Browsing by FAS Department "Religion, Committee on the Study of"
Now showing items 1-20 of 43
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Allowing Spontaneity: Practice, Theory, and Ethical Cultivation in Longchenpa's Great Perfection Philosophy of Action
(2018-05-11)This is a study of the philosophy of practical action in the Great Perfection poetry and spiritual exercises of the fourteenth century Tibetan author, Longchen Rabjampa Drime Ozer (klong chen rab 'byams pa dri med 'od zer ... -
Beyond the Equivalence Divide: Developing a Performative Theory of Biblical Translation
(2018-05-13)This dissertation uses a comparative analysis of Cherokee and Greek scriptures to develop a performative theory of biblical translation that argues that new Christianities are created through processes of translation. This ... -
Big Religion: The Cultural Origins of the American Megachurch
(2017-05-11)“Big Religion: The Cultural Origins of the American Megachurch” narrates the complex historical genealogy of the “megachurch,” the ubiquitous congregational model that now dominates the practice of contemporary evangelical ... -
Black, White, and Red: Race and the Making of the Mormon People, 1830-1880
(2015-04-01)This dissertation uses the histories and doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) as case studies to consider how nineteenth-century Americans turned to religion to solve the early American ... -
Blindness, Imagination, Perception: Calvin’s 1559 Institutes and Early Modern Visual Instability
(2020-05-04)Although studies of visual culture continue to privilege visible artifacts, and especially images, it is also the case that visual habits are imagined and inculcated through texts. This project reinterprets John Calvin’s ... -
Buddhism and State in Seventeenth-Century Tibet: Cosmology and Theology in the Works of Sangyé Gyatso
(2018-05-11)This dissertation studies works of the Desi Sangyé Gyatso (1653–1705), a prolific and influential Tibetan statesman. Its main sources are texts by Sangyé Gyatso and, to a lesser extent, by the fifth Dalai Lama, Ngawang ... -
"Care of the Afflicted Flock": Pastoral Counseling, Psychiatry, and Disorderly Sexual Subjects
(2015-09-20)While scholars have argued that modern medical authority over sexuality stands in some relation to earlier religious discourse, modern religion and its new relationship to medicine are absent from these narratives. This ... -
Christianity, Islam, and the Religious Culture of Late Antiquity: A Study of Asceticism in Iraq and Northern Mesopotamia
(2019-05-14)This dissertation examines the development of Christian and Islamic writing on asceticism, especially fasting and celibacy, in Iraq and northern Mesopotamia during the formative period of Islam. I show that both Christians ... -
Consolation's Afterlife: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Illusion in Facing Death
(2018-05-08)What might constitute an attitudinal excellence for anticipating one’s own death? That is the guiding question of this study. In pursuing this question, though, several others arise, suggesting a nested sequence of problems: ... -
Cultivating Religious Citizens: the Politics of Muslim Participation in Interfaith Organizations in France and the United States
(2019-09-10)Cultivating Religious Citizens: The Politics of Muslim Participation in Interfaith Organizations in France and the United States examines how interfaith organizations—an understudied aspect of civil society—provide crucial ... -
Defending the Authority of Scripture: Testimony as a Source of Knowledge in Classical Indian Philosophy of Religion
(2019-05-17)This dissertation looks at how Sanskrit philosophers grappled with the question of how we acquire knowledge on the basis of what others tell us. In particular, it examines Sanskrit interreligious debates on the epistemic ... -
Discipline and Ethical Formation in the Mahāsāṃghika Lokottaravāda Vinayapiṭaka
(2017-05-15)This dissertation examines the concept of vinaya, or discipline, in the Vinayapiṭaka, or Canon of Disciplinary Texts, of the Mahāsāṃghika Lokottaravāda monastic order. Discipline is a process of self-transformation toward ... -
Ethical Formation in the Works and Life 'Brug Smyon Kun Dga' Legs Pa
(2015-09-25)This dissertation explores the ethical formation of persons depicted by the 15th century text entitled the Liberation Life Story of Drukpa Kunley (‘Brug pa kun legs kyi rnam thar). My analysis examines the Drukpa Kunley ... -
Genealogies of Survival: Christianity, Judaism, Sovereignty
(2017-01-03)This dissertation attends to survival as a notion of critical historical urgency. It begins with the observation that survival is a foundational but largely unexamined theme within the field of Jewish Studies, arguing that ... -
Gnothi Seauton: Why and How to Teach Religion and Philosophy to Secondary School Students
(2015-05-01)Rather than “saving” the difficult fields of religion and philosophy for college curricula, it is instead developmentally appropriate for high school students—fourteen- to eighteen-year-olds—to engage the complex existential, ... -
Gospel of the 'Orient': Koreans, Race and the Transpacific Rise of American Evangelicalism in the Cold War Era
(2017-05-13)This dissertation is a history of the transpacific rise of American evangelicalism in the Cold War era (1950-80). The Korean War (1950-53), the first “hot” war of the Cold War, brought together a new generation of American ... -
The Heart of Peace: Christine de Pizan and Christian Theology
(2015-09-28)This dissertation argues that, across her corpus, Christine de Pizan (c.1364-c.1431) advanced a notion of the common good that is both, and inseparably, political and theological. The project critically analyzes Christine’s ... -
Ignatius of Antioch and the Historiography of Early Christianity
(2019-05-17)This dissertation tracks the process by which scholarly consensus came to regard seven letters attributed to Ignatius of Antioch as “authentic” and established them as stable orientation points for the Euro-American ... -
In the Land of Milk, Honey, and Hollywood! Religion and Black Urban Life in Los Angeles, 1903-1953
(2020-05-18)This dissertation explores the historical and social forces that shaped the practices of African American religious institutions in Los Angeles from 1903-1953. It reframes a prevailing understanding of African American ... -
Intimations of Jacob, Judah, and Joseph in the Stories of King David: The Use of Narrative Analogy in 1 Samuel 16–1 Kings 2
(2018-09-06)The subject of this study is the use of narrative analogy in the biblical story of King David (1 Samuel 16–1 Kings 2), especially the parallels between this material and the stories of the patriarch Jacob and his family ...