History of Religion Commons^™

A Former Student And Colleague Remembers Gil Scott-Heron, Linwood Gato Martinez-Bentley

The Journal of Traditions & Beliefs

No abstract provided.

Guest Editor's Introduction, Sherlynn Allen-Harris

The Journal of Traditions & Beliefs

No abstract provided.

Acknowledgments And Disclaimer, Regennia N. Williams

The Journal of Traditions & Beliefs

No abstract provided.

The Value Of Black Lives: The Effect Of The Digital Age On African American Identity And Political Participation, Lauren Grimes

The Journal of Traditions & Beliefs

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents, Regennia N. Williams

The Journal of Traditions & Beliefs

No abstract provided.

The Politics Of Engagement In The Digital Age, Sherlynn Allen-Harris

The Journal of Traditions & Beliefs

No abstract provided.

2018 Call For Submissions, Regennia N. Williams

The Journal of Traditions & Beliefs

No abstract provided.

In The Company Of Angels: Expressions Of Personal Autonomy, Authority, And Agency In Early Anglo-Saxon Monasticism, William Tanner Smoot

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

In this thesis I examine the opportunities for individual agency and social and spiritual autonomy in the seventh-and-eighth-century Anglo-Saxon kingdoms occasioned by the introduction and development of Christian monasticism. The term “autonomy” concerns the degree to which individuals managed to determine the social order and nature, as well as spiritual character, of their ensuing lives through an adherence to monastic practice. Early Anglo-Saxon Christianity assumed a monastic character, and from the outset coenobitic communities acquired and maintained certain rights regarding their internal governance and social development from their ecclesiastic and secular superiors, which conceptually separated religious households from those of …

The Study Of Afro-Cuban Religions, Ella Shipp

The Student Researcher: A Phi Alpha Theta Publication

The scholarship of Afro-Cuban syncretic religions such as Santería/La Regla de Ocha and Palo Montewas powerfully affected by the disruption of the Cuban Revolution. Unlike other disciplines whose growth and maturation have progressed naturally since the development of modern scholarship in the 1900s, the study of Cuban orisha-based religion derived from the traditions of the Lucumí and Yoruba has only recently come into its own. During the 1800s and 1900s, there were some accounts of slave religion in novels, travel accounts, and some encyclopedic works by US and European authors. These accounts were mostly negative and strongly biased against slaves, …

The Personal And Social Context Of Justinianic Religious Policy Prior To The Three Chapters Controversy, Joshua Mckay Powell

Theses and Dissertations--History

The emperor Justinian's religious policy has sometimes been characterized as haphazard or incoherent. This dissertation examines religious policy in the Roman Empire from the accession of the emperor Justin to the inception of the Three Chapters controversy in the mid 540's AD. It considers the resolution of the Acacian Schism, Justinian's apparent ambivalence with regard to the Theopaschite formula, the attempt to court the anti-Chalcedonians in Constantinople in the period leading up to the Council of 536, and the relationship between the genesis of the Three Chapters and Second Origenist controversies.

Even during these seemingly disparate episodes, this dissertation argues …

Lost & Found: Order In The Court -- The Party Game, Owen Gottlieb, Ian Schreiber

Presentations and other scholarship

Lost & Found is a strategy card-to-mobile game series that teaches medieval religious legal systems with attention to period accuracy and cultural and historical context.

The Lost & Found games project seeks to expand the discourse around religious legal systems, to enrich public conversations in a variety of communities, and to promote greater understanding of the religious traditions that build the fabric of the United States. Comparative religious literacy can build bridges between and within communities and prepare learners to be responsible citizens in our pluralist democracy.

The second game in the series, Lost & Found: Order in the Court …

Salafism, Wahhabism, And The Definition Of Sunni Islam, Rob J. Williams

Honors Program: Student Scholarship & Creative Works

My capstone deals with the historical definition of Sunni Islam, and how it has changed in approximately the past 200 years. Around 1800, Sunni Islam was pretty clearly defined by an adherence to one of four maddhabs, or schools of law: the Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i, and Hanbali schools and are all based in nearly a millennium of legal scholarship. Since 1800, however, numerous reform movements have sprung up which disavow previous scholarship and interpret Islamic law their own way. However, certain reformist groups, such as Traditionalist Salafis and Wahhabis, claim that their version of Islam is the only “pure” …

A Multi-Causal Approach To The Thirty Years’ War, Ethan Haan

Grand Valley Journal of History

The Thirty Years’ War was arguably the most consequential war of the Wars of Religion and of the wider European conflicts in the 17th century. The historiography on the causes of the war has been present ever since literature on the conflict became available shortly after its cessation. Since 1900, the debate over the underlying motivations has intensified and has become muddied in some areas. This study aims to summarize and clarify the previous positions that historians have taken on what caused the war, from religious urges to socio-economic and political factors. This study also attempts to clearly define where …

The Crusades And The Crusaders (Library Resources), Holy Cross Libraries

Library Resources for Campus Events

A bibliography of resources available through the Holy Cross Libraries which provide additional information related to “Crusades and Crusaders,” a lecture by Kevin Madigan '82, held at the College of the Holy Cross on March 23, 2017.

Professor Madigan explains what the Crusades were and explores how Crusaders viewed themselves as pilgrims on an armed expedition undertaken for Christ, authorized by the Pope, who were given full remission of their sins. He also traces the historiography of the Crusades in the 19th and 20th centuries to lay context for decision of the Holy Cross student body in 1925 to adopt …

“Confederate Soldiers In The Siege Of Petersburg And Postwar: An Intensified War And Coping Mechanisms Utilized, 1864- Ca. 1895”, Matthew R. Lempke

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis crafts a narrative about how Confederate soldiers during the siege of Petersburg experienced an intensified war that caused them to refine soldierly coping mechanisms in order to endure. They faced increasing deprivations, new forms of death, fewer restrictions on killing, dwindling fortunes, and increased racial acrimony by facing African American soldiers. In order to adjust, they relied on soldierly camaraderie, Southern notions of honor, letter writing, and an increasingly firm reliance on Protestant Christianity to cope with their situation. Postwar, these veterans repurposed soldierly coping mechanisms and eventually used institutional support from their states. Camaraderie, honor, literary endeavors, …

Ladder To Heaven: An Evaluation Of Twelfth Century Latin Catholic Non-Dichotomous Spiritual Gender Identity, Helen W. Tschurr

Summer Research

In the 1970s, historian Richard Southern argued that the period of reform in the Twelfth Century solidified a patriarchal state in the medieval period, and since his publication (continuing into the current tradition), historians have agreed with this thesis that the period of centralization and codification within the canon tradition existed antithetically to female empowerment and agency, and solidified the authority and normatively of heterosexual, dominate, masculinity. When discussing the canon celebrations and successes of women in the Twelfth Century, historians use the term “token,” ascribing their ability to survive in a state which denounced their agency to circumstances such …

Making Muslim Women Political : Imagining The Wartime Woman In The Russian Muslim Women’S Journal Suyumbika, Danielle Ross

History Faculty Publications

In April 1915, student-journalist Khaireddin Bolghanbai reported for the Muslim newspaper Qazaq on a recent literary-cultural evening held by the Orenburg [Muslim] Student Aid Society to collect money to aid wounded soldiers. The cultural evening brought together amateur performers from the city’s Tatar, Bashkir, and Kazakh ethnic communities, and they performed to a sold-out house. In addition to the usual audience of urban youth, the event attracted people from the surrounding villages and even “elderly women with scarves on their heads and old men in winter hats, people the likes of which had never been seen in the Orenburg theater” …

Theories Of The Self, Race, And Essentialization In Buddhism In The United States During The “Yellow Peril,” 1899-1957, Ryan Anningson

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation is an intellectual history tracing developing notions of the Self in Buddhism through Buddhist publications during the years from 1899-1957. I define this time period as the Era of the Yellow Peril, due to common views in the United States of an Asian “other” which formed a larger clash of civilizations globally. 1899-1957 was marked by pessimism and dread due to two World Wars and the Great Depression, while popular and academic cultures argued for the validity of race sciences, and the application of these “sciences” through eugenics. Buddhism in the United States was created through a global …

Making Religion Acceptable In Communist Romania And The Soviet Union, 1943-1989, Ryan J. Voogt

Theses and Dissertations--History

This dissertation focuses on religious gatherings in communist Romania and the Soviet Union, 1943-1989. Church was one of the few opportunities for voluntary associational life and is invaluable for the study of power, ideology, and belonging in an everyday social setting. This project is based on archival documents and memoirs, uncovering how state officials and religious representatives struggled to establish religious practice that would be acceptable to all. Although ideologically atheist, state officials regarded some religious gatherings as acceptable and others unacceptable, but not due to utterances of beliefs or performance of traditional sacraments, but because of social aspects: how …

Historiography And Hierotopy: Palestinian Hagiography In The Sixth Century A.D., Rod M. Stearn

Theses and Dissertations--History

Judean hagiographies are unusual. Some are unexpectedly structured: a saint’s life in the form of a history text. Others offer surprising content. Expected hagiographic stylizations, for example, often depict moments in which the saint is offered money for a miracle. In such cases the saint invariably refuses. Judean saints, however, accept gratitude willingly – often with cash amounts recorded.

The peculiarities of these works have regularly been examined on literary and theological grounds. In this dissertation I propose a different approach: socio-economic context. The monasteries that produced these texts were utterly dominated by the environment of Christian Jerusalem. Although often …