Religion Commons^™

The Integration Of Assistive Technology By Female In-Service Teachers Of Students With Learning Disabilities In Saudi Arabia: A Qualitative Interview Study, Badriah Alotaiby

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The aim of this study is to explore the teachers’ perceptions of integrating assistivetechnology into the curriculum for students with learning disabilities in Saudi Arabia. It is known that teaching students with learning disabilities had been one of the significant difficulties in the past and nowadays. Therefore, integrating assistive technology into the educational process would make it easier for the teachers of students with learning disabilities to teach these students through the use of integrating assistive technology. The use of such assistive technologies will be beneficial for learning disabilities students as well. The main question guiding this research is: What …

The Theoretical Epigenetic Relationship Between Complex-Ptsd And Adhd In Holocaust Survivors’ Descendants, Y. Sahara Brodsky

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

When comparing ADHD and Complex-PTSD, these two disorders share many overlapping features in both areas of the brain that are affected and the behavioral aspects due to deficits in certain brain regions, such as the prefrontal cortex. It is due to this similarity that I predict that c-PTSD is the precursor to the development of ADHD in later generations. Through epigenetic changes that are consistent with c-PTSD diagnosis, these changes to the brain are then passed down the generational line. When this is combined with trauma transference and generational trauma, it creates a situation where both the behaviors inform how …

Apertures In Recollections A Mental Trauma Response To The Holocaust Experience, Nicole T. Broxterman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Apertures in recollections studies the interview process used with Holocaust survivors as a method of assisting them in filling the gaps in their memories. Holocaust survivors were subjected to life altering experiences that have caused holes in the memories they share with us. In this thesis I go over the efficacy of multiple session interviewing to enhance a trauma survivors’ memory of events. The methodology of Dori Laub and Henry Greenspan is used to enhance the way I witnessed a personal experience while transcribing Helen Kahan’s interview for The Florida Holocaust Museum’s Dimensions in Testimony exhibit. Using these perspectives I …

Differentiating Magic: A Call For A Differential Approach, Weston L. Wright

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This paper seeks to propose an alternative approach for studying magic. It is often the case inacademia, when studying magic, scholars use an understanding of modernity which favors a scientific perspective. When doing so, some scholars have concluded magic has become extinct in our modern society; despite recent research suggesting magical practice is thriving. Likewise, this scholarship promotes an idea of magic grounded in fear, ignorance, superstition, and fraudulence. The goal of this paper is two-fold. First, I seek to advocate for an approach to magic that allows for a plurality of perspectives to be acknowledged, not just a scientific …

The Role Of Muslim Women In Nigeria’S Socioeconomic Development Through The Implementation Of The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, Faqiat Afolake Adeaga

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research explores the often underestimated yet pivotal role of Muslim women in propelling socio-economic development in Nigeria, specifically focusing on the implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The primary research question seeks to comprehend the transformative impact of faith-based women-led NGOs, including Ansar-ud- Deen, Nawair-ud-Deen, FOMWAN, and NASFAT, on Muslim women's empowerment and their contribution to SDG1 (extreme poverty), SDG3 (health), SDG4 (education), and SDG5 (gender equality) in Nigeria. Simultaneously, the secondary research question explores successful strategies employed by these organizations in empowering Muslim women, with a keen focus on potential areas for improvement. Incorporating research …

Reviving The Christian Left: A Thematic Analysis Of Progressive Christian Identity In American Politics, Adam Blake Arledge

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

While Christianity in American politics today is mostly dominated by the voice of the Religious Right, many are unaware that there also exists a significant number of progressive Christians throughout the country. This diverse group, often referred to as the Christian Left, is not as organized or outspoken as conservative Christians and tends to shy away from the restrictive influence of identity labels. However, members all share in common a passion for social justice issues. This study aims to gain a deeper understanding of the identity of Christian Left individuals through a thematic analysis of interviews. By interrogating participants’ identity …

The Need To Address Religious Diversity At Work: An All-Inclusive Model Of Spirituality At Work, Ivonne Valero Cázares

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis discusses the importance of embracing religion and spirituality in the workplace as an aspect of workplace diversity. This document aims to help us understand the definition of spirituality at the workplace and its constituents.

We conducted a literature review from predominant scholars about the salience of spirituality and religion at the workplace and its relevance to building meaning, connectedness, and a sense of belonging. We will also review Maslow's theory of Human Needs, his research on human peak-experiences, and its correlation to self-actualization and transcendence.

We will present a new model of Spirituality and Religion at the workplace …

Interpreting 9/11: Religious Or Political Event?, Fadime Apaydin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Terrorism or violence can be triggered by a variety of circumstances, including the religious, cultural, political, or economic conditions of the social environment, as well as the perpetrator’s personal characteristics. However, studies conducted in the aftermath of 9/11 have largely described the attacks as religious events, arguing that religion inherently causes violence or that religion is the main motivation for violence. The primary argument for the approach adopted by such studies is that secular institutions are inclined to be less violent than religious ones. A second approach, on the other hand, fundamentally opposes the arguments that led to describing the …

Complex Identities: Putting Casey Plett’S Fiction In A Trans And Religious Studies Context, Catherine Brown

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The work of Casey Plett is a prime place to discuss the experiences of being transgender and a Mennonite. However, her writing has received little discussion in the field of trans and religious studies, simply because fiction is rarely the focus of analysis in the field. This thesis argues that not only does fiction have a place in the field, but that there are unique analytic tools, such as trans standpoint theory, that can be used in the analysis of works of fiction to heighten what is gained and found in the endeavor. And so, this thesis not only argues …

"Theology" In The Public University, Sarah T. White

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Recent studies have suggested the transformative potential of “theological” inquiry anddiscourse in religious studies, particularly, in furthering religious literacy and peace building initiatives through greater understanding of “other”. Yet, “theology” is a relatively new academic approach to peace building and conflict studies and is still marginalized to a large degree in secular universities. Vigorous inquiry into the intrinsic value and potential role of “theological” inquiry and discourse in secular academics, as well as possible pedagogical strategies, are worthwhile and necessary towards achieving the wider aims of the secular university. To those ends, this paper presents a broad survey of the …

Hegel And Schelling: The Emptiness Of Emptiness And The Love Of The Divine, Sean B. Gleason

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I argue that, all appearances to the contrary, Hegel does not attempt to achieve a complete systematization of reason in a self-reflexive sense in his system of philosophy. Quite the opposite, I maintain that the absolute Idea is the actuality of the self-transcendence of the divine. Along these lines, I argue (in agreement with Slavoj Žižek) that the absolute “Idea” is non-total and incomplete; in this sense, Hegel is neither a modern thinker nor a post-modern thinker, but rather he presents a version of thinking that is both modern and post-modern, while neither merely one nor the …

The Mass Is The Medium: Marshall Mcluhan And Roman Catholic Liturgical Change, Ashil D. Manohar

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The liturgical changes of Vatican II sought to bring a period of renewal to the Catholic laity by encouraging active participation and making the Mass more simple to understand. However, the time after the Council was characterized by confusion and disengagement by the laity. I will be discussing three significant changes to the liturgy at this time, The change from Latin to the vernacular, the change in the orientation of the altar and priest, and the change in acoustics, sound, and music. I will be examining all of these changes through the media theory of Marshall McLuhan, famous for coining …

White Too Long: Christianity Or Nationalism?, Rachel E. Osborne

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Tension, racism, and violence being enacted in the name of Christianity have brought new attention to the work of many scholars of religion who have documented and analyzed the relationship between white Christianity and racism in the U.S. In his 2020 book White Too Long, Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) director and religious studies scholar Robert P. Jones states unequivocally that “[i]n survey after survey, white Christians stand out in their negative attitudes about racial, ethnic, and religious minorities (especially Muslims), the unequal treatment of African Americans by police and the criminal justice system, their anxieties about the changing face …

Warfare In Christianity And Islam: Unveiling Secular Justifications And Motivations Behind So-Called Religious Violence, Onur Korkmaz

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The phenomenology of religion has received the most attention in social science because it has shaped society on social, political, and economic levels throughout history. Religion can be an organization that brings people together and develops a sense of identification, while also acting as a divisive structure for those of other faiths or nonbelievers. And so, we have witnessed the rise of both religious tendencies and violent acts for the last two decades, occasionally intertwined. Various belief systems have increasingly become a factor that politicians, intellectuals, and the mainstream media associate with violence-based modern warfare. However, scholars and analysts who …

Mystic Medicine: Afro-Jamaican Religio-Cultural Epistemology And The Decolonization Of Health, Jake Wumkes

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The underlying motivation for this thesis is the position that colonialism, or coloniality, continues to thrive as an ideological and institutional framework all over the world, to the detriment of the majority of the population of the earth, and particularly of indigenous peoples and the African diaspora. Thus, what is sought here is a decolonization both of mind and institutions. Looking at the case of Jamaica, one can see how coloniality continues to undermine the beliefs, behaviors, institutions, and overall well-being of the majority African-descended population of the island in many ways both culturally and economically. I narrow my focus …

Legitimizing Violence: Functional Similarities Of The Religious And The Secular Violence, Tahir Topal

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As a consequence of the separation between religion and politics, known as secularism, the discussion about violence has also been divided into two main categories –Religious Violence and Non-Religious Violence– in the modern Western academia. The tendency of the leading scholarly work in the discourse of "religious violence" is that "religion" is inclined to be violent more than secular institutions for several reasons. Therefore, the state's violence, as being secular, steps in to bring peace. And the foundational cause of the theories relies heavily on the essential differences of "religion" and the secular. With counter-arguments, William T. Cavanaugh and Talal …

Abelard's Affective Intentionalism, Lillian M. King

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The work contained within this dissertation is a textual exegesis of Abelard’s ethics. The goal is to elucidate Abelard’s sort of intentionalism given his use of “intention” within his wider corpus, the grammatical and syntactical patterns in his prose, and Abelard’s own interests, biography, and situation as a twelfth-century monastic figure. As a result, this project should be understood as a history of philosophy dissertation. I am not attempting to build upon Abelard’s ideas but to clarify them. This is not to say that building upon Abelard’s ideas is not a worthwhile project. It is merely to say that doing …

From Meaningful Work To Good Work: Reexamining The Moral Foundation Of The Calling Orientation, Garrett W. Potts

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The calling orientation to work represents the seed that has germinated into the exponentially growing ‘work as a calling’ literature. It was first articulated by Robert Bellah, Richard Madsen, William Sullivan, Ann Swidler, and Steven Tipton within Habits of the Heart in the 1980s. The following critical analysis of the ‘work as a calling’ literature, and of the moral foundation of the calling orientation more specifically, is intended for two particular audiences.

The first audience broadly includes an interdisciplinary group of scholars working within business ethics, management, organizational psychology, and vocational psychology, among other fields of study. Amidst these scholars’ …

Three Theorists On Religious Violence In An Islamic Context: Karen Armstrong, Mark Juergensmeyer, And William T. Cavanaugh, Ayse Camur

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Religion is often invoked as a driving force behind violence, disentangled from political, social, and economic reasons. In this thesis, we will be exploring the viewpoints of three prominent religious thinkers in investigating the principal causes behind what is called religious violence. The works of Karen Armstrong, Mark Juergensmeyer, and William T. Cavanaugh are considered as theoretical frameworks for understanding violence in an Islamic context. While Armstrong argues that the root cause of violence can be traced back to economic, political, and cultural reasons, Juergensmeyer contests that religion is the most important cause underlying all violence. In their analyses, both …

Reasoning Of The Highest Leibniz And The Moral Quality Of Reason, Ryan Quandt

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Loving God is our highest perfection for Leibniz. It secures our belief and trust in the Creator, which is integral to the sciences as well as faith. Those who love God have justification for reasoning, that is, they can rationally expect to arrive at truth. This is because love is a receptivity to the perfection all of things; loving God, then, is a disposition and tendency toward the most perfect being, the ens perfectissimum. Individuals who perceive the divine nature “do not merely fear the power of the supreme and all-seeing monarch,” Leibniz writes, “but are assured of his beneficence, …

“Living Creatures Of Every Kind:” An Ecofeminist Reading Of Genesis 1-3, T. G. Barkasy

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This work will examine the Genesis creation narratives through an ecofeminist critical lens to illuminate the ambivalence regarding both the ecological and feminist concerns pertinent to ecofeminist criticism. While ecology and feminism are major issues in today’s social and political climates, ecofeminism and its presence in biblical scholarship is not as prevalent as one might think. When it is discussed, authors come to varying conclusions on the Bible’s stance about either nature or gender, and discussions that consciously espouse ecofeminist methodology are so far insufficient. This work utilizes the documentary hypothesis in order to examine the parallel narratives of creation …

Complex Tripartite Hydro Politics Of River Ganges, Muttaki Bin Kamal

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This paper studies if the Flagship Namami Gange program of Cleaning the river Ganges in India aligns with the transcendental discourse on the river. Web contents as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter along with Indian English daily newspaper reports are used here as the source of data. The study shows that the program aligns with the transcendental discourse on river Ganges as the Mother Goddess and reaching out to her devotees.

Augustine's Confessiones: The Battle Between Two Conversions, Robert Hunter Craig

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There are four aspects of Augustine’s thought in the Confessiones that have been challenged and redefined in this dissertation: the full contextual matrix as to place, setting, and motivation for writing in Carthage North Africa 397C.E.; the genre and structural framework utilized by Augustine in framing this treatise using Plato’s Allegory of the Cave in Book VII of the Republic; “Confession” redefined as confession of sin, confession of faith and confession of truth; and the meaning or purpose for writing in regards to his scriptural philosophy of consciousness and to the redefining of Socratic ratiocination based on humanistic pagan …

The Medievalizing Process: Religious Medievalism In Romantic And Victorian Literature, Timothy M. Curran

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Medievalizing Process: Religious Medievalism in Romantic and Victorian Literature posits religious medievalism as one among many critical paradigms through which we might better understand literary efforts to bring notions of sanctity back into the modern world. As a cultural and artistic practice, medievalism processes the loss of medieval forms of understanding in the modern imagination and resuscitates these lost forms in new and imaginative ways to serve the purposes of the present. My dissertation proposes religious medievalism as a critical method that decodes modern texts’ lamentations over a perceived loss of the sacred. My project locates textual moments in …

From Object To Other: Models Of Sociality After Idealism In Gadamer, Levinas, Rosenzweig, And Bonhoeffer, Christopher J. King

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation offers an account of the different ways in which putatively idealist and transcendental models of sociality, which grounded the subject’s relation to other human beings in the subject’s own cognition, were rejected and replaced. Scrapping this account led to a variety of models of sociality which departed from the subject as the ground of sociality, positing grounds outside of the subject. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Emmanuel Levinas, Franz Rosenzweig, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer represent alternative positions along a spectrum of models of sociality which reject the idealist concept of sociality.

The central argument of this dissertation claims that the responses to …

Changing Changelessness: On The Genesis And Development Of The Doctrine Of Divine Immutability In The Ancient And Hellenic Period, Milton Wilcox

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This project will track and explain the development of the Doctrine of Divine Immutability from early mythological and scriptural source material that seems to indicate that divine entities are changeable into metaphysical systems that demand a perfectly consistent deity. The Doctrine of Divine Immutability is a philosophical and theological postulate that has long been a staple of systematic metaphysics and theology, but its function in robust and fully formed systems is different than its function when it is first generated in Ancient Greece and Judah. Methodologically mostly primary sources are studied and compared with interpretive help from relevant secondary sources. …

Practical Theology In An Interpretive Community: An Ethnography Of Talk, Texts And Video In A Mediated Women's Bible Study, Nancie Hudson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study of social interaction in a small religious group used ethnography of communication as a research method to collect and analyze data from 20 months of fieldwork. As a long-term participant-observer in a women-only interdenominational Bible study, I investigated the group’s patterned ways of speaking, how print and electronic learning materials influenced the practical application of Scripture to daily life, and how the contemporary format for women’s Bible study alters the traditional Bible study experience. Patterned ways of speaking in this setting included group discussions and conversational narratives about religion, motherhood and lack of time. Using affirmations of faith, …

"Ocurrió La Unión Con La Divinidad, Con El Universo": La Representación De La Religión En Los Cuentos De Jorge Luis Borges, Rachel K. West

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Jorge Luis Borges is considered by many to be a pioneering author in 20th-century Latin American literature. Although he had a wide variety of themes and leimotifs in his literature, one of his most apparent was religion. However, given that he was agnostic, the way in which Borges often utilized it varied, creating a tangled web of many different religions and traditions in his literature. Further, the religious representations one sees in his literature serve a greater purpose by allowing him to both uncover his own concept of literary creation while at the same time exploring philosophical and metaphysical themes. …

Divine Temporality: Bonhoeffer's Theological Appropriation Of Heidegger's Existential Analytic Of Dasein, Nicholas Byle

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation’s guiding question is: What was the impact of Martin Heidegger’s early philosophy on Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s theology? I argue that Heidegger’s analysis of Dasein, his technical term for human existence, provides Bonhoeffer with important conceptual tools for developing his Christology, from which the rest of his theology follows.

Part of recognizing Heidegger’s importance to Bonhoeffer involves understanding the latter’s critiques of previous notable philosophers such as Kant, Hegel, Husserl, and Scheler. As Bonhoeffer evaluates these philosophers, they lead to theologically unacceptable positions. Heidegger, in contrast, has come to a theologically profitable understanding of human existence and epistemology. Though there …

Spiritual Frameworks In Pediatric Palliative Care: Understanding Parental Decision-Making, Lindy Grief Davidson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Parents of seriously ill children are charged with making complicated medical decisions, and many of those decisions are made during their children’s hospitalizations. As medical staff seek to support parents, it is important for them to understand what resources parents are drawing upon for decision-making. This project explored parental decision-making by examining the following research questions: RQ1: What resources do parents draw upon to make medical decisions for their seriously ill children? RQ2: How do parents enact their spiritual or religious frameworks in clinical settings when faced with medical decisions for their seriously ill children? Methods of research included ethnographic …