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Full-Text Articles in American Studies

Muslim Enough? Egyptian Enough? American Enough?, Essraa Nawar Apr 2023

Muslim Enough? Egyptian Enough? American Enough?, Essraa Nawar

Library Presentations, Posters, and Audiovisual Materials

Born in Alexandria, Egypt, Essraa has studied, lived and worked in many places, including the Gulf area (Qatar), Washington D.C., where she worked for The Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia, and Alexandria, Egypt where she worked for Bibliotheca Alexandrina. In 2002, she moved with her husband and family to the United States where they have been studying, working, and living for 20 plus years. In this vulnerable presentation, Essraa will share for the first time her journey navigating motherhood as an immigrant, Muslim women while thousands of miles away from her family in Egypt. Everyday Essraa will ask herself: Is …


Why The Covenant Worked: On The Institutional Foundations Of The American Civil Religion, John W. Compton May 2019

Why The Covenant Worked: On The Institutional Foundations Of The American Civil Religion, John W. Compton

Political Science Faculty Articles and Research

Scholars of American civil religion (ACR) have paid insufficient attention to the micro-level processes through which civil religious ideas have historically influenced beliefs and behavior. We know little about what makes such appeals meaningful to average Americans (assuming they are meaningful); nor do we know much about the mechanisms through which abstract religious themes and imagery come to be associated with specific policy aims, or what Robert Bellah called “national goals.” This article argues that a renewed focus on the relationship between civil religion and organized religion can help fill this gap in the literature. More specifically, I draw attention …


A Bounded Affinity Theory Of Religion And The Paranormal, Joseph O. Baker, Christoper Bader, F. Carson Mencken Dec 2016

A Bounded Affinity Theory Of Religion And The Paranormal, Joseph O. Baker, Christoper Bader, F. Carson Mencken

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

We outline a theory of bounded affinity between religious experiences and beliefs and paranormalism, which emphasizes that religious and paranormal experiences and beliefs share inherent physiological, psychological, and ontological similarities. Despite these parallels, organized religious groups typically delineate a narrow subset of experiences and explanatory frames as acceptable and True, banishing others as either false or demonic. Accordingly, the theory provides a revised definition of the “paranormal” as beliefs and experiences explicitly rejected by science and organized religions. To demonstrate the utility of the theory, we show that, after controlling for levels of conventional religious practice, there is a strong, …


French Women In Art: Reclaiming The Body Through Creation/Les Femmes Artistes Françaises : La Réclamation Du Corps À Travers La Création, Liatris Hethcoat Dec 2016

French Women In Art: Reclaiming The Body Through Creation/Les Femmes Artistes Françaises : La Réclamation Du Corps À Travers La Création, Liatris Hethcoat

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

The research I have conducted for my French Major Senior Thesis is a culmination of my passion for and studies of both French language and culture and the history and practice of Visual Arts. I have examined, across the history of art, the representation of women, and concluded that until the 20th century, these representations have been tools employed by the makers of history and those at the top of the patriarchal system, used to control women’s images and thus women themselves. I survey these representations, which are largely created by men—until the 20th century. I discuss pre-historical …


Mirabai Comes To America: The Translation And Transformation Of A Saint, Nancy M. Martin Nov 2010

Mirabai Comes To America: The Translation And Transformation Of A Saint, Nancy M. Martin

Religious Studies Faculty Articles and Research

The story of the sixteenth-century Hindu saint Mirabai is told and performed in a multitude of genres in India across the centuries, and her songs generate a tradition of continuing composition in her name. Her popularity readily moves across boundaries of language, caste, class, religion, and culture not only within India but also beyond, taking root in American culture more broadly in the latter decades of the 20th century, as Americans begin looking for figures for inspiration and canonisation within an emerging non-institutionalised global spirituality and women around the world mine the past to find their spiritual foremothers. Her popularity …


In God We Trust: Images Of God And Trust In The United States Among The Highly Religious, F. Carson Mencken, Christoper Bader, Elizabeth Embry Jan 2009

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 …


The Family And Religion, Gordon Babst Dec 2007

The Family And Religion, Gordon Babst

Political Science Faculty Books and Book Chapters

This introduction focuses on religious beliefs in American families.


Images Of God: The Effect Of Personal Theologies On Moral Attitudes, Political Affiliation, And Religious Behavior, Christoper Bader, Paul Froese Jan 2005

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 …