Sacred Sites: Pilgrimage in Comparative Perspective (lecture)

Date: Sunday, January 21, 2007
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: Getty Center, Harold M. Williams Auditorium
Admission: Free; reservations required.

Over the centuries, pilgrims from East and West have made the journey to Saint Catherine's Monastery at Mount Sinai, the focus of the current exhibition Holy Image, Hallowed Ground: Icons from Sinai. Mount Sinai, the place where Moses is said to have encountered God, is unique. But as a destination for pilgrims, it has surprising similarities to many other sacred sites around the world.

In this program, anthropologist Susan Slyomovics and scholar of religion Juan Campo examine pilgrimage and pilgrimage sites in four major religions—Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Hinduism—addressing fascinating topics such as:

• cults of the Virgin Mary displaced from Algeria to France
• sacred mountains as pilgrimage sites
• Jewish pilgrims returning to Algeria for their saint-rabbi
• Mary's well in Nazareth, the legendary site where Gabriel is said to have addressed Mary
• pilgrimage to the temple at Sabarimala in southwest India
• The Hajj—pilgrimage to Mecca

Slyomovics and Campo will analyze similarities and differences in these varied pilgrimage practices and reveal why pilgrimage remains such a vital part of religious practice around the globe.

About Susan Slyomovics
Susan Slyomovics is professor of anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and an engaged human rights activist. She is author of The Performance of Human Rights in Morocco, The Merchant of Art: An Egyptian Hilali Oral Epic, The Object of Memory: Arab and Jew Narrate the Palestinian Village, and editor of Women and Power in the Middle East.

About Juan Campo
Juan Campo is professor of religious studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is author of The Other Sides of Paradise: Explorations into the Religious Meanings of Domestic Space in Islam. He is currently working on a comparative study of pilgrimage in the modern era and on studies of pilgrimage sites that are shared by Muslims and Hindus.

How to Get Here
The Getty Center is located at 1200 Getty Center Drive in Los Angeles, California, approximately 12 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles. See Hours, Directions, Parking for maps and driving directions.