Project Title: Made in God’s Image: The Divine Human Mind
Project Description: In my College Scholar Project, I would like to study the intersection of three particular spaces from the perspectives of various disciplines: neuroscience, mathematics, art history, archaeology, and religious studies for an Italian cathedral (such as Saint Peter’s Basilica) during the Renaissance period. The first space of religion resides in the brain, an “intellectual starting point.” The second space reflects the projection of the inside belief to the outside materialization: the layout, the shape, the mathematical “encoding” of the church’s architecture. The last space examines the church’s interior and ponders the interactions between art, archaeology, and religion, people’s perception and faith. In archaeology, the term “liminal space” (or “doorway”) plays a crucial role in depicting the relation between two spaces to produce a third space. For instance, the interaction of the Egyptian and Canaanite cultures during the Late Bronze Age produced a liminal space in the form of the Mediterranean coast. My major questions are: how do people put religious concepts and meanings into spaces and make sense of them? What is the neuroscientific interpretation of people in those spaces? Last but not least, what would the liminal space be in this case?
Most Important Accomplishment: I’m proud of conquering my fear of creepy basements by discovering my passion for research—find me chopping up bird brains in the basement of Uris!
Reflections on the College Scholar Program: For me College Scholar means so much more than simply exploring personal academic interests. College Scholar is a small but mighty community of passionate people, who love and need to learn and discover. I am so grateful to be surrounded by open-minded scholars, who are ready to go on both academic and real adventures! Nevertheless, the College Scholar Program is, in truth, a singular and peculiar liminal space itself, embodying diverse disciplines and an abundance of intellectual provocations. I aspire to grasp the beauty of doing research, implementing favorite subjects offered by very distinct departments into my own holistic project. It teaches you how to stop following the trodden path and choose on your own what direction to go further in.