Video: Theology Professor Robin Jensen on Understanding Early Christian Art and Architecture
“It’s my conviction that the best way to know about how early Christians worshipped — even what they believed — is to try to get as much information as we can about where they lived and what they saw, not just what they wrote and what they read,” said Robin Jensen, the Patrick O’Brien Professor of Theology and fellow of the Medieval Institute at the University of Notre Dame.
Jensen researches topics at the intersections of Christian art, architecture, liturgy, and theology. Her forthcoming book, The Cross: History, Art, and Controversy (Harvard University Press), examines the history of the cross from a variety of liturgical and social perspectives, both in ancient times and in contemporary culture. She is also editing both The Routledge Companion to Early Christian Art and The Cambridge History of Late Antique Archaeology.
For her next project, Jensen has been looking at the design of early built spaces for Christian worship.
“Spaces have character. Spaces have personality,” she said. “Awareness of the design of the spaces in which worship took place gives us a richer and more robust understanding of everybody’s experience.”
You can also watch this video on YouTube.
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Originally published by at al.nd.edu on June 07, 2016.
Modified by Brandon Cook on November 29, 2016.