ARAH 9515 The Making of Sacred Spaces

This course explores the nature of pre-modern sacred spaces, including sacred sites and landscapes as well as man-made structures, and the processes involved in their formation. While our case studies are primarily from the Mediterranean, we take a cross-cultural perspective to better appreciate how sacred spaces reflect both universal and culturally-specific characteristics. We focus on the study of sacred geography and the role of monumentality, performance and memory to explore how sacred spaces were conceptualized and experienced by different social groups. We also look at sacred spaces as places of violence, inequality and resistance and consider how such spaces could be politically charged. Our seminar will include visits in a variety of locations around Charlottesville including cemeteries, houses of faith, and our own UVA grounds to examine together how places acquire a religious identity and function, how they invite rituals and prescribed religious behaviors and how we come to perceive them as sacred spaces. During the semester we will also be visiting UVA’s Fralin Museum of Art and the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection to further explore how objects and works or art participate in the making of sacred spaces and negotiate thecomplex relationship between the secular and sacred spheres.