Niklaus Largier is the Sidney and Margaret Ancker Professor of German and Comparative Literature. He is affiliated with UC Berkeley’s Programs in Medieval Studies and Religious Studies, the Designated Emphasis in Critical Theory, the Designated Emphasis in Renaissance and Early Modern Studies, and the Berkeley Center for New Media. Largier is currently working on two projects: a book on imagination, practices of figuration, aesthetic experience, and notions of possibility, tentatively entitled “Figures of Possibility;” and a book on the history of practices and the poetics of prayer (with Townsend Fellows program alumnus David Marno). His most recent books explore the relation between bodily ascetic practices (in particular flagellation), eroticism, and the literary imagination; the fascination of decadent literature with ascetic religious practice; and the ways in which early-twentieth century ideas about the form of the essay engage mystical concepts and their specific notion of critique.