Religion, Space, and Place

ECTS: 7.5

This course addresses the spatial dimensions of religion and the religious aspect of places. The lectures explore the role of space and place in religious communities and cultural systems and analyse religious activity (especially rituals) in spatial contexts.

This course will address questions such as:

• What is considered a ‘sacred space’?
• What does make a ‘space’ sacred?
• How many kinds of ‘sacred space’ can we detect?
• How did different cultures narrate “sacred spaces”?
• How do sacred sites ‘network,’ and what are the effects of these networks on religious practices and ideas?

‘Sacred space’ is a large category including (1) material architecture, (2) natural landscape, (3) imagined/visionary places, (4) performative spaces and (5) body maps. Each week will focus on one or more of these types of ‘sacred space’, and also introduce pivotal theorists in the development of the “spatial turn” in the humanities. Sacred sites will be analysed with reference to case studies from the past and the present in various religious traditions from Europe and South Asia.