American Studies Commons^™

“The Jews Love Numbers”: Steven L. Anderson, Christian Conspiracists, And The Spiritual Dimensions Of Holocaust Denial, Matthew H. Brittingham

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

From his pulpit at Faithful Word Baptist Church (Independent Fundamental Baptist) in Tempe, AZ, fundamentalist preacher Steven L. Anderson launches screeds against Catholics, LGBTQ people, evolutionary scientists, politicians, and anyone else who doesn't share his political, social, or theological views. Anderson publishes clips of his sermons on YouTube, where he has amassed a notable following. Teaming up with Paul Wittenberger of Framing the World, a small-time film company, Anderson produced a film about the connections between Christianity, Judaism, and Israel, entitled Marching to Zion (2015), which was laced with antisemitic stereotypes. Anderson followed Marching to Zion with an almost 40-minute …

Wrestling With Angels: Postsecular Contemporary American Poetry, Paul T. Corrigan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the current “secular age,” more and more people find beliefs and behaviors associated with traditional religion intellectually and ethically untenable. At the same time, many “postsecular” writers, both believers and nonbelievers, continue to write with religious or religiously-inflected forms, themes, and purposes. In the United States, postsecular poets “wrestle with angels” by engaging constructively and deconstructively with matters traditionally considered the domain of religion and spirituality. While the recent work of Jürgen Habermas, Charles Taylor, John McClure and others puts the concept of the postsecular at the cutting edge of various fields of study, including religion, sociology, and literature, …

"Free Your Mind . . . And The Rest Will Follow": A Secularly Contemplative Approach To Teaching High School English, Kendra Nicole Bryant

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of my research is to provide high school English instructors and students a contemplative writing pedagogy that has the capacity to assist them in calming their bodies and quieting their minds so that they can focus their attention, openly explore self and others, rediscover their creativity, and reawaken their appreciation for the art of writing. Such a pedagogy is supported by mindfulness practices, which are exercises in moment-to-moment awareness that help to detach the practitioner from his or her thoughts. Mindfulness practices include breathing, walking, yoga, body scans, and visualizing; they provide quiet spaces wherein mind, body, and …

The Politics Of Pentecostalism; Does It Help Or Hinder Democratic Consolidation In Brazil?, Amber S. Johansen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Like so many other developing nations, Brazil has suffered from extreme inequality. Even though it has a healthy economy, free elections and multiple political parties, there are deep divides and unstable political institutions. The relatively recent transition to democracy has allowed a large and growing Evangelical community to emerge which is causing a religious shifting. The Pentecostal faith is providing alternative structures for social and political expression previously denied to many. Through community networks, many of Brazil's marginalized are accessing legitimacy, making them an undeniable force.

The focus of this paper is to determine if Pentecostalism undermines or strengthens democratic …

From Immortal To Mortal: Objectification And Perceptions Of A Woman's Soul, Nathan A. Heflick

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

Objectification most literally refers to perceiving a person as an object. Research shows that when people focus on a woman's appearance, compared to her personality, she is perceived of as more of an object (e.g., lower in human nature traits). These objectification effects, however, rarely occur for male targets. Moreover, humans, unlike objects, are typically believed to have a soul, that is, some part of the self that outlasts the death of the physical body and extends into a post-mortem existence (e.g., Heaven). In turn, I hypothesized that women, but not men, would be perceived as having less soul …

A Commentary On Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz's Discourse On Metaphysics #19, Richard Lamborn Samuel Lamborn

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This commentary on article #19 of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz's Discourse on Metaphysics is for the purpose of promoting the understanding of Leibniz on the role of teleology in physics. Understanding Leibniz on final causes is crucial to understanding his overall natural philosophy. If one approaches Leibniz with a bias regarding either final causes or protestant Christian theology, such that they ignore these aspects of Leibniz, such a person is in danger of completly misunderstanding this philosopher. Leibniz is a mix of natural philosophy, mechanical physics, and protestant Christian theology. The rationale behind this study is to cause the student of …

Religion As Aesthetic Creation: Ritual And Belief In William Butler Yeats And Aleister Crowley, Amy M. Clanton

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

William Butler Yeats and Aleister Crowley created literary works intending them to comprise religious systems, thus negotiating the often-conflicting roles of religion and modern art and literature. Both men credited Percy Bysshe Shelley as a major influence, and Shelley's ideas of art as religion may have shaped their pursuit to create working religions from their art. This study analyzes the beliefs, prophetic practices, myths, rituals, and invocations found in their literature, focusing particularly on Yeats's Supernatural Songs, Celtic Mysteries, and Island of Statues, and Crowley's "Philosopher's Progress," "Garden of Janus," Rites of Eleusis, and "Hymn to Pan." While anthropological definitions …

From Cosmogony To Anthropogony: Inscribing Bodies In Vedic Cosmogony And Samskara Rituals, Christine Boulos

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis argues that the inscription of bodies is necessary in order to constitute the cosmos, gender and sex. A study of the Vedic cosmogonic mythologies of the deities Purusha and Prajapati illustrates the ways in which sacrifice, as a form of inscription, constitutes the cosmos by ordering and fashioning the boundaries of the bodies of the deities through differentiation and unification. An analysis of samskaras, or consecratory rites of The Law Code of Manu, show that they operate as regulatory norms in order to constitute sex and gender. But the instability and unnaturalness of the categories of gender and …

The Existential Compromise In The History Of The Philosophy Of Death, Adam Buben

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

I begin by offering an account of two key strains in the history of philosophical dealings with death. Both strains initially seek to diminish fear of death by appealing to the idea that death is simply the separation of the soul from the body. According to the Platonic strain, death should not be feared since the soul will have a prolonged existence free from the bodily prison after death. With several dramatic modifications, this is the strain that is taken up by much of the mainstream Christian tradition. According to the Epicurean strain, death should not be feared since the …

Framing Christianity: A Frame Analysis Of Fundamentalist Christianity From 2000-2009, Rebecca Mackin Sitten

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative frame analysis examines how print media handles the concept of Fundamentalist Christianity. The researcher examined news reports in four prominent national newspapers over the ten-year period between 2000 and 2009 for references made to Fundamentalist Christianity. The sample is examined on the basis of Mark Silk's "topoi," a term taken from classical rhetoric meaning commonplaces or themes (1995). Silk outlines seven common topoi on which stories about religion are written, and these are utilized as a framework for this present study. While much has been written and researched on how religious groups, Fundamentalist Christians, and Evangelicals use mass …

Cicero And St. Augustine's Just War Theory: Classical Influences On A Christian Idea, Berit Van Neste

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The theology of Saint Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, and the origin of his theory of Just War are subjects of serious scholarly debate. Just War involved the use of the state army to eliminate heresy by killing heretics who refused to convert to mainstream Christianity. The purpose of this paper is to argue that Augustine primarily based his theory of Just War on Cicero's own theory of Just War.

Augustine was quite heavily influenced by Cicero. He credited Cicero with his own conversion to Christianity. He drew heavily from Cicero's works as a basis for many of his own writings, …