This book considers how mysticism and negative theology can be re-read in response to recent theoretical work on literature and culture. The essays here consider the possibility that mystical and negative theologies challenge the conceptualization of identity and difference in Western theology. Some contributors argue further - that mysticism provides a radical trajectory away from the structures of knowledge and identity which prevail in Western culture. This collection contains ten distinctive essays which explore a range of periods, cultures, issues, theorists, forms of representation and religious paradigms. They discuss: biblical texts; autobiographical, confessional and fictional writing from the sixteenth century to the twentieth century; divinity in the English, German, Spanish and French traditions; work on God and metaphysics by Schelling, Weil, Levinas, Derrida, de Man, Marion, Irigaray and Cixous; and representations of God in both Christianity and Judaism.