In “Bringing Religion Down to Earth,” Princeton’s CCSR Media Team maps religion through time and space. Attention to spatial parameters provides insights into important questions, like: How do beliefs, objects, and/or people circulate at local, regional, and global levels? How has the Earth’s physical terrain enabled or restricted those movements? What should we make of the presence of shared religious beliefs in isolated regions of the globe? How have constructed spatial constraints—like the walls and bells placed about medieval cities—shaped religious and civic life? And, how are modern spiritual and moral geographies generated by cosmological shifts toward the secular? 

Our StoryMaps plot the circulation of objects or performances thought to connect heaven and earth, the symbolic terrains traversed by literary and historic characters, ideas co-occurring across the globe, and the meaning worlds that make the Black Death understandable, yesterday as today. They also evaluate the significance of global travel, either in a 19th c. religious seeker’s claim to knowledge, a Christian Orthodox Patriarch’s trek across tense religious and imperial borders, or a modern singer’s rise to popularity through a cult of personality. Through this collection, CCSR’s Media Team offers teaching aids and/or research that visualize instances of meaning in motion, bringing religion down to earth.

To view the collection, click the link below (Princeton affiliates enter “pumagic” when prompted to enter your ArcGIS organization's URL).