Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Broadening The Spectrum: The Religious Dimensions Of The Rainbow Gatherings, Seth M. Walker

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to specifically address the religious dimensions of the Rainbow Gatherings. The fundamental question directing this analysis is: "Are the Rainbow Gatherings religious in character?" This thesis specifically asks whether or not the Rainbow Gatherings satisfy certain identifiable features of religion, and if doing so, do they qualify as a form of religion? I engage this question by analyzing the Rainbow Gatherings in terms of two particular definitions of religion: Clifford Geertz's "functional" definition and Bryan R. Wilson's "substantive" definition. This allows me to analyze the Rainbow Gatherings from the perspective of the two major …

Mammoth Cave Churches (Fa 479), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 479. Interviews conducted by Laura Harper Lee about social change in churches in the Mammoth Cave area. Includes question list and 14 recorded interviews conducted between 1988 and 1991.

In God We Trust: Images Of God And Trust In The United States Among The Highly Religious, F. Carson Mencken, Christoper Bader, Elizabeth Embry

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

In this analysis, the authors use Greeley's 'religion as poetry' model to frame an analysis of images of God and trust among the highly religious. Using the 2005 Baylor Religion Survey, the authors regress four ordinal measures of social trust on two images of God measures and a bank of religion and demographic controls. The authors find that having a loving image of God creates greater levels of trust in all four measures among the highly religious. They also find that having an image of God as angry creates less trust in all four measures of trust. Implications for theory …

Bogle, Amy Lyn (Fa 270), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scan of paper (Click on “Additional Files” below) for Folklife Archives Project 270. Paper: "A Conflict Between Academic and Folk Medicine" written by Amy Lynn Bogle for a Western Kentucky University folk studies class.

Yeats, Eliot, And Apocalyptic Poetry, Nancy Helen Fletcher

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Yeats and Eliot merit comparison because they wrote poetry that has been described as apocalyptic in the same historical period and in the same general geographic area but described entirely different visions. These particular works of Yeats and Eliot are appropriate because they represent two widely varying viewpoints on the causes, nature and desirability of what each author felt would be the coming apocalypse. Therefore, more can be learned by comparing the very different outlooks of the poems than by considering each poem separately.

Yeats sees humanity as both the victim and the beneficiary of a series of inescapable historical …

Metropolitan Community Church: A Perfectly Queer Reading Of The Bible, Matthew D. Stewart

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the hermeneutical strategies that Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) has employed in interpreting the Bible. As a new religious movement (NRM) with an outreach to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered individuals MCC interprets the text in light of its membership. The interpretive strategies and methodologies employed are in keeping with other denominations in the Christian tradition. This provides a possible avenue by which MCC can be classified within the Christian tradition.

The interpretation of the biblical text is given in light of the gay people who compose MCC's membership. Gays and lesbians have experienced social and religious stress. …

Secondary Pre-Service Teachers’ Knowledge And Confidence In Dealing With Students’ First Amendment Rights In The Classroom, Ian Call

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Every year teachers find themselves involved in conflicts dealing with violations of students' First Amendment rights to freedom of expression and freedom of religion. Students and parents file lawsuits against school districts because they feel teachers and administrators have violated their First Amendment rights. As a result, many teacher preparation programs require pre-service teachers to learn about educational law and the rights students have at school. Yet, little research exists about how well pre-service teachers are prepared to deal with First Amendment issues in the classroom.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how well pre-service teachers are prepared …

Just Regular Folks: An Ethnographic Study Of Identity In A Gay And Lesbian Catholic Community In South Florida, Shawn M. Perkins

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Much of the research done on religious gays and lesbians has focused upon the cognitive strategies they employ in order to negotiate conflicts experienced between their religious and sexual identities. In contrast to taking a psychological approach, this study focuses upon the role of social context in helping gay and lesbian Catholics to successfully negotiate their religious and sexual identities. Using participant-observation data of a small gay and lesbian Catholic community, the Holy Cross Community (HCC), as well as from interviews with ten of its members, I examine the role of the interpersonal context in identity processes. I outline the …

An Analysis Of Origen's Charismatic Ideology In His Commentary On The Gospel Of John, Kimberly W. Logan-Hudson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis aims to examine whether Origen projects a charismatic ideology within his Commentary on the Gospel of John. Five characteristics will be utilized during the process: (1) Charismatic authority is given directly from God and only God; (2) Those who have been chosen sought and maintain the position; (3) Individuals must recognize this authority along with others; (4) Those with charismatic authority must mediate God's word for others; (5) This authority may only belong to individuals within the one body of the church. In analyzing Books 1, 2, 6, and 10 along with these five characteristics, the thesis will …

The Proliferating Sacred: Secularization And Postmodernity, Donald Surrency

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

When analyzing the role religion plays in contemporary American society, one is forced to address the notion of secularization. This is a term that broadly refers to the marginalization of religious influence in culture and society that began at the outset of the Enlightenment, sometime during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but, as Peter Berger argues, can actually be traced back to the times of the great Israelite prophets who emerged during the Axial Age (800-200 BCE). Throughout the available literature, proponents of the secularization thesis extend the marginalization of religious influence from the societal level to the level of …

Emersonian Perfectionism: A Man Is A God In Ruins, Brad James Rowe

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Ralph Waldo Emerson is a great American literary figure that began his career as a minister at Boston’s Second Church. He discontinued his ministry to become an essayist and lecturer and continued as such for the remainder of his life. This thesis was written with the intent of demonstrating that, in spite of leaving the ministry, Emerson continued to be religious and a religionist throughout his life and that he promulgated a unique religion based upon the principle of self-reliance. At the heart of Emerson’s religion of self-reliance is the doctrine of perfectionism, the infinite capacity of individuals. This thesis …

Kitsch And Southwest Hybridity In The Art Of Ted De Grazia, Karen Jeanne Dalton

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Ettore "Ted" De Grazia (1909-1982) spent his artistic life painting the Native American stories and peoples of the Arizona Southwest. His art was touted in the popular press and is still admired by tourists and newcomers to Arizona, but he was not taken seriously by academicians and art critics who refused to grant him artistic enfranchisement. Many labeled his work "kitsch," a term made popular by Clement Greenberg in his 1939 essay, " Avant-Garde and Kitsch." De Grazia's popular whimsical paintings of Native American children were considered too cute to have artistic merit.De Grazia, in spite of criticism to the …

Study Of The Ethical Values Of College Students, Victor Mercader

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study focuses on five main purposes, all of them interrelated and each focused on ethical values, virtues, or character values. The five purposes are: a) Investigate college students' perceptions of ethical values, including their importance, application, usefulness, origin, benefits, need for education, and courses proposed to be included in the curricula; b) Review literature in areas related to ethical values, virtues or character values of college students; c) Develop and pilot an instrument to assess the ethical values of college students; d) Improve and use the developed instrument to describe the status of college students' ethical values; and e) …

Liberating Visions: Religion And The Challenge Of Change In Maine,1820 To The Present, University Of Southern Maine, Susie Boch, Joseph S. Wood, Maureen Elgersman Lee, Howard M. Solomon, Abraham J. Peck

Publications (Annual Event Catalog)

Liberating Visions: Religion and the Challenge of Change in Maine, 1820 to the Present. Each of the Sampson Center’s three scholars has crafted an original essay related to one of the Sampson Center collections—African-American, Judaic, and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender—thereby reflecting on how religious institutions have fostered minority identity and have framed social and cultural transformation.

Table of Contents:

Religion and Transformation (Joseph S. Wood, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs)

Jean Byers Sampson Center for Diversity in Maine Programming (Susie Bock, Director, Sampson Center for Diversity in Maine and Head, USM Special Collections)

The African American …

The War That Wasn't: Religious Conflict And Compromise In The Common Schools Of New York, 1865-1900 (Book Review), R. Bryan Bademan

History Faculty Publications

Book review by R. Bryan Bademan.

Justice, Benjamin. The War That Wasn't: Religious Conflict and Compromise in the Common Schools of New York, 1865-1900. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. ISBN 9780791462119; 9780791484463

Images Of God: The Effect Of Personal Theologies On Moral Attitudes, Political Affiliation, And Religious Behavior, Christoper Bader, Paul Froese

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

Social scientists often explain religious effects in terms of religious group affiliations. Typically, researchers identify religious groups by denomination or some broader popular categorization, such as “fundamentalist” or “evangelical.” To capture religious differences more effectively, Steensland et al. (2000) propose an intricate classification of American denominations that takes into account the theology and historical development of various American religious traditions to predict individual attitudes and behaviors. We believe that equal care and attention should be devoted to the development of key measures of belief that may cross denominational lines. In this article, we propose one such measure: personal conceptions or …

“Symbolism Of Language: A Study In The Dialogue Of Power Between The Imperial Cult And The Synoptic Gospels”, Sharon Matlock-Marsh

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Long before the writings of the New Testament gospels, where Jesus was being proclaimed as the Son of God, and Savior, the world existing under the influences of Hellenism resulting from the conquests by Alexander the Great in 323 BCE, had already been well acquaint

ed with and expected to hear certain symbolic language in determining titles for their divine ruler the emperor. Living within a cosmological framework, i.e., a sacred cosmos, the citizens of the empire accepted the emperor as the manifestation of divinity in the world. This belief existed for centuries prior to Christianity as a reality that …

Falun Gong In The United States: An Ethnographic Study, Noah Porter

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, has been described in many ways. It has been called qigong, one of many schools of physical exercises that aim at improving health and developing "supernatural abilities". Scholars and mainstream media have referred it to as a "spiritual movement" or religion, although practitioners claim it is not a religion. It has been called a cult, in the pejorative sense rather than in a sociological context, by the Chinese government and by some Western critics. In the writings of Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Gong, it is referred to in different ways, …

Fade To Black: The Failure Of Sacrifice In Faulkner's Light In August, Peter J. Goodwin

Peter J Goodwin

Faulkner's Light in August examines the vexed and volatile relationship between religion, justice, and personal and national violence. Drawing on the work of Girard, Bataille, and Mauss, I unearth the symbolic and cultural roots of sacrifice in the novel, concluding that Faulkner was deeply critical of any admixture of church and state. Faulkner depicts racial lynching as the sin of a society thirsty for vengeance, recklessly appropriating scraps of both religious sacrifice and secular justice, and hence unable to realize the peace-restoring aims of either tradition.

Interview With Virginia Pannell About Her Life (Fa 154), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Oral Histories

Transcription of an oral interview with Virginia Pannell about her life and times conducted by Charlotte Postlewaite for an oral history project titled "Do You Remember When, 1900-1949." In the interview Pannell discusses her life in Greenville, Muhlenberg County, Kentucky. She talks about teachers and teaching, schools, education, politics, health care, World War I, World War II, Influenza, radios, B. Mathis, coal mines and mining, strikes, telephones, vigilantism, Prohibition, rationing and religion.

Religion At Bowdoin College: A History, Ernst Christian Helmreich

Bowdoin Histories

Religion at Bowdoin College: A History (1981), by Ernst Christian Helmreich, considers how people at Bowdoin have perceived religion, how they have felt religion should or should not be realized at the College, and how those views changed over the years.

Pennsylvania Folklife Vol. 26, No. 2, J. Ritchie Garrison, Mac E. Barrick, Miriam Pitchon, Donald E. Taft, Maurice A. Mook, John A. Hostetler, Don Yoder, Stephanie Farrior

Pennsylvania Folklife Magazine

• Battalion Day: Militia Exercise and Frolic in Pennsylvania Before the Civil War
• Folklore in the Library: Cherished Memories of Old Lancaster
• Widows' Wills for Philadelphia County, 1750-1784: A Study of Pennsylvania German Folklife
• Forest County Lore
• The "Big Valley" Amish of Central Pennsylvania: A Community of Cultural Contrasts
• Maurice A. Mook (1904-1973): An Appreciation
• Collectanea: Ore-Mining and Basket-Making in Maxatawny ; The Sharadin Tannery at Kutztown ; Occult Lore Recorded in Cumberland County
• German Immigrants in America as Presented in Travel Accounts
• The Pie and Related Forms in Pennsylvania Cuisine: Folk-Cultural …

Pennsylvania Folklife Vol. 26, No. 1, Angus K. Gillespie, Susan Stewart, Mac E. Barrick, Gary D. Hydinger, Leonard Primiano, Louis Winkler, Gordon C. Baker

Pennsylvania Folklife Magazine

• Pennsylvania Folk Festivals in the 1930s
• Rational Powwowing: An Examination of Choice among Medical Alternatives in Rural York County, Pennsylvania
• Memories of a Moonshiner
• The Pennsylvania Germans: Folklife Studies from Autobiographical Sources
• Student Life at a Pennsylvania Dutch College
• Pennsylvania German Astronomy & Astrology XIV: Health and the Heavens
• A Traditional Family Reunion
• Roads, Ferries, Fords and Bridges: Folk-Cultural Questionnaire No. 45

Pennsylvania Folklife Vol. 21, No. 2, Don Yoder, C. Lee Hopple, Friedrich Krebs, Rufus A. Grider, Gabriel Hartmann

Pennsylvania Folklife Magazine

• The Pennsylvania Germans: A Preliminary Reading List
• Spatial Development of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Plain Dutch Community to 1970: Part I
• Palatine Emigrants of the 18th Century
• Winter Album
• Emigrants from Dossenheim (Baden) in the 18th Century
• Farm Layouts and Building Plans: Folk-Cultural Questionnaire No. 22

Pennsylvania Folklife Vol. 18, No. 3, Harry E. Smith, Donald R. Friary, L. Karen Baldwin, Amos Long Jr., Friedrich Krebs, Don Yoder

Pennsylvania Folklife Magazine

• The End of the Horse and Buggy Era
• Moravian Architecture and Town Planning: A Review
• Humor in a Friendly World
• Chickens and Chicken Houses in Rural Pennsylvania
• Eighteenth-Century Emigrants to America from the Duchy of Zweibrucken and the Germersheim District
• Horse-Drawn Transportation: Folk-Cultural Questionnaire No. 11

Pennsylvania Folklife Special 1960 Festival Issue, Don Yoder, J. William Frey, Edna Eby Heller, Alfred L. Shoemaker, Martha Ross Swope, Earl F. Robacker, Ada Robacker, Vincent R. Tortora

Pennsylvania Folklife Magazine

• Plain Dutch and Gay Dutch: Two Worlds in the Dutch Country
• Pennsylvania Dutch
• Displaced Dutchmen Crave Shoo-flies
• Hex Signs: A Myth
• Lebanon Valley Date Stones
• Antiques in Dutchland
• Antique or Folk Art: Which?
• Folk Festival Program
• Religious Patterns of the Dutch Country
• The Costumes of the Plain Dutch
• "Love Feasts"
• "Horse-and-Buggy" Mennonites
• The Courtship and Wedding Practices of the Old Order Amish