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Course Outline: 2017-18
Religious Studies 2295b
Holy Ground: Sacred Space in PublicPlaces
Location: W104
Day: Mondays
Time: 2:30-5:20
Instructor: The Rev. Dr. Lizette Larson-Miller
Contact info: , A213
Prerequisites Required for this Course:
Either Religious Studies 1010 or permission of the instructor
Unless you have either the requisites for this course or written special permission from your Dean to enroll in it, you may be removed from this course, and it will be deleted from your record. This decision may not be appealed. You will receive no adjustment to your fees in the event that you are dropped from a course for failing to have the necessary prerequisites.
Course description
Using the insights of social geographers, scholars of violence and culture, ritual studies and popular religiosity, this course will look at the growing phenomena of roadside shrines, urban memorials and the use of natural landscape as places where human ritual, religious faith, and cultural needs create new places for making remembrance. The class will study local shrines, scholarly approaches to the sociological, anthropological, and spiritual reasons for making placed memorials, and the growing political tensions over the public nature of grief and spiritual practice.
Course Outcomes:
Upon successful completion of this course, a student should be able to:
- Articulate the relationship between place, memory, and identity
- Understand the role that religious ritual plays in human memorials of the dead from an interfaith perspective
- Recognize the interdisciplinary dimensions of contemporary religious studies, here including social sciences, art, architecture, politics, economy, and philosophy
- Undertake and understand the benefits of applying academic study of the subject to concrete examples of memorials in the city of London
- Communicate the ideas of the readings and class discussions both verbally and in writing
Course Syllabus:
January 8 – introduction to course, particularly its interdisciplinary approach to religious spirituality in public secularity. Mapping exercise: “extra-terrestrial” geography
January 15 – Overview of roadside shrines and urban memorials through the various approaches to the phenomenon and methods of analysis within larger cultural shifts
READ: Larson-Miller, “Holy Ground: Discerning Sacred Space in Public Places” in A Cloud of Witnesses: The Cult of Saints in Past and Present (Leuven, 2005) 247-272 (OWL)
Friedland & Hecht, “The Powers of Place” in Religion, Violence, Memory, and Place (hereafter RVMP)
January 22 - Space and Place, sources for understanding the meaning of place: the perspective of social geography (descansos), landscape studies, North American popular culture, and ethnic cultural contributions
READ: Yi-Fu Tuan, Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience University of Minnesota Press, 1977), Introduction and Chapter 7
Beldon C. Lane, Landscapes of the Sacred: Geography and Narrative in American Spirituality (Johns Hopkins University, 2001) chapter 8
James Opp & John C. Walsh, Placing Memory and Remembering Place in Canada. University of British Columbia Press, 2010. Introduction and chapter 1
January 29 – sacred landscapes, art and aesthetics
READ: sacred landscape painting
“touristing” landscapes, Seductions of place, introduction and first4 chapters
February 5 – shifting religious and spiritual landscapes (multifaith, SBNR, MTD), cultural and religious relationships with death
READ: Sheldrake, chap 1 “A Sense of Place”
Robert Orsi, Between Heaven and Earth: The Religious Worlds People Make and the Scholars Who Study Them (Princeton, 2004) chapter 6
Thomas Barrie, “Sacred Space and Mediating Roles of Architecture”
February 12 – global shifts in civil and religious memorials
READ: Kenneth Foote, Shadowed Ground: America’s Landscapes of Violence and Tragedy (Austin, 2003), chapter 1 and afterword
RVMP: James Young, “Stages of Memory at Ground Zero” (chap 13) and Oldenhage, “Walking the Way of the Cross” (chap 5)
February 19 (spring reading week, no class)
February 26 – memory studies and ritual
READ: RVMP, chapters 4, 11, 12
Sheldrake, Chap 4 “The Practice of Place”
March 5 – ritual studies and disaster studies
READ: Gerard Lukken “No Life without Rituals”, in Per Visibilia ad invisibilia (Kok Pharos Publishing, 1994)88-117
Paul Post, et al, “Introduction” in Disaster Ritual: Explorations of an emerging ritual repertoire (Leuven, 2003), 5-27.
RVMP, chap 6 “”Finding a Place Past Night”
March 12 – the “poetics of space”, place, memory, and identity in different fields:
READ: (each student will take ONE field)
philosophy Foucault); semiotics (Lukken); poetics of space-built space (Bachelard); spiritual space (Sheldrake); Geography and cosmological vision (Cosgrove); particular religious perspective (muslim); genocide studies (RVMP3, 8, 10)
March 26 – shifting urban realities, politics, gender and multireligious
student case study presentations (2 if needed)
READ: Robert Bellah, et al, Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment
In American Life (NY, 1986) chapter 6 & preface
Elizabeth Drescher, Choosing our Religion, chapter 4
Willy Jansen & Meike Kühl, “Shared Symbols: Muslims, Marian Pilgrimages and Gender” European Journal of Women’s Studies 15 (2008) 295-311.
Faida Pirani, “I will accept whatever is meant for us. I wait for that-day and night” Mental Health, Religion and Culture 11 (2008) 375-386.
April 2, Easter Monday, no class
April 9 – conclusions and student case study presentations (remaining)
READ: RVMP, chapter 2 & postscript
Course Materials:
Religion, Violence, Memory, and Place. Edited by Oren Baruch Stier & J. Shawn Landres. Indiana University Press, 2006. (ISBN-13: 978-0253218643)
Other assigned readings are to be found on the course OWL site
Assignments & Method of Evaluation of Assignments:
- Presence and participation in each class, having read and prepared for seminar conversation, 50%
- Presentation of case study of a local memory site (Roadside shrine, memorial, other) – oral (multimedia) and written summary 30%
- Presentation of one of the sub-disciplines in the area (March 12), with written summary responding to 3 specific questions 20%
Additional Statements:
- Statement on Use of Electronic Devices during Tests and Exams
[A clear statement of what electronic devices will or will not be allowed during tests and examinations. You could also add the following if you wish--]
It is not appropriate to use technology (such as, but not limited, to laptops, PDAs, cell phones) in the classroom for non-classroom activities. Such activity is disruptive and is distracting to other students and to the instructor, and can inhibit learning. Students are expected to respect the classroom environment and to refrain from inappropriate use of technology and other electronic devices in class.
- Statement on Academic Offences: Scholastic offences are taken seriously and students are directed to read the appropriate policy, specifically, the definition of what constitutes a Scholastic Offence, at the following web site:
- Plagiarism-detecting Software/Computer Marking:
All required papers may be subject to submission for textual similarity review to the
commercial plagiarism detection software under license to the University for the detection
of plagiarism. All papers submitted for such checking will be included as source documents
in the reference database for the purpose of detecting plagiarism of papers subsequently
submitted to the system. Use of the service is subject to the licensing agreement, currently
between The University of Western Ontario and Turnitin.com ( ).
B) Computer-marked multiple-choice tests and/or exams may be subject to submission for
similarity review by software that will check for unusual coincidences in answer patterns that
may indicate cheating.
- Support Services:
- UWO Registrar’s Office:
- Huron’s Faculty of Theology, Office of the Dean:
- Faculty of Theology office: , 519-438-7224, ext. 289
- Bachelor’s Academic Advising at Huron:
- Huron’s Writing Skills Centre:
- UWO’s Mental Health website: Students who are in emotional/mental distress should refer to this website for a complete list of options about how to obtain help.
- UWO Student Support and Development Services:
- Services provided by Western University Student Council:
- Accommodation for absences:
If documentation is required for either medical or non-medical academic accommodation, then such documentation must be submitted by the student directly to your Faculty’s Dean’s office (or academic counselor), and not to the instructor. For the Faculty of Theology, all such documentation must be submitted to room A120. It will be the Dean`s office that will determine if accommodation is warranted.
a)Non-medical absences:
Please consult with the instructor, normally more than one absence will affect total points toward the final mark.
b)Medical absences: See also the Policy on Accommodation for Medical Illness
—Undergraduate Students, at
For work representing 10% or more of the overall grade for the course, a student must present documentation indicating that the student was seriously affected by illness and could not reasonably be expected to meet his/her academic responsibilities. Documentation must be submitted as soon as possible to your Faculty Dean’s office (Huron Arts & Social Science students should take their documentation to the Academic Counsellor, through the Academic Services Centre at Huron), together with a Request for Relief specifying the nature of the accommodation requested. The request and documentation will be assessed and appropriate accommodation will be determined by the Dean’s office in consultation with the instructor(s.) Academic accommodation will be granted ONLY where the documentation indicates that the onset, duration and severity of the illness are such that the student could not reasonably be expected to complete his/her academic responsibilities.
The UWO Student Medical Certificate (SMC) and Request for Relief are available at the Student Centre website ( Huron University College Academic Counselling website ( or from the Dean’s Office or Academic Services Centre at Huron.
For work representing less than 10% of the overall grade for the course: please communicate with the instructor for alternatives.