Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Immanent Technologies: Posthuman Digital Religion In America, John William Borchert

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation offers a posthuman theory of the digital mediation of religion, divided between theoretical chapters on posthumanism, ritual, and new media before two case studies: one on death, one on play. First developing conceptual relationships between posthumanism and religious studies and methodological connections between new media and ritual theories, it then asks questions in the playful and experimental ritual spaces of video games and the profoundly material and ecological spaces of digital mourning objects. For example: how do digital readouts on the health of a plant fed by cremains reposition living and dead bodies? Or, how do video games …

“Little Messiah: Relational Religion In Hélène Cixous’S Messie”, Rachel Katherine Carpenter

Theses - ALL

This thesis performs a close textual analysis of Cixous’s text Messie, paying particular attention to the text’s central relationship between the human protagonist and her cat. Considering the complex dynamics of this relationship, this project attempts to understand the significant ways Cixous’s narrative outlines a religious and ethical relationality between humans and animals. Ultimately, inspired by Messie’s ethics, this thesis posits an ethics of relation readers may themselves apply to animal relations.

Religion In Contemplative Studies, Daniel J. Moseson

Dissertations - ALL

This project is about the new field of contemplative studies, a field that seeks to use “contemplative” practices, derived mostly (though not entirely) from religious traditions in academic settings, prominently including college pedagogy. First, this project seeks to understand how contemplative studies advocates persuade others (and themselves) that what they are doing is not “religion;” that is, how do they define "religion" in order to situate their own work as non-religious academic inquiry? Second, in the course of my textual and ethnographic research on contemplative studies, it has become apparent that this field adds to the growing rebuttal of religious …

Breaching The Divide: An Inquiry Into Border Passage, Russell Scheer

Architecture Senior Theses

This project is an inquiry into the existing threshold that currently separates Israelis from Palestinians in the West Bank. Through the dismantling of the Israeli border checkpoint and reinterpretation of its parts, this project reimagines the sequence of passing through the threshold. By framing the mundane activities of border passage through dramatic scenes, this architecture can reveal themes religion, resources, and surveillance. This architecture also intends to highlight the imbalance of the current conflict and those involved in it, by creating an architecture equally absurd.

Wyschogrod’S Hand: Saints, Animality, And The Labor Of Love, Virginia Burrus

Religion - All Scholarship

That the lives of saints constitute an unmediated appeal suggests both a call to imitate what cannot be imitated (thus can result in no mimesis of sameness) and a call to respond to the extremity of the saint's vulnerability; and I would suggest that the two calls turn out to be the same. Because the saint is radically open to the need of others, she is endlessly vulnerable to need herself (she will give everything, again and again); and because she is endlessly vulnerable to need herself, she is radically open to the need of others.

Review Of Martin Hägglund, Radical Atheism: Derrida And The Time Of Life, William Robert

Religion - All Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Beyond Tolerance, Amy Speach

Syracuse University Magazine

No abstract provided.

Desecrating Scriptures, James W. Watts

Religion - All Scholarship

Desecrations of books of scripture appear regularly in media coverage of religious and political conflicts. Twenty-first century news media have reported scripture desecrations in various Western, Middle Eastern, African, and South Asian countries. Though political tensions also arise from the desecration of sacred sites, objects, and persons, books of scripture have emerged as particularly potent objects of contestation. That is because, as a (very) old form of media themselves, scriptures encapsulate the religious experiences of many people who are used to handling the physical book with veneration. News of such a book’s desecration thus inverts a common religious experience and …

Ritual Legitimacy And Scriptural Authority, James W. Watts

Religion - All Scholarship

In this essay, James W. Watts explains the interdependence of texts and rituals with regard to ancient religions. Specifically, he outlines patterns of practice and developments in the ritual use of texts and the texual authorization of rituals in antiquity.

Watts also makes the case that beyond the interplay of texual authority and ritual legitimacy that most ancient cultures engaged in, Judaism was unique in elevating the Torah along with its other laws and stories to special "scriptural" status.

Modelli Retorici Tra Predica E Romanzol'esempio Di Anton Giulio Brignole Sale, Stefano Giannini

Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics - All Scholarship

Seventeenth-century preachers often coupled their preaching to novel writing. This essay investigates the sermons and the novels of the Jesuit Anton Giulio Brignole Sale (1605-1665), to identify rhetorical strategies that were applied both to religious and secular writings.

The Faith Of The Mithnagdim: Rabbinic Responses To Hasidic Rapture, Ken Frieden

Religion - All Scholarship

Book review of Allan Nadler's work The Faith of the Mithnagdim: Rabbinic Responses to Hasidic Rapture.

Sigmund Freud's Passover Dream Responds To Theodor Herzl's Zionist Dream, Ken Frieden

Religion - All Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Yerushalmi, Yosef Hayim. Freud's Mosses: Judaism Terminable And Interminable., Ken Frieden

Religion - All Scholarship

Review of Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi's work Freud's Mosses: Judaism Terminable and Interminable.

The Creation Of Mendele Moykher-Sforim, Ken Frieden

Religion - All Scholarship

Review of Selected Works of Mendele Moykher-Sforim edited by Marvin Zuckerman, Gerald Stillman, and Marion Herbst.

The Language Of Demonic Possession: A Key-Word Analysis, Ken Frieden

Religion - All Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Job's Encounters With The Adversary, Ken Frieden

Religion - All Scholarship

Although Job has been universally admired, his encounters with evil have met with diverse and often contradictory interpretations. In contrast to the tradition that exalts "patient Job," recent scholars have focused attention on the
"impatient Job" who questions divine justice. I will suggest that
Job is essentially a book about questions and assertions, a book
that leads us to consider the significance of theological questioning.