“I have felt less alone”: A Praxis of Belonging through Medieval Female Writers, Sacred Spaces, and Embodied Memory

ABSTRACT As the global health crisis of loneliness impels discussions on social connection, this article explores how a praxis of embodiment bridges belonging with the dead, fostering beneficent togetherness. Grounded in Danièle Hervieu-Léger’s work on religion as chains of memory, the study examines how historical and contemporary faith identities merge in performance, enabling social connection within the context of Christianity through intergenerational linkage, which is healing. These ideas are elucidated through a devised production entitled City of Women: Book of Miracles, a performance based on the lives and writings of six medieval women writers and created by a Latter-day Saint ensemble. The essay further examines the transformative potential of site-specific performance locales as healing spaces. Such spaces become mnemonic carriers of religious memory, and as participants blend into that space, becoming a part of it, religious memory is expanded.