Religion, Place, and Power

4 credits · Undergraduate

Where and how does religion take place? How do religious cosmologies interact with, make meaning of, and transform the natural and built environment? What - if anything - differentiates sacred space from non-sacred, or "secular" space? Pursuing the answers to these questions and more, this seminar will explore relationships between religion, place, and power in the United States through a series of case studies including Native American place-based cosmologies; legal challenges to public religious display; as well as Black and Latinx religious communities' approaches to cultivating the sacred in domestic space. By examining the place-based sacred-making activities of several religious communities, students will come to understand how religion has shaped both dominant and counter-hegemonic understandings of space throughout US history, and further, how these spatial imaginations have both fueled and challenged settler colonialism and racial capitalism.