Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Perpetual Progression In The Schleswig-Holstein Duchy: History, Politics, And Religion, 1460-1864, Christian Anthony Ahlers

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

German nationalism in the Schleswig and Holstein duchies that predates the German Unification Wars of the Nineteenth Century continuously transformed in response to Danish encroachment, civic disputes regarding treaty legitimacy, and war. The Germans in the duchies fought to retain their ancestral homelands and, in doing so, embraced a pan-Germanic consciousness that is the foundation for early modern nationalism. This consciousness dates back hundreds of years. This case study examines the Germans of Schleswig and Holstein and their experiences with the consistent and pressing Danish encroachment. Despite the encroachment, the Germans remained connected with their culture, traditions, religion, and their …

The Preservation Of Ancient Wisdom In Dmt: A Literature Review, Miranda Cox

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Abstract

Dance has a long and evocative history within humanity. This literature review explores the integration and impact dance has within religious and spiritual practices and how dance movement therapy can support these practices within a therapeutic model. Dance profoundly affects individuals during their healing journey and has impacted them through transcendental experiences. The review covers important topics regarding the therapeutic alliance and cultural humility, dance and the history of religion and spiritual practices, and the complications and benefits of religion and spirituality within a clinical therapeutic process. The intention is to explore how dance, religion, and spirituality can work …

Gangism: An 'Elementary Form Of Religious Life', Robert Northman

Student Research Symposium

This study is intended to examine the question: could gangs be a form of religion? The study will examine Steven Cureton's ethnographic case study of a street gang as found in his work titled Hoover Crips (2008), where I will then analyze the findings within the sociological framework of Emile Durkheim’s theory of religion as set forth in his classic book titled Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912).

This exploration faces challenges as the terms “gang” and “religion” are both hotly contested, and discussions on each have largely occurred independently, leaving a significant gap for this research to address. This …

Autism And The Body Of Christ: Understanding, Accommodating, And Accepting Autistic Believers In The Church, Kaitlyn Cook

Senior Honors Theses

Autism is a neurotype that causes a different set of strengths and weaknesses and thus should be embraced and accommodated within the church. Not only are autistic believers able to grasp Christian concepts, but they also have different perspectives and skills that can be instrumental in building up the church. Promoting a correct view of autism and accommodating neurodiversity within the church will allow autistic believers to follow God’s command to be part of a body and build up the church. The church can employ several strategies to create an accessible environment for believers on the spectrum, including creating sensory-safe …

The Practice Of Silence And Solitude And Its Results, Lizzie Suwala

Senior Honors Theses

Silence and solitude as a spiritual discipline is seen across many different worldviews including Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Humanism, and can be exercised alongside disciplines like prayer, meditation, and mindfulness. Each worldview has a unique purpose in why silence and solitude is practiced such as to commune with God, to prepare one’s heart for times of prayer, to avoid suffering, to experience revelations, and to find peace in an anxious world. Loneliness stems from unmet expectations of social interactions that lead to aversion in one’s current relationships and within themselves. Understanding the purpose of silence and solitude leads to the …

Exploring The Evolution Of Religious Beliefs And Experiences: A Developmental Perspective From Adolescence To Adulthood, Bella Lee Contreras Giardiello

Whittier Scholars Program

This study explores how religious beliefs and experiences evolve and impact individuals as they transition from adolescence into adulthood. It aims to gain insights into the ways in which religion influences social interactions, emotional well-being, and personal identity formation. Research on religion in adolescence into adulthood can promote understanding and tolerance of diverse religious beliefs and practices. Through this study I aim to provide a framework for the ways in which society can appreciate the plurality of religious experiences, fostering respect and empathy among individuals from different religious backgrounds. Participants were recruited from Professor Hill's Intro to Psychology class at …

Accounting For The Gift: Theology And Ethics In Accounting, Daniel Sebastian

Religious Studies Theses and Dissertations

Accounting is often assumed to be a neutral presentation of the facts of economic activities and actions. Its double-entry system means that it is always in balance and comports to the rigor of mathematical formulas, and it is taken to be a matter of empirical counting that lends it certainty as well. The dissertation argues that this description of accounting is inadequate. Accounting is better seen as a political tool and technology for producing trust that can help resolve social conflicts. As such, accounting is not value-neutral but carries within it a particular sociality that has moral implications. These moral …

الدين في العلاقات الدولية:النموذج الإيراني وأثره على كل من العراق وسورية ولبنان وفلسطين في ضوء نظريات العلاقات الدولية, محمد أنور العتوم

Jerash for Research and Studies Journal مجلة جرش للبحوث والدراسات

The study showed that the religious dimension plays a major role in international relations and in formulating foreign policy .The study also showed that Iran made great efforts after the revolution to create ideological tools for it to expand and extend its influence in Iraq , Syria , Lebanon and Palestine . The study concluded that this dimension was one of the constants and pillars of Iran's foreign policy and its international relations in a profound way .The study also concluded that the religious dimension is one of the most important priorities of the Iranian political system , and it's …

At The Intersection Of Religion, Spirituality, And Clinical Psychology: A Conversation With Two Jewish Psychologists, Robert A. Demayo, David A. Levy

Psychology Division Scholarship

This article presents a dialogue between two Jewish psychologists who share their respective personal and professional journeys on how spirituality and religious affiliation impacts their work as clinicians. They address the following questions: How would you identify your cultural background with respect to your religious or spiritual history and identity? How do you manage the competing demands of respecting both individual cultural identity and group cultural identity? How did your early experiences with Judaism influence your professional practice? What were your earliest academic influences on the question of spirituality in psychology? How have religion and spirituality manifested in your clinical …

Ciis Dissertation Abstracts, 2022-2023, California Institute Of Integral Studies

CIIS Dissertation Abstracts

This compilation of dissertation abstracts reflects the exciting research completed by the 2022-2023 graduates from PhD programs in the School of Consciousness and Transformation and the Clinical Psychology Doctorate (PsyD) in the School of Professional Psychology and Health at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS).

The original and impactful doctoral research presented here spans diverse areas of scholarship from anthropology and social change to human sexuality, philosophy and religion, and whole person approaches to psychology, demonstrating the breadth and depth of transformative and integral inquiry happening at CIIS. The transdisciplinary nature of these dissertations reflects the richness and complexity …

An Internal And External Contextual Autoethnography Of A Single Mother's Experience As It Intersects With Misogyny, Patriarchy, And Hegemonic Masculinity, Heidi Sampson

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

This dissertation is a contextual autoethnography of my lived experience with stigmatization, stereotypes, and institutional obstructions as a divorced single mother who previously experienced intimate partner violence and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. The purpose of the study is to shed light on the complexity of the single motherhood experience, both internally and externally. From 2009 to 2019, the institutions I accessed for assistance as a single mother and those I interacted with for my children, my job, my health, and even within the church were unnecessarily burdensome financially, physically, and emotionally. This dissertation takes a contextual look at …

A Brief History Of The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints With Emphasis On The Charismatic Roots Of The Race-Based Priesthood Denial, Wayne A. Denton

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This dissertation provides an overview of the history of race relations and the evolution of authority in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). It traces the early charismatic leadership of Joseph Smith and his liberal racial views, which increased tension between the LDS church and broader American society. After Smith's death, Brigham Young instituted racist policies like slavery in Utah and a priesthood ban for black members to reduce tensions. In the Progressive Era, LDS scholars theologically entrenched the priesthood ban despite their progressive leanings. A push towards correlation and centralized control of doctrine in the twentieth …

Religious Self-Identity And Racism, Alexandria Morgan

Honors College

This project is a replication of a study by Johnson, Rowatt, and LaBouff (2010) that subliminally primed American Christian participants to think about Christianity subconsciously and found increased prejudice towards Black Americans. This study is often cited to support the claim that “thinking about religion makes people more prejudiced,” despite not having been replicated effectively. Replicability is crucial to make appropriate claims. We replicated the original study with updated explicit priming methods as well as updated racial prejudice scales with a recruited national sample of 500 white American Christians through Prolific.ac. Participants were randomly assigned to a priming condition, where …

Psychology: Religious Conflicts Amongst A Christian Campus, Cole Peterson, Alyssa Shearing, Sydney Willis, Melody Alvarez

Science University Research Symposium (SURS)

The current study seeks to develop and validate a quantitative measure of religion on a Christian campus. As the influence of religion in multiple aspects of the world continues to evolve, it becomes increasingly important to gain an understanding of the experiences of college students within a Christian campus. It has been found that “exposure to new ideas that college provides were thought to lead students to question and ultimately abandon their traditional religious beliefs” (Maryl & Oeur, 2009). More research regarding the effect of religion specifically on a Christian campus is needed; therefore, a reliable and valid psychometric scale …

From Patriarchal Stereotypes To Matriarchal Pleasures Of Hybridity: Representation Of A Muslim Family In Berlin, Rahime Özgün Kehya Dr

Journal of Religion & Film

Sinan Çetin’s blockbuster Berlin in Berlin (1993) is a Turkish-German co-production. In contrast to certain representational tendencies with German orientalism or Turkish occidentalism, it deconstructs the intersectional structures of migration, religion, and gender. The portrayal of religion in films about Turkish-German labour migration is a kind of cultural narcissism often projected into national cinema by denigrating the faith of the other and glorifying one’s own religion. However, perspectives at such intersections are critical and require sensitivity in filmmaking, as films can create prejudice or help build peaceful relationships around these sensitive issues. The paper employs discourse analysis in linking Derrida’s …

Queer Crises: Movements From Queerness And Feelings Of White Religion In The United States, Austin Williams Miller

Communication ETDs

Anchored by contemporary crises surrounding queer and trans people in the United States, I employ movements from queerness within an affective queer phenomenological framework to understand how arrangements of “white religion” (Schaefer, 2015, p. 63), a process whereby U.S. American Christian forms escape ideology into religious affective economies in the United States, relegate queer people “to the background… to sustain a certain direction” (Ahmed, 2006, p. 31). I assemble a queer rhetorical context analyzing white religious space in documentary film, secular sexual regulation through contemporary U.S. legal contexts around marriage, and settler colonial Christian nationalist political imaginations to critique how …

Marital Quality And Marital Satisfaction In Protestant Haitian Americans Vs. Non-Christian Haitian Americans, Frantz Lamour

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The current study examined perceptions regarding marital satisfaction as described by Protestants Haitians Americans and non-Christian Haitian Americans. Participants were selected from married Christian and non-Christian couples that have been married for over five years within the age range of 25-53. The study used the Religion-Adapted Cognitive Behavioral Therapy theory (R-CBT) framework. R-CBT is a well-known theoretical framework that integrates religious interventions in the therapeutic relationship to educate clients about the triangular relationship between thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and cognitive restructuring (de Abreu Costa & Moreira-Almeida, 2022). Religion-Adapted Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (R-CBT) incorporates cognitive behavioral therapy methods from the perspective of …

The Spiritual Migrants Of Sogenji: Notes Of Participant Observation In A Rinzai Zen Temple, Andrei-Razvan Coltea

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

Anomie is a cultural pathology that is becoming chronic in the West, characterized by the erosion of values, disintegration and deregulation. Amongst its symptoms we find anxiety, isolation, depression, tribalism, incoherence and loss of meaning. Individuo-globalism is a new ideology that permeates the religious market created by globalisation, encouraging individuals to discover, nurture and express their ‘true self’. This new spirituality forms the background for a journey that our ‘heroes’, a handful of non-Japanese inhabitants of a Japanese Rinzai Zen monastery, have been undertaking for years in search of the philosopher’s stone that could cure anomie and its symptoms. At …

The Influence Of Religion On Marital Crisis: A Qualitative Study, Kendal Florence Thomas

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this case study was to explore how married Christians couples and pastors perceive the influence of religion, religious over-idealization, and community-centered social processes on couples’ ability to cope with relationship crises within their marriage in New York. The theory guiding this study was the Social Learning Theory by Albert Bandura (1977). The Social Learning Theory was fundamental in the discussion of marriage because behaviors can occur in a marriage that one spouse may disagree with, but due to lack of consequences or rewards, the behavior has persisted, leading to conflict within the marriage. The researcher interviewed ten …

An Examination Of The Association Of Religiosity, Purity Culture, And Religious Trauma With Symptoms Of Depression And Anxiety, Kaelyn R. Griffin

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

While no consistent definition yet exists for religious trauma, religious abuse is typically defined as a misuse of authority by a spiritual leader to coerce, control, or exploit those under their leadership, which may in turn lead to the experience of religious trauma. Numerous studies suggest that experiencing abuse within a religious environment is a both global phenomenon and common experience. The impact of religious abuse has recently gained greater media attention, specifically related to the social and psychological impact of leaving high-cost religious groups (i.e., those with rigid rules or groups from which departure leads to isolation and rejection …

“Jamás Os Conocí”: La Utilización Del Discurso Católico Para Justificar La Represión Ilegal Durante La Última Dictadura Militar De Argentina / “I Never Knew You”: The Utilization Of Catholic Discourse To Justify The Illegal Repression During The Final Military Dictatorship In Argentina, Molly Jirgal

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

En las décadas anteriores a la dictadura, el ala derecha de la política argentina trabajó para construir una identidad nacional inextricablemente entrelazada con el catolicismo. Esta identidad impregnó, y sigue impregnando, una plétora de aspectos de la sociedad argentina, incluido el ámbito político. Durante la dictadura militar de 1976-1983, la derecha utilizó esta identidad católica argentina construida para ordenar divinamente su represión brutalmente violenta de la izquierda. Este trabajo explora cómo la institución de la Iglesia católica contribuyó a una justifcación religiosa para acciones de otro modo injustificables según la doctrina católica. A través del análisis de cartas, comunicados de …

Exploring Interfaith Sex Education, Bailey Lewis

Honors College

Sacred Sexuality explores the intersections of religion and sexuality. I worked with Dr. Birthisel, Director of the Wilson Center, and Kate Dawson, co-facilitator of the sex education class, to survey the sex education class participants on how the experience has been for them. I surveyed the sex education class participants after the class to analyze their opinions of the sex education class, interfaith dialogue, and how their spirituality or religious perspectives inform their beliefs around sexuality. Overall, the sex education class was highly recommended and gave an interesting look into how faith and sexuality interact. While the sex education class …

Reimagining Yiddishkeit: Place And Belonging In A Modern Orthodox Synagogue Community, Joshua Jacoves

Senior Theses and Projects

This is a study of the disruption of place and belonging in an urban, multi-generational, Modern Orthodox Jewish community in the Northeastern United States. It asks how members define themselves as part of a religious community. Living within walking distance of their synagogue, members build community based upon shared space. In order to embrace a more pluralistic community, local leaders in the past ten years have been pushing the boundary on what is and is not religiously allowed. This creates new, more inclusive spaces to be formed within this community, which fall along the lines of gender, sexuality, and religious …

Views Of Judaism And Jewish People In Jordan: Political, Social, Historical, And Religious Considerations, Thalia Gustina

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The purpose of this research was to find out what the general view of Judaism and Jewish people is within Jordan and what factors play into these views. There were a few aspects of this topic that were specifically focused on in this study. The impact of Israel on the way that Jewish people are perceived was one of the main topics explored. Part of this was looking at the history of Judaism and Jewish people in the Arab World and how the relationship between them and their non-Jewish neighbors changed after the creation of Israel. As a majority Muslim …

Book Review: Katell Berthelot. Jews And Their Roman Rivals: Pagan Rome’S Challenge To Israel, Joseph Drew

Comparative Civilizations Review

This is a magisterial work, one which sets high the bar in the comparative study of civilizations. In it, Prof. Katell Berthelot covers the sweep of 600 years, from the second century, BCE, to the fourth century, CE, as she analyzes the extensive impact of Rome on Jewish ideas of law, religion, and peoplehood and, secondarily, the corresponding impact of their rivals, the Jews, on Roman society and history.

I Was Looking For God: A Study Of Wehrmacht Personnel And Their Personal Relationships With Religion, Christopher Bishop

Master's Theses

The Wehrmacht was Germany’s fighting force in the field during World War II. Its brutality and discriminatory practices rivaled that of the Nazi paramilitary and police units dispatched alongside them in newly conquered areas during this conflict. Coming from a society that was not at all unfamiliar with Christianity, some within the Wehrmacht related to Christianity in some form and attempted to use it to either justify actions or make sense of the world around them.

While considerable scholarship exists on the Nazi Party’s relationship to Christianity as a convenient propaganda tool for both soldier and civilian alike, the historiography …

A Guide To Secondary Scholarship For Pure Land Buddhism Using Japanese Periodicals, Rebecca A. Stover

Journal of East Asian Libraries

This paper presents the process of locating Japanese language periodicals relating to Pure Land Buddhism and compiles a bibliography of open-access Japanese language sources for students in the process of Japanese Language acquisition. The paper attempts to scaffold the research process for students in the process of language acquisition and function as a guide to finding information.

Homemaking In And With Migrant Churches As Communities Of Care, Ma. Adeinev M. Reyes-Espiritu

Theology Department Faculty Publications

Research on migration and religion reports the significance of religion to migrants, particularly those who self-identify as religious. In particular, migrant churches have served as a sanctuary, a venue for social networking, and a community supportive of migrants’ wellbeing, to name a few things. However, migrant churches are also criticized for the possibility of becoming instruments of control over migrants. Heeding Boccagni and Hondagneu-Sotelo’s invitation to use the “homemaking optic” to inquire into the experience of integration of migrants, this paper analyzes how migrant churches foster migrants’ becoming at home in the receiving societies using Philippine migrant communities as a …

God Games: An Experimental Study Of Uncertainty, Superstition, And Cooperation, Aidin Hajikhameneh, Laurence R. Iannaccone

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

This paper uses a novel lab experiment to test claims about the origins and functions of religion. We modify the standard public goods game, adding a computer-based agent that adjusts earnings in ways that might depend on players' contributions. Our treatments employ three different descriptions of the adjustment process that loosely correspond to monotheistic, atheistic, and agnostic interpretations of the computer's role. The adjustments neither mask players' contributions nor magnify their impact. Yet players in all three adjustment treatments contribute much more than those who play the standard public goods game. Players' contributions and survey responses show that adjustments induce …

The Rise Of Russian Peasant Witchcraft: A Response To Social Unrest In Imperial Russia, Katrina Sommer

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

Imperial Russia became home to a unique form of witchcraft from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. Combining its religious history, patterns of imperial expansion and governance, and social hierarchies, witchcraft accusations arose during especially troublesome economic and political times. Differing from eighteenth-century America Witchcraft trials, these trials were not only femicide. Targeting anyone who might subvert established social or cultural norms, these accusations often led to violent expungement, ending with a ritual of communal bonding.