Thomas Belzter conveys some of von Trier's ambivalence towards Christian dogma, to which he conspicuously refers in Breaking the Waves (1996). The Danish director's powerful and extremely intense film has been criticized from two different perspectives - for being manipulative Christian propaganda, and for being a cynical subversion of the narrative of the Passion. The principal reason for this critique is von Trier's conflation of carnality and Incarnation, his projected vision of the sacredness of the flesh. This vision equally informs Flannery O'Connor's short story "A Temple of the Holy Ghost," in which a child's imagination transforms a hermaphrodite into a Christ figure, discerning an invisible parallel between the freak's flawed sexuality and the Savior's flawed divinity. Both Catholic artists, the Danish film director and the American writer, imaginatively explore the unsettling paradoxes of the body, its simultaneous sacredness and imperfection. These paradoxes are the subject matter of the present paper. Is My Yearning for You Sexual or Spiritual? Cultivating the Divine Between Us Tahseen Béa Visiting Scholar, Columbia University, NYC, USA Speaking of body and sexuality the feminist philosopher Luce Irigaray says, “body is . . . no longer just a more or less fallen vehicle, but the very site where the spiritual to be cultivated resides. The spiritual corresponds to an evolved, transmuted, transfigured corporeal” (Between East and West , 63). In my work I intend exploring the extent to which body and spirit correspond on an “evolved, transmuted, transfigured” level. I will research the treatment of female sexuality in the secular and spiritual literature of different cultures. This will include contemporary feminist literature on body and desire mostly written by American and French women writers, as well as women writers in the Sufi and Buddhist tradition. I am interested in looking at secular and spiritual practices that engage both body and soul, with a special emphasis on women’s bodies because of the threat they pose to spiritual traditions. To be linked to a specific cultural or religious tradition should not limit or inhibit women to go beyond their cultural and spiritual inheritance and welcome other modes of accessing the spirit. Some of the questions I am keen to investigate include: Is gender crucial to spiritual awakening or enlightenment? What is virginal solitude? What does the experience of yearning include? Is there a spiritual connection between language, silence and gender? Is it primitive to link women’s bodies to nature? Is the attraction created by sexual difference pivotal to creating spirituality? How does homosexual love reach divinity? Is body a limit, or a vehicle to reach our spiritual potential? Is spirituality possible only by worshipping a god or a deity outside ourselves or is spirituality a process of creating integrity of self and the other? Is the yearning for god different from yearning for a human being, and how? My work will include inter-disciplinary feminist literature. In my work I will attempt to liberate desire from previous definitions inherited from rigid theologies. My work will constantly seek equivalence of body and soul, sexual and spiritual, mundane and sacred. The Whore, The Court, The Church and the Origins of Modern Obscenity Benjamin Jacob United Kingdom Intertwining sex and blasphemy, early pornography is situated at the centre of a complex web which binds Renaissance Classicism, an increasing scientific urge to find material (rather than divine) 'truths', and political tensions which existed between Court and Church. This paper asks why this infamous genre emerged at this time and what purpose(s) it performed. It sketches how sexually graphic, often illustrated, texts incorporated and depended upon the central tenets of the European Renaissance to provide a combination of instruction, revelation, and the most enduring and notorious form of social critique and moral commentary which Europe had ever seen. Among the social issues and influences that shaped the content of this ostensibly immoral literature, this paper explores parallels with shifting Christian iconography, including increasingly sensual depictions of Christ and, most notably in this age of courtesans with great political sway, the figure of Mary Magdalene. Starting in Italy with the works of Pietro Aretino (1492-1556) this paper goes on to consider how themes introduced by Aretino compare with those of the infamous poetry of the Earl of Rochester (1647-1680) and the 'anonymous' French erotic classic L'Ecole des filles (1655) - "that" book which Samuel Pepys masturbated over in 1688. What emerges is an exploration of how the obscene brings onto the stage of public life that which an increasingly modern 'civilisation' required to be stifled. It considers how these texts' depiction of bodies as unveiled and opened represents an opening of the eyes - an enlightenment, in a manner that echoes the way Christ traditionally represented a body of light and knowledge - of their readers to a scathing and satirical criticism of civilisation's ruling institutions.
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