Pilgrimages: Pious Profane

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

The concept of pilgrimage both preceded and succeeded the medieval period and incorporates a range of religious beliefs, but the efflorescence of Christian pilgrimage occurred in the Middle Ages. These pilgrimages testify to the human need to be in physical contact with various kinds of objects and places considered sacred, to the belief that these spaces/places/objects afford unmediated contact with the sacred, which contact in turn imbues the pilgrims with their own sacredness. These objects and places offered and continue to offer thaumaturgical or miraculous healing powers as well. We will explore some of the most important medieval pilgrimage locations—Rome, Jerusalem, Santiago de Compostela, and Canterbury, but we will also accompany medieval Buddhist, Islamic, and Jewish pilgrims to India, Mecca, and the Holy Land, traveling finally with those who are arguably post-Enlightenment pilgrims to such sites as Star Trek and Anime conventions, Graceland, and the Viet-Nam and 9/11 Memorials.