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RELIGIOUS SPACE
THE OXFORD HANDBOOK OF
RELIGIOUS
SPACE
Edited by
JEANNE HALGREN KILDE
Associate Editors
BARBARA R. AMBROS
DAVID BAINS
SUSAN L. GRAHAM
LEONARD NORMAN PRIMIANO
DAVID SIMONOWITZ
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List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Contributors
Table of Approaches
Asia
Middle East
THE study of religious space is an interdisciplinary endeavor. The chapters in the handbook each employ
the questions, materials, or analytical categories of more than one discipline or approach. This table
provides a general guide for those seeking examples of specific approaches throughout the volume. The
upper-case X’s indicate the primary approach(s) of each chapter, and the lower-case x’s indicate
secondary ones.
Themes appearing across the chapters in this collection can be found by consulting the index.
Chapter Title Anthropological Archaeological Architectural Architectural Spatial Geographical Hermene
History Practice Critical / /
Sociological Landscapes
/ Global
flows
Thinking about x x x x x
Religious Space:
An Introduction
to Approaches
1 Conceptualizing x x
Space and Place:
Genealogies of
Change in the
Study of Religion
2 Hermeneutics of X x
21st-Century
Sacred Space
3 Urbanism and X x
Religious Space
4 Shared Space, or X
Mixed?
5 Decommissioning x X x
and Reuse of
Liturgical
Architectures:
Historical
Processes and
Temporal
Dimensions
6 The X x
Impermanence
of Religious
Space: Three
Approaches to
Change in the
American
Religioscape
7 Planetary X x x
Identities:
Globalization,
Climate Change,
and Meaning-
Making Practices
8 Whose Place Is x x x
It? Layers of
Community and
Meaning in the
Land of Shinto
and Power Spots
9 Religious x X x
Place/Space in
Premodern China
10 National x x
Treasures vs.
Alien Species:
Religious Spaces,
Raccoons, and
National Identity
Chapter Title Anthropological Archaeological Architectural Architectural Spatial Geographical Hermene
History Practice Critical / /
Sociological Landscapes
/ Global
flows
in Contemporary
Japan
11 Visualizing x x
Himalayan
Buddhist Sacred
Sites in 3D/VR:
Pedagogy and
Partnership
12 Form and X x
Function in the
Ancient
Synagogue:
Evidence from
Roman and
Byzantine
Palestine and the
Diaspora
13 A Little Bit of x x x
Evil: Masjid Kūfa
in Early Twelver
Shi’ism
14 Mediated Spaces x X x x
of Collective
Ritual: Sacred
Selfies at the
Hajj
15 (In)visible x x x X
Priorities:
Epigraphic Power
and Identity at a
Jordanian State
Mosque
16 Exploration of x x
Religious Spaces
in Western
Africa:
Combining
Approaches to
Understand
Spaces
17 Religious Spaces x x X
as Tourist Sites
in Ghana
18 Sacred Space in x x x
19th-Century
Cape Town:
Mosque, City,
Landscape, and
a Radical
Empiricism of the
Spatial
19 Mapping the x x X
Spiritual Baptist
Chapter Title Anthropological Archaeological Architectural Architectural Spatial Geographical Hermene
History Practice Critical / /
Sociological Landscapes
/ Global
flows
Universe: Black
Atlantic
Cosmography
and the
Spatiality of
Spirit in Trinidad
and Tobago
20 Spaces of Roman X
Religion and
Christianity in
Late Antiquity
21 Presence and x x
Performance:
Orthodox Spaces
of the Eastern
Roman Empire
22 Remnants of x x x x
Israel: Jewish
Spaces and
Landscapes in
Medieval and
Early Modern
Europe
23 The Religious x X x
Landscape and
Its Architecture
in Contemporary
Europe
24 Pre-Columbian X x x
and Indigenous
Religious Spaces
in Mesoamerica
25 Protestant x x x x
Architecture in
Latin America
26 Roman Catholic x x x
Sacred Space
27 Protestant x x
Spaces in North
America
28 Eastern x x
Orthodox Spaces
in America
29 Diasporic Sacred x x
Spaces: The
Case of
Boundary-Making
at an American
Sufi Shrine
30 Women’s X x x
Mosques: Spaces
to Rethink
Gender and
Chapter Title Anthropological Archaeological Architectural Architectural Spatial Geographical Hermene
History Practice Critical / /
Sociological Landscapes
/ Global
flows
Religious
Authority
31 Sites of Miracles
and Other Holy
Places: The
Santuario de
Chimayó as Case
Study
32 Situating the x X x
Dead:
Cemeteries as
Material,
Symbolic, and
Relational Space
33 Fundament and x x x
Abyss: Public
Religion at the
Berlin Holocaust
Memorial
INTRODUCTION
And what do we mean by religious space? For the most part, the
chapters in this handbook understand this space or spaces as
perceived, conceived, and shaped through human engagement or
relationships with divine figures or supernatural powers. By “space,”
we generally mean the material rooms, buildings, and landscapes in
which religious activity occurs. But the term religious space also
encompasses the ideas, representations, and meanings understood
to be connected to or embodied in physical, two-dimensional, virtual,
and imagined spaces. Some ascribe the term place to this aspect.
For instance, geographer Yi-Fu Tuan (1977, 3, 6) distinguished
between abstract “space” and meaning-filled “places” infused with a
human “sense of place,” a distinction that is also employed by some
of the contributors to this volume. Others, however, invest the term
space itself with this meaning. Prince Gudea’s ground plan, like all
architectural plans, preserves an initial idea of bounded space,
representing it two-dimensionally and directing subsequent
construction activity. Yet his plan also intimates meanings concerning
the power of both the deity Ningirsu and Gudea himself; upon
completion, the temple will be an important place. The creation of
spaces in response to such an initiating idea is not the only way
religious spaces originate, however. Religious activities may occur in
a particular space prior to or without ideational components, thus
producing the sanctification of the place through practice. In either
case, as an idea or activity is realized materially and the resulting
space is occupied and used by people over time, it becomes infused
with social, cultural, and transcendent meanings.