Infrastructures of Religion and Power

This book explores the central role of religion in place-making and infrastructural projects in ancient polities.

Edward Swenson is a Professor in the Department of Anthropology and the Director of the Archaeology Centre at the University of Toronto. Swenson has conducted archaeological research in the Jequetepeque Valley on the North Coast of Peru and in Cambodia as member of the Yäodhar--ramas Archaeological Project. Swenson has published extensively, and his theoretical interests include the pre-industrial city, the rise of social inequality, the archaeology of ritual and ideology, violence and religion, materiality theory, place-making and ancient infrastructures, the archaeology of time and landscape, semiotics, and the politics of spatial experience and social memory.

Chapter 1: Introduction; Chapter 2: Excavating the Theoretical Landscape: The Archaeological Search for Significance; Chapter 3: Sublime Infrastructures: Emplacing Ritual, Religion, and Power; Chapter 4: Ceremonial Architecture as Semiotic Machines;Chapter 7: Karma Ecologies: Khmer Place-Making, Infrastructures, and Ideologies of Space; Chapter 8: the --rama and Hospital Foundations of Ancient Angkor; Chapter 9: Conclusion: Landscapes of History; Index.