Zak's Blog

Symposium taking place in Washington DC from March 23-25, 2023. Organized by professor Julio Bermudez, from The Catholic University of America. 

Read more about it in ArchDaily, AHRA, H-Net, or ACSA.
Official webpage: https://sacred-space.net/ASU-symposium/ 

Can we use today’s and future empirical means to raise our understanding of the phenomenological effect of sacred spaces and structures, particularly as they relate to spirituality and faith? The work and thought of late neuroscientist Francisco Varela loom large here, but much has occurred since his passing, and a whole new world in neuroscience is unfolding.

A selected number of individuals from a variety of disciplines whose works and thoughts have been significantly advancing this new area of scholarship and research will be participating in the Symposium. Such broad interdisciplinarity will allow us to view and interrogate the intersection of human spirituality and the built environment from first, second, and third-person perspectives.

The Symposium will be organized around lectures and panels that include ample time for discussions and exchanges. The lecturers will be (in alphabetical order after their last names) neuroscientist Michael Arbib, cognitive neuroscientist Anjan Chatterjee, philosopher Gordon Graham, architect Sarah Robinson, and theologian Richard Viladesau. The panelists will be Thomas Beaudoin (theology), Jonathan Berger (music), Julio Bermudez (architecture), Elisabetta Canepa (architecture), Lin-Ching Chang (engineering and computing), Zakaria Djebbara (architecture), Harrison Fraker (architecture), Robin Jensen (art history), Juliet King (art therapy), Mohamad Koubeissi (neurology), Yoshio Nakamura (psychology), Matthew Niermann (architecture), Suchi Reddy (architecture), Carol Rickard (architecture), Milton Shinberg (architecture), and Ann Sussman (architecture).