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Arts and Humanities Commons

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Social and Behavioral Sciences

City University of New York (CUNY)

2018

Religion

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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

Telling The Good News, Allyson R. Escobar Dec 2018

Telling The Good News, Allyson R. Escobar

Capstones

In light of recent clergy abuse scandals, cover-ups and leadership shake-downs, it is a divided time in the Catholic Church: but this isn’t the whole story. My final capstone project is a critical essay of how Catholicism (and religion overall) is represented in mainstream media--particularly in secular news publications and entertainment (horror films) in the United States. By examining the coverage and how conversations differ within members of the Catholic Church--from journalists and critics to active Catholics, religious men and women--this project calls for greater accountability, fairness, faith representation in all media, and the overall claim that there are Catholic …


The Shari'a Courts Of Mogadishu: Beyond "African Islam" And "Islamic Law", Ahmed Ibrahim Feb 2018

The Shari'a Courts Of Mogadishu: Beyond "African Islam" And "Islamic Law", Ahmed Ibrahim

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation, based on a year and eight months of fieldwork, is a historical ethnography of a Shari‘a-based movement which appeared in Mogadishu, Somalia within a year after the complete disintegration of the central government in 1991. The movement originated when religious authorities and “traditional” elders established centers in various neighborhoods in Mogadishu to deal with the vacuum of power after the fall of the state. Since Shari‘a structures of authority and discourse were integral to the formation and functioning of the centers, they became known as Shari‘a courts. My work on the Shari‘a courts intervenes in the literature on …


Religion On The Dance Floor: Afro-Dominican Music And Ritual From Altars To Clubs, Angelina M. Tallaj Jan 2018

Religion On The Dance Floor: Afro-Dominican Music And Ritual From Altars To Clubs, Angelina M. Tallaj

Publications and Research

In this essay, I examine the current New York scene and the emerging discourses surrounding the recent visibility of Dominican Voodoo (Vudú) and its music. When Dominicans migrated, they brought with them these marginalized genres of music including the music of Vudú, and, since the 2000s, this music (palo) has moved from the religious arena to the popular music world, in turn changing the nature of the religious rituals. In New York City, Vudú ceremonies can now publicly feature drumming and possession and are practiced in commercial venues rather than in private homes and altar spaces. While this move of …