Louisiana History in Sacred Spaces

Tapping into sacred spaces as living records of local history, Louisiana History in Sacred Spaces offers a fresh approach to telling our state’s past— one that highlights the relevance of spaces we call sacred to current debates over religious, ethnic, state, and national identity. Delving deeper into the art and architecture we see everyday, we ask how these spaces shape the way people see themselves as citizens of Louisiana and the United States. 

The project highlights how spaces we consider religious (by which we usually mean private or apolitical) are not and have never been separate from public life, calling into question binaries like church/state and public/private.

Functioning as a local history database, the website provides a visual tour of these sacred spaces through image galleries with descriptions of the spaces as they relate to Louisiana history. Hosted by Professor Lauren Horn Griffin, the podcast includes interviews with religious leaders, community members, and scholars as they describe the past and present of their spaces. The website and podcast also participate in current conversations around monuments, collective memory, and the relationship between “religious” and “state” identity. Louisiana History in Sacred Spaces not only sheds light on how state and national histories are told in spaces considered sacred, but also delves into how ideas of “sacred” versus “secular” are formed in the first place. The project hopes to make visible the categories we take for granted, investigating how they are formed, how they function, and how people conceive of themselves in local, national, and religious terms.

To see the full project, visit https://historyinsacredspaces.org.