RELG 325: Between Heaven & Earth: Space & Place in the Bible

This course explores religious place and space in and beyond biblical texts. We begin with a survey of urban and rural landscapes in the biblical corpus that weaves together archaeology, phenomenology of landscape, urban planning, architecture, and philosophies of space to understand the cultures of spatial production and practice that inform the worlds in and around the Bible. Students will investigate the rural/urban and mobile/settled divides present across biblical texts. Special attention will be paid to spatial practice, including gendered aspects of space and spatial negotiation, as well as to relationships between rural/urban religiosities in past/present contexts. Finally, students will examine the ways biblical texts have shaped religious life in fictive and real spaces in later traditions.