Marie Clausén is the author of Sacred Architecture in a Secular Age: Anamnesis of Durham Cathedral (Routledge 2016/17). She holds bachelor’s degrees in political science (Gothenburg University), sociology (Lund University), and art history (Uppsala University, Campus Gotland), and master’s degrees in international relations (University of Reading, UK) and art history (Uppsala University). She is currently pursuing a doctorate in Religion at the Department of Classics and Religious Studies, University of Ottawa, where she also teaches. Her dissertation, which explores the possible roles and fates of Norfolk’s 600+ medieval churches in a post-Christian but ostensibly also post-secular future feeds off her present academic interests, which include medieval church architecture (with an especial passion for English ditto), existential and phenomenological approaches to space, cultural heritage philosophies and policies (especially as applied to sacred architecture), and the largely forgotten practice of ekphrastic writing.
Aside from her academic pursuits, Clausén is a published poet, and has spent twenty years in the academic book publishing industry on both sides of the Atlantic in a variety of editorial and other roles.
She has lived in Finland, Sweden, France, Japan and the UK, but currently resides in Ottawa together with her long-suffering spouse, a gang of supportive house spiders, and a sufficiently large number of books to open up a small library branch.
Selected Publications
BOOKS
Sacred Architecture in a Secular Age: Anamnesis of Durham Cathedral 2016/2017, Routledge Research in Architecture, Taylor & Francis (hb: 9781138125582; pb: 9781138088702; ebook: 9781315647388)
ARTICLES
“Campus as Sacred Ground: Laying the Foundations for Well-being” in Anne Vallely (ed.) “Religion and Medicine: Expanding Understandings of Human Flourishing,” Special Issue of Religions 13:11 (2022)
“Vitrum Resurgentium: A Transatlantic Illumination,” Ecclesiology Today vol. 61, 2022
“Delving for the Apocryphal Roots of England’s ‘Green Men,’” Apocrypha vol. 32, 2022
“’But the fountain sprang up and the bird sang down’: Heidegger’s Gathering of the Fourfold and the Seven-Sacraments Font at Salle, Norfolk,” in Tammy Gaber (ed.), “Sacred Spaces: Designing for the Transcendental,” Special Issue of Religions 12:7 (2021)
Selected Presentations
“The Medieval Churches of Gotland: A Baltic Axis Mundi?” (2022): Wycliffe College, Oxford University
“The Medieval Churches of Gotland: A Baltic Axis Mundi?” (2022): a CCT (Churches Conservation Trust) Lunchtime Lecture
“Cleanliness Is Next to Godliness – Or Is It? Contemporary Conservation Practices Inspected” (2020): lecture sponsored by ICOMOS Sweden and Riksantikvarieämbetet (the Swedish National Heritage Board)
“Cleanliness Is Next to Godliness – Or Is It? Contemporary Conservation Practices Inspected” (2019): single lecture presentation at the Life-long Learning Program, Carleton University
“What Is ‘Clean Enough’? / Vad är ‘rent nog’?” (2019): a podcast conversation with conservator and art historian Anna Henningsson of Disent AB about cleaning as preservation praxis in the context of historic churches:
“Con-templating Sacred Architecture” (2017): Guest lecture at the Faculty of Theology, St Paul University (sponsored by the Centre for Vatican II and 21st Century Catholicism)
“Writing (about) Architecture: A Case for Ekphrasis” (2016): Guest lecture at the Azrieli School of Architecture & Urbanism, PhD Colloquium, Carleton University:
“The Erotics of Sacred Architecture” (2014): Conference presentation at the Forum for Ecclesiastical Cultural Heritage, Uppsala University: