Browsing FAS Theses and Dissertations by FAS Department "Religion, Committee on the Study of"
Now showing items 1-19 of 19
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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 ... -
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 ... -
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 ... -
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, ... -
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 ... -
Karma and Punishment: Prison Chaplaincy in Japan from the Meiji Period to the Present
(2017-05-11)This dissertation analyzes prison chaplaincy (kyōkai) in Japan from the Meiji period (1868-1912) to the present day focusing on the chaplaincy activities of Shin Buddhist sects, Christian churches, Shintō shrines, and new ... -
Meaning and Appearance: The Theology of Literary Emotions in Medieval Kashmir
(2016-05-12)This dissertation examines a major debate in tenth- to twelfth-century Kashmiri literary theory between two famous theorists: Abhinavagupta and Mahimabhaṭṭa, and shows that we cannot fully understand the debate between ... -
The Poetic Path to Awakening: Reading the Buddhist Literary Text as a Form of Practice in Aśvaghoṣa’s Mahākāvya
(2016-09-16)This thesis proposes a new approach to reading and understanding a Buddhist literary work as a form of practice relying on aesthetic pleasure to engage readers on a textual path that gradually awakens understanding. Its ... -
Protestants, Politics, and Power: Race, Gender, and Religion in the Post-Emancipation Mississippi River Valley, 1863-1900
(2015-05-17)This dissertation argues that Protestant Christianity provided the language through which individuals and communities created the political, social, and cultural future of the post-emancipation South. Christian arguments ... -
The Lotus' New Bloom: Literary Innovation in Early Modern North India
(2018-05-10)Situated at the disciplinary intersection of literature, history, and ethics, this dissertation is a comparative analysis of three Digambara Jain versions of the story of the epic prince Rāma: Raviṣeṇa’s seventh-century ... -
The Second Coming of the Book: Rethinking Qur’anic Scripturology and Prophetology
(2018-04-18)This dissertation aims to reassess the character of the Prophet Muhammad’s movement by rethinking major aspects of the qur’anic worldview. Specifically, the dissertation proposes a new interpretation of the Qur’an’s ... -
(Un)Desirable Customs: A History of Indigenous Religion and the Making of Modern Ghana, C. 1800-1966
(2015-05-18)This dissertation examines the explicit and implicit currency of indigenous religious thought on political, moral, and social formations from precolonial through colonial to postcolonial Ghana. It advances new answers to ... -
Unholy Ghosts in the Age of Spirit: Identity, Intersectionality, and the Theological Horizons of Black Progress
(2017-05-12)The dissertation offers, at the intersection of race, gender, sexuality, and class, a constructive theological account of spirit in black Christianity. Although spirit is a pervasive trope in African-American religion, ... -
Widows as Altar in Christian Texts of the Second and Third Centuries
(2017-01-20)This dissertation examines the image of widows as an altar of God as employed in four early Christian texts commonly dated to the second and third centuries CE: Polycarp’s letter To the Philippians, Tertullian’s Ad uxorem, ...