The living-body bears the indelible marks of life’s deepest wounds and profound joys. With its scars and beauty, each body speaks of the earthly pilgrimage that one has undergone so far. In spiritual autobiography, the body emerges not just as a vessel of experience—but as the very text inscribed with the ineffable Mystery—experiences of grief, love, loss, and transcendence.
This presentation explores suffering, embodiment, and spirituality through the lens of spiritual autobiographies. Drawing from feminist mysticism, carnal hermeneutics, narrative therapy, and trauma studies, the living body is both an interpreter and articulator of suffering. Additionally, spiritual autobiographies are expanded towards ‘hip-hop’ and ‘spoken word’, pointing to the preferred expressions and art-making of certain communities. Spiritual autobiographies reveal that trauma is not merely an isolated event but a rupture inscribed upon the body, shaping perception, expression, and relationality. Engaging with theorists such as Lanzetta (2005), Anzaldúa (2009), Kearney & Treanor (2015), and White (2007), this presentation frames the body as a sacred text that carries the ineffable within lived experience.
Beginning with trauma as an “interpreting-body,” we explore how suffering is inscribed onto flesh and articulated through embodied memory. From Merleau-Ponty’s (1964) phenomenology to contemporary trauma theory (Gilmore, 2023; Levine, 2015), it highlights how the body “remembers” and resists the erasure of pain. Carnal hermeneutics (Kearney & Treanor, 2015) challenges the mind-body dualism, offering a framework in which suffering is metabolized through sensation, gesture, and silence—forms of articulation that extend beyond conventional language.
Moving to the “articulating-body,” the transformative potential of spiritual autobiographies is then explored. Drawing on Anzaldúa’s (2009) concept of autohistoria-teoría, Gilmore’s (2023) ethics of testimony, and Lanzetta’s (2005) feminist mysticism, it argues that these narratives serve as sites of theological and existential meaning-making. Through storytelling, the wounds of trauma become testimonies, re-signified in a communal and sacred act of witnessing. This process mirrors the aesthetic articulation described by Alves (1990) and Guterres (2024), wherein suffering is both an expression and a transformation of the self.
In light of the 2025 AAR Presidential Theme on Freedom, this presentation positions the interpreting and articulating body as a site where both the absence and pursuit of freedom are inscribed. As President Leela Prasad invites us to consider, freedom remains contested even in our theological and liberatory fields—desired, yet co-opted… resisted, yet imperiled. For those who suffer, bodily autonomy is often stripped away through systems of oppression, colonial histories, or religious traditions that silence certain bodies while privileging others. So to the ability to interpret and articulate suffering and meaning on their terms. Yet, within spiritual autobiographies, suffering bodies articulate forms of inner freedom that cannot be fully taken.
Furthermore, in terms of the Liberation Theologies Unit, this presentation contributes to reclaiming the wounded body as a theological site of liberation. In dialogue with Latine liberation theology, mujerista theology, and Black liberation theology (along with interspersing of spoken word poetry and hip hop), the presentation affirms that suffering must be spoken in the tongue of the oppressed—not as passive endurance but as active articulation of resistance and new-life. This presentation hopes to expand spiritual autobiography as an act of embodied resistance and theological articulation, where suffering is neither erased nor passively endured but transfigured into a communal offering. In dialogue with liberation theologies, the body—scarred yet speaking—is a crucible of transformation, echoing the Paschal Mystery. Spiritual autobiographies are thus framed as sacred sites of meaning, where suffering speaks not in despair, but in the hope of transfiguration, through the embodied expression of persons in
The living-body bears the indelible marks of life’s deepest wounds and profound joys. With its scars and beauty, each body speaks of the earthly pilgrimage that one has undergone so far. In spiritual autobiography, the body emerges not just as a vessel of experience—but as the very text inscribed with the ineffable Mystery—experiences of grief, love, loss, and transcendence. This presentation examines how suffering speaks through the body in spiritual autobiographies, drawing from feminist mysticism, carnal hermeneutics, trauma studies, and narrative therapy. It explores the body as both interpreter and articulator of suffering, engaging thinkers such as Lanzetta, Anzaldúa, Kearney, and White. By reframing trauma as an embodied and communal phenomenon, the presentation situates spiritual autobiography as an act of resistance and theological articulation. In dialogue with liberation theologies, we argue that suffering is transfigured through storytelling, revealing the body as a crucible of transformation and a sacred text where the ineffable meets the human experience.