Space, Place, and Religion Unit

We welcome individual papers, papers sessions, and roundtable proposals for topics exploring space and place as they relate to religion. We are always interested in papers and sessions that employ theoretically or methodologically self-conscious and innovative approaches to understanding space and place as they relate to, condition, and constitute aspects of religious life including belief, ritual, meaning, aesthetics, and experience. We welcome ethnographically-informed studies of sites and historically-informed studies of texts that shed light on the role of space and place in religious traditions. Space, Place, and Religion dedicates one of its sessions to religious spaces in Asia. Our Unit is committed to diversity and inclusivity; pre-arranged panels and sessions should reflect gender, racial, and ethnic diversity as well as the diversity of field, method, and scholarly rank.

In addition, this year we are particularly interested in the following topics:

Chinese Religious Spaces and Landscapes

Co-sponsorship with Chinese Religions Unit

• Construction/deconstruction/labor and urban politics of changing cities and labor dynamics within Chinese religious spaces.
• Chinese religious rituals in the natural world
• Contact Courtney Bruntz (courtneybruntz@gmail.com)

Ritual and Circular Space

Co-sponsorship with Ritual Studies Unit

Within the framework of a co-sponsored session, we also invite papers focusing on ritual and circular space in different religious and cultural traditions. What shared attentions, patterned interactions, processes of inclusion/exclusion, etc., do circular ritual spaces put into effect? How are such dynamics affected by matters of scale, by the means used to produce the circular spaces in question, by a presence or not of something in the center of the circle?

Religious Landscapes in Art and Literature

Co-sponsorship with Arts, Literature, and Religion Unit

Religious, or sacred, landscapes signify historically specific ways of representing place and serve as sources of cultural memory, ethical action, and social change. Religious landscapes are sustained or contested through ritual, pilgrimage, and festivals, and representations of these landscapes are preserved in museums, memorial sites, art, and literature. This panel will investigate the theme of religious landscapes in various artistic and literary forms from any time period and geographical location. Thematic approaches to this topic might include: contested landscapes; pilgrimage and the movement of bodies through space; the sacralization and de-sacralization of the landscape; myth and imagined landscapes; or religious landscapes and environmental ethics.  

Cyberspaces as religious and ritual spaces

Techno-spaces of ritual, practice, doctrine, involving AI, virtual reality, etc.

Space, Place, and Geography in Post and Decolonial Theory

Co-sponsorship with Religion, Colonialism and Postcolonialism Unit

Especially but not limited to the consideration of borderlands.