Brigham Young University will host the “Sacred Space Symposium,” sponsored by the Richard L. Evans Chair of Religious Understanding, Wednesday, June 3, beginning at 9:15 a.m. in the Gordon B. Hinckley Alumni and Visitors Center.
The symposium is free and open to the public.
“In recognition of the Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house, we decided to host an academic conference on sacred space,” said James Faulconer, the BYU Richard L. Evans Professor of Religious Understanding. “Sacred space is very important to Latter-day Saints, and it will be enlightening to compare how others think about sacred space differently than we do.”
President Cecil O. Samuelson will open the assembly. He will be followed by Terryl Givens, professor of literature and religion from the University of Richmond; Richard A. Cohen, director of the Institute of Jewish Thought and Heritage from the University of Buffalo; Jeanne H. Kilde, professor of religious studies from the University of Minnesota; and Hamid Mavani, assistant professor of Islamic studies at Claremont Graduate University.
The afternoon speakers will present in the Education in Zion exhibit, B-192 Joseph F. Smith Building, beginning at 2 p.m. Speakers will include Michael Fishbane, professor in the Divinity School at the University of Chicago; Steven Olsen, from the Church History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; and Laurie Maffly Kipp, associate professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The symposium will conclude with a panel discussion at 8 p.m., moderated by Richard Bushman, the Howard W. Hunter Visiting Professor in Mormon Studies from Claremont Graduate University.
For more information, contact James Faulconer at (801) 422-9781.
Writer: Angela Fischer
