Research Objectives

Well, today I firstly worked on getting organized. (Always good to start the week with a tidy workspace.) I also went through several grants I'd found and determined the requirements and submission dates.

I'm debating applying for NSF this year, especially now that my dissertation topic and moved even further into the "humanities" camp rather than the "scientific" realm. Not that there's any harm in applying, but I just don't feel that my research is particularly fund-able by their guidelines. It's sad, though, that descriptive science has been overshadowed by more "modern" quantitative techniques. One author, whose name escapes me, that I was reading this summer lamented the decline of descriptive research, and asked what would have happened if we had described the stars we saw through a telescope for the first time... and had simply stopped, content with our description.

At any rate, I figured I needed to start thinking about some research objectives, so today, I put together a preliminary set:

Research Objectives
1. How do houses of worship serve to reflect and reinforce religious ideas?
a. How does the site encourage various emotional affects?
b. What specific features of the site reflect the community’s religious identity?
i. How does the members’ conception of the site differ from my interpretation, or from a strictly architectural interpretation?
c. What features of the site reinforce the community’s religious identity and values?
d. To what extent is the design of the site intentional?
2. How do religious communities use space?
a. Discuss the significance of the site, situation, and layout of the house of worship
i. What other spaces are significant to the site? (e.g. meeting hall, classrooms, nursery, dining area, etc.)
ii. What role does the natural setting of the site play in the emotive experience of members?
3. How do members experience the site?
a. Poetics of experience
i. How do the members themselves characterize their own religious experiences during services, meditation, etc.
ii. How might my own experience, as an outsider, differ from the members’ description
b. Comparative examination of various types of sites
i. How does the experience of members differ depending on their religious beliefs?
ii. How does the experience of members differ depending on the site? (e.g. natural setting vs. city setting, small church vs. large church, etc.)