Secret Lessons from Vrindavan

            This presentation addresses questions such as: Where do scholars of mysticism situate themselves, ontologically speaking, when writing words about words or events that point to that which cannot be described? What are the scholarly spaces, other than ethnography, to examine the transformations they experience in the process of learning and writing about mysticism? And what are the limits of those spaces in a mostly white academy which prides itself of objectivity? While such questions may invite larger interdisciplinary conversations, Hernández will address them using self-referential materials taken from the process of writing her book Savoring God. She will also refer to how her own positionality as a Latino woman in her early career influenced the writing process. This self-reflection, that can only be done post-factum (or post-writing), questions the limits between scholars’ subjectivity and the scholarly products in the disciplinary field of the studies of mysticism.