Sacred Space and Religious Art

Dear Colleagues,

While political and social movements, and “goûts du jour” fall in and out of favour, one element remains present in various ways in our societies: religion, as defined institutionally, experientially/ritually, theologically, artistically, and socially. Any religion involves the sacred. In The Sacred and the Profane, historian Mircea Eliade demonstrates how the sacred is not a moment in history, but rather something constructed and/or established by human beings. Whether determined and established by scriptures, myths, tradition, events, inscriptions and/or memory, sacred spaces are loci of transcendence. “What is a sacred space?” “What makes it scared?” “How does religious art function in sacred spaces?” and “How does a sacred place impact a religious work of art?” These are a few questions in which this Special Issue is interested.

From the sacred spaces of medieval churches, mosques, temples, sculpted façades, manuscripts, and reliquaries to those of the busy streets of Manhattan, museums, or the great outdoors, this Special Issue welcomes manuscript submissions from a multidisciplinary perspective, focusing on the relationship between medieval and/or neo-medieval religious art and sacred spaces.

This call for papers differs from the previous Religions Special Issues entitled, “Sacred Space and Place” and “Sacred Spaces: Designing for the Transcendental,” which both focus on contemporary issues, while not necessarily addressing religious art. Instead, this Special Issue provides a chronological succession to the themes addressed in “Housing the Sacred: Religious Architecture in the Ancient Eastern Mediterranean,” which is concerned with a pre-medieval issues.

Concerned with medieval and neo-medieval art and architecture, this Special Issue—Sacred Space and Religious Art—aims to create a space for interdisciplinary dialogue between history, theology, art history, music, literature, and philosophy. Focusing on religious art, it is also concerned with the interconnectivities between the spatial and the temporal, the sacred and the profane, the philosophical and the religious, the visible and the invisible. Topics may focus on:

• Space, the sacred, time, and religious art.
• Religious object as sacred space (i.e., manuscripts, reliquaries, etc.).
• Medieval façades as sacred spaces.
• Sacred space and music.
• Sacred space, narrative, and art.
• Sacred space and iconography.
• Sacred space and medieval religious art and architecture.
• Sacred space and neomedieval contemporary religious art and architecture.
• Sacred space, liturgy, and religious art.
• Sacred space, motion pictures and religious art.
• Sacred space and performance art.
• Sacred space as palimpsests.
• Sacred space and spolia.
• Sacred space, religious art, and the sensorial experience.
• Sacred space and religious art: then and now.

Please send a 500-word abstract, title, and short biography before June 30, 2023, to the Guest Editor ([email protected]). The authors will know that their proposals have been accepted before 13 June 2023. Final papers will be due on 20 December 2023.

Dr. Anna-Maria Moubayed
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Middle Ages
• sacred space
• religious art and architecture
• contemporary art and architecture