Other Religion Commons^™

Janja Majstorovic, Marija Maracic, Josipa Karaca

SICANJE

No abstract provided.

The Quest Of Vision: Visual Culture, Sacred Space, Ritual, And The Documentation Of Lived Experience Through Rock Imagery, Aaron Robert Atencio

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This document will approach the multifaceted concepts that arise through the study of rock art and the cultivation of culture and belief through vision. Through this document the audience will encounter conceptual ideas regarding belief systems, ritual, experience, cognition, sacredness, and space/landscape — and how these are all essential dynamics that take place in the processes that cultivate the Shoshone visual culture. This document will employ an anthropological lens on the mentioned subject matters, while also approaching these concepts with an interdisciplinary curiosity of how they intermingle; creating a cohesive experience that focuses on these processes which empowered these people[s] …

Mending Identity: The Revitalization Process Of The Muisca Of Suba, Paola A. Sanchez Castaneda

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

For over five centuries, the Muiscas have faced direct colonial aggression against their traditional belief systems and sacred practices that have been historically demonized and driven to the brink of extinction. Despite such circumstances, however, the Muisca community has thrived to the present day, and since the turn of the twentieth century has begun to undergo a process of re-identification as an indigenous community in an attempt to revitalize their ethnic identity and practices. These efforts of re-indigenization have challenged their historically coerced identities, actively engaging in returning to traditional practices and beliefs, demand cultural and spiritual liberties, and regain …

The Ethical Import Of Entheogens, Joshua Falcon

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The term entheogen refers to drugs—including the artificial substances and active principles drawn from them—which are known to produce ecstasy and have been used traditionally in certain religious and shamanic contexts. The entheogenic experiences provoked by entheogens are described by users in myriad ways, including in spiritual, religious, philosophical, and secular contexts. Entheogenic experiences have shown that they can create opportunities for individuals to generate meaning, including novel philosophical insights, which users claim to gain by way of experience. As such, entheogenic experiences exhibit the ability to influence a change in a user’s fundamental philosophical commitments, or live options, including …

A New Taxonomy Of Altruism In Terms Of Prosocial Behaviors, Kristin Kaiser

Dialogue & Nexus

The definition of altruism has been studied, explained, and even confused by many scholars in various fields. The term itself has been inappropriately used to describe prosocial behaviors that do not fall within the definition of altruism. An evaluation of Grant Ramsey’s taxonomy of altruism, which includes biological altruism, psychological altruism, and helping altruism, proves that it is not adequate in categorizing organism’s behaviors. A new taxonomy, with the branches of kin selection, reciprocity, and aesthetic altruism, is presented and explained to clarify the definition of altruism and alleviate confusion about how to describe prosocial behaviors. Both naming systems are …

Panorama Of Popular Haitian Music And Folklore, Jean Wilner S. St Jean

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Haitian music has been influenced by the people who lived on the island from the native before the Columbus discovered Haiti to the United States occupation. This country is rich in culture which has impacted by the Creole identity. The overview of the different kind of Haitian music by categories and subcategories from the beginning to now. The government, the religion, the social class, and population play an important role in the popularity and acceptance of certain music.

Ancient Egyptian Figurines: An Investigation Into Manufacture, Use, And Culture., Kristina B. Donnally 2455289

Undergraduate Research Posters

I will analyze the social and religious role of figurines in Egyptian society. I will delve into the differences in the figurines in both manufacture and purpose between the Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms. I hope to look at religious, political, and other figurines to get a broad spectrum of usage for the artifacts. The main purpose of the research is to identify the time period, purpose, and usage for the figure donated to VCU by Professor Waybright. Questions I have is if the changes in political structure and minute changes in religion between each Kingdom affected the manufacture and …

The Transformations And Challenges Of A Jain Religious Aspirant From Layperson To Ascetic: An Anthropological Study Of Shvetambar Terapanthi Female Mumukshus, Komal Ashok Kumar

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the challenges that Shvetambar Terapanthi Jain female mumukshus (religious aspirants) face during their training at the Parmarthik Shikshan Sanstha, an institute unique to this sect dedicated to training young females to become nuns. The educational requirements, secluded social environment, disciplined rules, and monastic hierarchies train aspirants to understand the demands of nunhood. Based on interviews and observations, aspirants express their struggle to balance the personal desire to progress spiritually toward liberation (moksha) that motivated them to renounce with the requirement to raise their juniors as part of the ascetic community, a new kind of familial structure. The …

Media Representation Of Islam And Muslims In Southern Appalachia, Saundra K. Reynolds

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Southern Appalachian attitudes about the religion of Islam and Muslim adherents are influenced largely by mass media's representations. With more than 80% of Appalachia’s population following Protestant Christianity, exposure to Islam in daily life is limited. Media outlets offer the greatest exposure to information about the religion and its adherents. This thesis examined the region's media representation of Islam and Muslims to determine what images are most often portrayed. Research following a twoyear span of reporting in Southern Appalachia studied substance, word frequency, imagery, and editing used in articles that focused on Islam and Muslims. Through the use of content …

The Religification Of Pakistani-American Youth, Ameena Ghaffar-Kucher

Ameena Ghaffar-Kucher

This article describes a cultural production process called religification, in which religious affiliation, rather than race or ethnicity, has become the core category of identity for working-class Pakistani-American youth in the United States. In this dialectical process, triggered by political changes following the September 11 terrorist attacks, the Muslim identity is both thrust upon Pakistani-American youth by those who question their citizenship and embraced by the youth themselves. Specifically, the article examines the ways in which schools are sites where citizenship is both constructed and contested and the roles that peers, school personnel, families, and the youth themselves play in …

Gateways To The Goddess: Devotion To Kali In Cross-Cultural Perspective, Nicole C. Petersen

Departmental Honors Projects

Kali, the dark Hindu goddess of time and fierce Mother of the universe, has a pervasive global presence. This project traces Her from historical roots in India across borders to temples in California. A theoretical synthesis of the experiential approaches of sensory anthropology and Victor Turner's three-part model of ritual processes, the project presents an innovative approach through which to study and articulate devotion to Kali in diverse cultural contexts. Through textual research, interviews and observant participation, I analyze the process whereby devotees separate themselves from the mundane and enter liminal spaces of worship, understood both spatially and temporally. I …

Strategic Deployments Of ‘Sisterhood’ And Questions Of Solidarity At A Women’S Development Project In Janakpur, Nepal, Coralynn V. Davis

Faculty Journal Articles

Linguistic uses of ‘sisterhood’ provide a window into disparate understandings of relationality among virtual and actual interlocutors in women’s development across vectors of caste, class, ethnicity and nationality. In this essay, I examine the trope of ‘sisterhood’ as it was employed at a women’s development project in Janakpur, Nepal, in the 1990s. I demonstrate that the use of this common signifier of kinship with culturally disparate ‘signifieds’ created a confusion of meaning, and differential readings of the politics of relationality. In my view, ‘sister,’ as used at this project, was a multivalent, strategically deployed, and divergently interpreted term. In particular, …

Lucumí (Yoruba) Culture In Cuba: A Reevaluation (1830s -1940s), Miguel Ramos

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The status, roles, and interactions of three dominant African ethnic groups and their descendants in Cuba significantly influenced the island’s cubanidad (national identity): the Lucumís (Yoruba), the Congos (Bantú speakers from Central West Africa), and the Carabalís (from the region of Calabar). These three groups, enslaved on the island, coexisted, each group confronting obstacles that threatened their way of life and cultural identities. Through covert resistance, cultural appropriation, and accommodation, all three, but especially the Lucumís, laid deep roots in the nineteenth century that came to fruition in the twentieth.

During the early 1900s, Cuba confronted numerous pressures, internal and …

Secularity, Religion And The Possibilities For Religious Citizenship, Lyn Parker, Chang Yau Hoon

Chang Yau HOON

No abstract provided.

The Spirituality Of Food And Nutrition: A Critique Of The United States' Food Practices Through An Analysis Of Three Asian Religions And Philosophies, Kiley G. Hagerty

Senior Theses and Projects

There is no question that the United States is a country that is currently faced with serious health epidemics, such as hypertension and diabetes, associated with being overweight and obese. It has been the assumption of the government and the public that the large food corporations are to blame for the country’s poor health. However, it is too simplistic to believe that tighter regulations upon corporations would alone lead to improved health. There needs to be a change at the individual level, and of the practices of most of the country’s citizens. Through an analysis of three Asian religions (Hindu …

Why Chinese Neo-Confucian Women Made A Fetish Of Small Feet, Aubrey L. Mcmahan

Grand Valley Journal of History

Abstract for “Why Chinese Neo-Confucian Women Made a Fetish of Small Feet”

This paper explores the source of the traditional practice of Chinese footbinding which first gained popularity at the end of the Tang dynasty and continued to flourish until the last half of the twentieth century.[1] Derived initially from court concubines whose feet were formed to represent an attractive “deer lady” from an Indian tale, footbinding became a wide-spread symbol among the Chinese of obedience, pecuniary reputability, and Confucianism, among other things.[2]^,[3] Drawing on the analyses of such scholars as Beverly Jackson, Valerie Steele …

Beyond Dogma: The Role Of "Evolutionary" Science And The "Embodiment" Of Archetypal Energies, Carroy U. Ferguson

Carroy U "Cuf" Ferguson, Ph.D.

At individual and collective levels (locally, nationally, and globally), humanity is currently entertaining many challenges and opportunities for growth. In my view, these challenges and opportunities are connected to Energy shifts that are taking place on the planet, and the inability of some to move beyond dogma in relating to these Energy shifts. By its pre- and proscriptive nature, dogma fosters limiting beliefs that often interfere with how best to relate to these Energy shifts as vibrational beings in an evolving, vibrational world. Here, I want to briefly identify some of the limiting effects of dogma, and the role of …

The Sacred Role Of Animal Beings In Iroquois Lore, Melissa J. Martinelli

English Theses

The act of storytelling provides a connection between the spiritual and physical spheres, and the Haudenosaunee people (more commonly recognized as Iroquois) utilize the oral narrative to convey the most sacred truths of their culture. In focusing primarily upon animals and animal beings, one can recognize the deep reverence traditional tribal members feel toward animals as certain legends seek to unite individuals with the spirits, personalities, and bodies of such creatures in narrative form. Too often animals are overlooked as “lesser” beings, yet in legends of the Iroquois they possess potent orenda (great power) that can help one achieve success …

Shamanic Knowledge: The Challenge To Information Science, Jay H. Bernstein

Publications and Research

Shamanism, a form of healing involving soul travel and trance found in many traditional societies the world over, has been studied by anthropologists and scholars of religious studies. Shamanic traditions are characterized by specialized, restricted, and esoteric knowledge domains that are encoded and communicated through condensed and mystified symbols and reproduced in ceremonies. Shamanic knowledge is acquired through direct experience of the numinous, usually in the process of overcoming personal affliction. Information science so far has been silent on shamanic knowledge. This is understandable given the latter discipline's focus on formal documentary information systems and advanced information technologies. But in …

Beyond Tolerance: Consciously Using Universal Energy Laws, Discernment, And Harmonious Relationship Principles, Carroy U. Ferguson

Carroy U "Cuf" Ferguson, Ph.D.

Every day we, as human beings, maneuver through a myriad of circumstances in our individual and collective life spaces. Central to our experiences is the nature, kind, and quality of our relationships. When we encounter differences (racial, ethnic, cultural, religious, economic, sexual orientation, the mentally and physically challenged), a common issue that often emerges in our experiences is the extent to which we use tolerance in relating to other people and circumstances. For this reason, I want to discuss the nature of tolerance and its limitations, and how to move beyond tolerance by consciously using Universal Energy Laws, discernment, and …

Hamas Controlled Televised News Media: Counter- Peace, Allen Gnanam

Allen Gnanam

The hegemonic force of Hamas censored televised news media in Gaza, can not be fully comprehended and appreciated without recognizing the role of propaganda, censorship, and the historical context of the middle east. These 3 interrelated dimensions will be analyzed using functionalism, the mass society theory, the dominant ideology framework, the critical criminology framework, and the symbolic interactionist framework. Through censorship, Hamas news media outlets were able to unilaterally inject culturally relevant propaganda, into the minds of children and citizens. The hypodermic syringe model can be applied to the state controlled news media situation in Gaza, as the people of …

Historia Indigena E Do Indigenismo No Alto Rio Negro, Robin M. Wright

Robin M Wright

Capítulo 1: A Escravidão Indígena no Noroeste Amazônico. Capítulo 2: Histórias de Guerras e Alianças Capítulo 3: Kamiko, Profeta Baniwa, e o Canto da Cruz Capítulo 4: “Uma Conspiração contra os Civilizados”. Profetas no Uaupés e Xié Capítulo 5: Uétsu – Profeta de Pariká e Caapi Capítulo 6: O Tempo de Sophie: História e Cosmologia da Conversão Baniwa Capítulo 7: Novas Guerras: Os Baniwa, a Mineração, e o Projeto Calha Norte Capítulo 8: Fontes para a História do Alto Rio Negro Epílogo - 2003

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 …

'Listen, Rama’S Wife!’: Maithil Women’S Perspectives And Practices In The Festival Of Sāmā-Cakevā, Coralynn V. Davis

Faculty Journal Articles

As a female-only festival in a significantly gender-segregated society, sāmā cakevā provides a window into Maithil women’s understandings of their society and the sacred, cultural subjectivities, moral frameworks, and projects of self-construction. The festival reminds us that to read male-female relations under patriarchal social formations as a dichotomy between the empowered and the disempowered ignores the porous boundaries between the two in which negotiations and tradeoffs create a symbiotic reliance. Specifically, the festival names two oppositional camps—the male world of law and the female world of relationships—and then creates a male character, the brother, who moves between the two, loyal …

Taman Shamanism (Borneo), Jay H. Bernstein

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Critical Praxis, Spirit Healing And Community Activism: Preserving A Subversive Dialogue On Reparations, Christian Sundquist

Articles

African-American reparations have the potential to deconstruct racial privilege, promote racial reconciliation, and heal the psychic injuries of the African-American community. However, many models of reparations have given up on the promise of reparations in exchange for the slim possibility of short-term progress.

A subversive dialogue on African-American reparations, however, will inevitably critique equal opportunity, individualism, and white innocence and privilege. Embraced by the majority, and internalized by the African-American community, the principles of individualism, equal opportunity, and meritocracy reinforce white innocence and privilege to the extent that future, current and past inequality are cast as the natural and inevitable …

The Shaman's Destiny: Symptoms, Affliction, And The Re-Interpretation Of Illness Among The Taman, Jay H. Bernstein

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.