This course explores interdisciplinary approaches to preserving, stewarding, and safeguarding religious cultural heritage, with special attention to the history of Islam in Chicago and the greater Midwest. We will interrogate cultural assumptions around religious identities, recognizing the role of museums as colonial entities and their entanglements with historic injustices and representational inequities. Centering public history as practice, the course will highlight examples for how power can be positioned beyond institutional walls by drawing a broad lens on living heritage beyond static artifacts. Recognizing care for heritage exists within an ecosystem, the course will discuss diverse forms of heritages (both tangible and intangible) and discuss how heritage organizations, academic institutions, museums, religious communities, and individuals partner in preserving religious histories of the past, stewarding community identities in the present, and safeguarding traditions for the future. We will also discuss the distinct positionality of preserving and presenting religious and sacred topics in otherwise “secular” institutional settings.

Coursework will be immersive, using the incredible diversity and richness of Chicago’s religious and sacred legacies as foreground. Activities will include: guided reflections in museums and/or galleries to discuss curatorial approach and its effect on religious understanding; visits to cultural institutions that center first voice, mission centered approaches; visits to religious and community spaces as examples of architectural heritage and historic preservation concerns; and guest lectures by artists and practitioners for how they translate personal heritage into creative expression.
Course readings will draw on texts from religious studies, sacred traditions, urban studies, historic preservation, heritage studies, museum studies, cultural anthropology, art and architectural history, and public history. Student work will be self-reflective and collaborative, with a final project aligned with course themes.