Can an Object Be Sacred?Master ClassIn-Person
Wednesday, Feb 03, 2027
9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
American Museum of Natural History
Our partner, the American Museum of Natural History, will be hosting this event.
What makes an object sacred? Why might a statue be understood as a representation of a god in one tradition, while in another it may be understood as something the god actually inhabits? And what happens when an object of worship becomes an artwork, an artifact, or a museum piece? In this master class for social studies, history, and religion teachers, anthropologist Laurel Kendall draws on decades of fieldwork in East and Southeast Asia and the Museum of Natural History's collections to explore how sacred objects are made, used, and understood in the religious cultures she has studied. Along the way, she shows how objects can serve as historical evidence, revealing what written sources leave out. A behind-the-scenes look at the anthropology collections and a visit to the Hall of Asian Peoples bring these questions into the Museum itself: what happens when one culture's sacred object becomes another culture's museum piece?
SOCIAL STUDIES, HISTORY, RELIGION
3 credits
CTLE credit available
Laurel Kendall
Laurel Kendall is curator emerita of Asian ethnology at the American Museum of Natural History, where she served as chair of the Division of Anthropology from 2013 to 2019, and adjunct professor of anthropology at Columbia University. Her research focuses on shamans, gender, and popular religion in Korea, as well as spirit mediumship and sacred objects across East and Southeast Asia. Her major publications include Shamans, Housewives, and Other Restless Spirits: Women in Korean Ritual Life; Under Construction: Consumption and Class in Korea; Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors: Folk Religion in a Taiwanese Village; and Shamans, Nostalgias, and the IMF: South Korean Popular Religion in Motion, which won the inaugural Yim Suk Jay Prize in 2010. Kendall served as president of the Association for Asian Studies from 2018 to 2019, was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and received Lifetime Achievement Awards from the International Society for Shamanic Research in 2007 and the Society for the Anthropology of Religion in 2011.