Designing the Divine: Materializing Revelations Across Realms

This paper examines Teresa of Ávila’s Interior Castle (1577) as both a theological and agential object that shapes the spiritual and material realities of Teresa and her sisters. Drawing on the work of scholars such as Bruno Latour, Jane Bennett, and Tanya Luhrmann, it argues that the Castle dissolves the traditional divide between the spiritual and material realms, positioning them as interconnected rather than oppositional. The Castle operates as a site of transformation through both imaginal and material engagement, functioning as an infrastructure that redefines authority and space in the context of 16th-century Spain. Framing Teresa as an architectural designer who shapes divine revelations with her own subtle hand, the paper explores how the Castle influences the lived experiences of Teresa and her Carmelite Sisters, blurring the structural boundaries between the material and the imaginal.