A Cartography of Pain: Interdisciplinary Outlooks on homo dolens
The Project will analyze the formation and transformations of the religious ‘I’ through the multiple experiences of pain (corporal, emotional, spiritual) that model homo dolens. The Project will thus develop an interdisciplinary cartography of pain so that distinct and specific focal elements vis-à-vis pain may be identified regarding the formation of the religious ‘I’ and the modification of the human. This method necessarily involves an empirical dimension that presupposes gathering pieces of evidence. The object of this cartography, homo dolens, is constructed on the basis of singular experiences of pain; such experiences are transmitted and conserved in different (neuronal, psychological, religious, philosophical and historical) ‘sites.’ The will to know the causes of suffering, the self-consciousness of our own limits, the search towards the meaning of our pain and the human condition, all establish aspects that will be studied as regions of the territory that composes this research. All of these elements express facets in the construction and transcendence of the ‘I.’ Philosophical and theological conceptualizations allow to establish an active association with other disciplines, such as biology, anthropology and history. This interdisciplinary relationship helps to conceive the experience of pain—and its relation to transcendence and sense of limit, considered as the very expression of the human condition—via the crafting of a cartography of pain.
Grant: US$20,750
Dates: May 2016 – May 2017