From the Upper Paleolithic (17,000 years ago) caves of Lascaux in southern France, to 4,000 year old Minoan peak sanctuaries on the island of Crete, to the cathedral of Notre Dame, to rural camp meeting revivals in the hills of North Carolina, to cinder block Pentecostal churches on the coast of Ghana, to the design of an Islamic Community Center in Lower Manhattan, humans have sought the ”Divine” in a great variety of spaces. This seminar explores how human have, through ritual, transformed profane space into sacred space. Beginning with a firm foundation in ritual studies, students will explore the connections between ritual, architecture, and landscape through the application of a variety of social science research methods. As a research-oriented course, students will turn to members of the ASU campus community, area houses of worship and religious centers, as well as natural landscape sites around Watauga County as they explore the connections of “religious experience,” ritual, architecture, and landscape.
