The Oxford handbook of religious space Introduction: Thinking about religious space : an introduction to approaches Jeanne Halgren Kilde Conceptualizing space and place : genealogies of change in the study of religion Juan E. Campo Hermeneutics of space : sacred space Michael J. Crosbie Urbanism and religious space Paul François Tremlett Shared space or mixed Robert M. Hayden Decommissioning and reuse of liturgical architectures : historical processes and temporal dimensions Andrea Longhi The impermanence of religious space : three approaches to change in the American religioscape Jeanne Halgren Kilde Planetary identities : globalization climate change and meaning making practices Whitney A. Bauman Whose place is it Layers of community and meaning in the land of Shinto and power spots Caleb Carter Religious place space in premodern China Wei Cheng Lin National treasures vs. alien species : religious spaces raccoons and national identity in contemporary Japan Barbara R. Ambros Visualizing Himalayan Buddhist sacred sites in 3D VR : pedagogy and partnership Lauren Leve and Bradley Erickson Form and function in the ancient synagogue : evidence from the second to seventh centuries in Palestine and the diaspora Marilyn J. Chiat A little bit of evil : Masjid Kufa in Early Twelver Shiism Najam Haider Mediated spaces of collective ritual : sacred selfies at the Hajj Nadia Caidi and Mariam Karim (In)visible priorities : epigraphic power and identity at a Jordanian state mosque David Simonowitz Exploration of religious spaces in Western Africa : combining approaches to understand spaces Daniel Dei Religious spaces as tourist sites in Ghana Alice Matilda Nsiah Sacred space in 19th century Cape Town : mosque city landscape and a radical empiricism of the spatial Ozayr Saloojee Mapping the spiritual Baptist universe : black Atlantic cosmography and the spatiality of spirit in Trinidad and Tobago Brendan Jamal Thornton The spaces of Roman religion and Christianity in late antiquity Béatrice Caseau Chevallier Presence and performance : Orthodox spaces of the Eastern Roman Empire Amy Papalexandrou Remnants of Israel : Jewish spaces and landscapes in medieval and early modern Europe Jessica Renee Streit and Barry L. Stiefel the religious landscape and its architecture in contemporary Europe Esteban Fernández Cobián Pre Columbian and indigenous religious spaces in Mesoamerica Brent K.S. Woodfill Protestant architecture in Latin America Rodrigo Vidal Rojas Roman Catholic sacred space Leonard Norman Primiano Protestant spaces in North America David R. Bains Eastern Orthodox spaces in America Nicholas Denysenko Diasporic sacred spaces : the case of boundary making at an American Sufi shrine Merin Shobhana Xavier Womens mosques : spaces to rethink gender and religious authority Irum Shiekh Sites of miracles and other holy places : the Santuario de Chimayó as case study Brett Hendrickson Situating the dead : cemeteries as material symbolic and relational space Avril Madrell and Brenda Mathijssen Fundament and abyss : public religion at the Berlin Holocaust Memorial David Lê. How do we understand religious spaces What is their role or function within specific religious traditions or with respect to religious experience This handbook brings together thirty seven authors addressing these questions using a range of methods to analyze specific spaces or types of spaces around the world and across time. Their methods are grounded in many disciplines: religious studies and religion anthropology archaeology architectural history and architecture cultural and religious history sociology gender and womens studies geography and political science resulting in a distinctly interdisciplinary collection. These essays are snapshots each offering a specific way to think about the religious space(s) under consideration: Roman shrines Jewish synagogues Christian churches Muslim and Catholic shrines indigenous spaces in Central America and East Africa cemeteries memorials and others. They are organized here by geographical region rather than tradition to emphasized the cultural roots of religion and religious spaces. Several overarching principles emerge from these snapshots. The authors demonstrate that religious spaces are simultaneously individual and collective personal and social; that they are influenced by culture tradition and immediate circumstances; and that they participate in various relationships of power. Most importantly these essays demonstrate that religious spaces do not simply provide a convenient background for religious action but are also constituent of religious meaning and religious experience that is they play an active role in creating expressing broadcasting maintaining and transforming religious meaning experience