Beheading and the Impossible

Non potest hoc corpus decollari: Beheading and the Impossible
Nicola Masciandaro

The human being arrives at the threshold: there he must throw himself headlong into that which has no foundation and has no head.—Georges Bataille

We are the limbs of that head. This body cannot be decapitated.—Augustine

When thou seest in the pathway a severed head . . . Ask of it, ask of it the secrets of the heart.—Rumi

Beheading and sanctity are fundamentally related within the Christian experience and understanding of holy martyrdom. As suggested already in John’s apocalyptic vision of the “souls of them that were beheaded [animas decollatorum] for testimony [testimonium, marturion] of Jesus” (Rev 20:4), saintly decapitation is inseparable from dying as God’s witness—a conjunction formalized in the at-best-brief survivability of beheading, its being the unmistakable terminus ad quem of martyric passion. This relation is implicated, crucially and paradoxically, in the ultimate impossibility of beheading in light of the capital hierarchy regularized by Paul: “But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God” (1 Cor 11:3). In short, saintly decapitation dramatizes spiritual unbeheadability. Focusing on elements of the impossible within the tradition of hagiographical beheadings inaugurated by John the Baptist’s execution, this lecture analyzes and enjoys the phenomenal and poetic logic of beheading as a window that opens at once onto the originary meaning of Christian decapitation and into the essential impossibility of the head itself.

Friday, December 4, 2009, 7:30 PM
CUNY Graduate Center (365 Fifth Ave. @ 34th St.), Room 4406.
Reception, with wine and cheese, follows.

Sponsored by The Medieval Club of New York

"Sorrow of Being"

"The Sorrow of Being"
Nicola Masciandaro (CUNY)

Thursday, November 12th, 6:30 p.m.
19 University Place, room 224
(non-NYU guests, please bring photo ID to sign into the building)

Sorrow seems universally related, in one way or another, to the principle of evil or privation. Sorrows of love, of loss, of pain, of disappointment, of conscience—all are barely thinkable without reference to some problematic object, the negative thing that one sorrows over. This relation is exemplified by Augustine’s definition of sorrow as counter-volition or refusal: “cum . . . dissentimus ab eo quod nolentibus accidit, talis voluntas tristitia est” [sorrow is the will’s disagreement with something that happened against our will]. But is there a form of sorrow that remains or emerges when all possible objects of sorrow are taken away, when there is nothing to sorrow over, a sorrow of being? The idea of such sorrow, a sorrow that takes sorrow beyond its own possibility, appears at once obvious and absurd. Existence simultaneously is and is not the greatest “something that happened against our will.” A pure sorrow, a perfect sorrow, a sorrow whose meaning is infinite? In dialogue with The Cloud of Unknowing and other late-medieval mystical texts, this lecture speculates about the nature of such sorrow and its relations to facticity, actuality, work, interpretation, and ecstasy.

If you have questions, please contact:

Liza Blake (elizabeth[dot]blake[at]nyu[dot]edu),
Katie Vomero Santos (kathryn[dot]vomero[at]nyu[dot]edu), or
Sarah Ostendorf (sco229[at]nyu[dot]edu).

Bodily Effects of Visions

A reminder that Professor Gabor Klaniczay of the Central European University (Budapest), one of the world's leading experts in popular religion, saints' cults, magic, and witchcraft, will be speaking at Rutgers on Monday, 9 November, at 5:00 p.m., in Van Dyck Hall room 301. His presentation, "Bodily Effects of Visions: The Medieval Evidence," will treat visible marks of human interaction with the supernatural, and the uncertainty surrounding their interpretation (as mystical contact with God or as demonic), with special attention to the most famous physical mark of such contact, the stigmata.

New Directions in Medieval Scholarship

Pearl Kibre Medieval Study

Second Annual Roundtable

New Directions in Medieval Scholarship

November 13, 2009

2:00 p.m. ◊ Room 5414

CUNY Graduate Center

Moderator:

Ottavio Di Camillo, Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Literatures & Languages, Graduate Center

Presenters:

Andrew Arlig, Department of Philosophy, Brooklyn College
Medieval philosophers and material objects

Marlene Hennessy, Department of English, Hunter College
Medieval ideas of reading, the book, and religious practice in late medieval England

Nicola Masciandaro, Department of English, Brooklyn College
“The Truth of Commentary”

Emily Tai, Department of History, Queensborough Community College
Medieval Mediterranean piracy

Following the presentations, all are encouraged to participate in open discussion regarding current trends in medieval studies. The roundtable will be followed by a reception.

We also invite everyone to attend the November 13 meeting of the Friends of the Saints at the GC, room 5105, at 7:00 p.m. Prof. Timmie Vitz of NYU will be speaking: Can we re-awaken the performance of the hagiographical folktale of the 'Seven Sleepers of Ephesus'?

Medieval Club of New York, Schedule of Events 2009-10

Medieval Club of New York

Schedule of Events 2009-10

Friday, October 2, 2009, 7:30 PM
Medieval and Early Modern Merchants: A Roundtable Discussion
Mario DiGangi, Lehman College and The Graduate Center, CUNY
Martha Howell, Columbia University
D. Vance Smith, Princeton University
Emily Tai, Queensborough College, CUNY

Friday, November 6, 2009, 7:30 PM
“Bread and Milk for Children”: The Treatise on the Astrolabe or What Chaucer Did to the Māšā'allāh
Christopher Cannon
New York University

Friday, December 4, 2009, 7:30 PM
Non potest hoc corpus decollari: Beheading and the Impossible
Nicola Masciandaro
Brooklyn College, CUNY

Friday, February 5, 2010, 7:30 PM
Illuminating the Law
Jesús Rodriquez Velasco
Columbia University

Friday, March 5, 2010, 6:30 PM at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Art of Illumination, the Limbourg Brothers and the Belles Heures of Jean de France, Duc de Berry
Tim Husband
Curator, Department of Medieval Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Friday, April 9, 2010, 7:30 PM
Vézelay, Counterpleasure, and the Sex Lives of Monks
Robert Mills
King’s College London
Twentieth Annual Rossell Hope Robbins Lecture
Respondent: Carolyn Dinshaw, New York University

Officers of the Club
President: Glenn Burger
Vice-President: Jennifer Brown
Secretary: Valerie Allen
Treasurer: Emily Tai

Unless otherwise noted, all lectures meet at the CUNY Graduate Center (365 Fifth Ave. @ 34th St.), Room 4406. Reception, with wine and cheese, follows.