Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Unnecessary Evil: An Examination Of Abu Ghraib Torture Photographs As Postcolonial Resistance Rhetoric, Patrick Gerhardt Richey

Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the rhetorical nature of visual artifacts in a postcolonial context. In order to examine the nature of visual artifacts as a form of resistance against static ideologies and prevailing power structures, the author uses both media and cultural artifacts created in response to photographs taken of abused prisoners at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib Correctional Facility. The dissertation adds to scholarly knowledge of communication by addressing the intersections of iconographic visual communication and postcolonial resistance rhetoric. The dissertation provides a scholarly review of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, as well as of literature explicating …

Attitudes Toward Science And Stem Cell Research Based On Religious Worldview: Comparing The Views Of Theists, Naturalists, Skeptics, And Dualists Toward Science As An Institution, Method, And Application Of Knowledge, Jon Van Wieren

Dissertations

This dissertation is a study of attitudes toward science and stem cell research based on religious worldview. This study examines the relationship through General Social Survey data (2006).

Religious worldview is measured here through some of the most common measures of religiosity. This study differs from many other sociological studies of religiosity in that it includes the view of naturalism alongside other religious worldviews, including theism, dualism, and skepticism. Science is understood and measured here as multidimensional. Comparisons are made between attitudes toward science as a social institution, a research method, and as an application of knowledge - where attitudes …

Personality And Religiosity: The Influence Of Normative Personality On Black Sunni Muslims' Religious Attitudes And Practices, Halim Khidher Naeem

Dissertations

There is a dearth of literature on Black Sunni Muslims in the field of psychology. More so, there is no literature specifically analyzing the influences upon Black religiosity. The literature has established that personality has significant influence upon religiosity. The literature also says that females are more religious than their male counterparts. The present study analyzed the influence of personality, gender and social class upon religiosity for Black Sunni Muslims. The following hypothesis was investigated: Personality, gender, and social class will affect religious attitudes and practices.

A canonical regression analysis using SPSS revealed that personality, gender and social class had …

The Social And Political Philosophy Of Bertolt Brecht, Anthony Squiers

Dissertations

Bertolt Brecht is widely considered to be one of the most important figures in Twentieth Century literature. An acclaimed poet, he is best known as a playwright and director. His 'epic theatre' revolutionized the theatre by creating radical breaks from traditional literary and theatrical form. These radical breaks were done in an effort to facilitate radical social change. Specifically, Brecht designed his epic theatre as a revolutionary aesthetic which would help bring about the advent of a Marxist revolution. There is a broad corpus of academic work which analyzes the formalistic elements of his work. However, this body of work …

The Religious Aspects Of The 1893 Columbian Exposition: A Case Study Of Interreligious Interaction And Religious Pluralism In The Public Square, Cynthia Visscher

Dissertations

This case study of the religious aspects of the 1893 Columbian Exposition examines the conditions that supported religious pluralism in the public square in the nineteenth century; compares these conditions to contemporary social contexts, and; contributes to the sociological debate regarding the effect of increasing religious diversity on social structure in the United States.

The existing literature is more often focused on normative theory rather than empirical examination. This case study offers an empirical investigation of the accommodation of religious diversity in a society that was in early stages of secularization and addresses how a pluralistic public square existed. Specifically, …

Jimmy Carter’S Post-Presidential Rhetoric: Faith-Based Rhetoric And Human Rights Foreign Policy, Daniel Eric Schabot

Dissertations

Former President James Earl Carter is well known for his rhetorical efforts to promote human rights. Carter’s human rights advocacy is motivated and sustained by his belief that God duty-bounds him to assist those less fortunate than himself. Scholars generally concede, however, that as president, Jimmy Carter’s human rights accomplishments were minimal and that he failed to develop or institute consistent policies. This dissertation compares and contrasts Carter’s presidency and postpresidency with respect to human rights accomplishments, arguing that he was better able to serve an advocacy role when out of office. Carter, free of separation of church and state …

Popular Perceptions Of The Relationship Between Religious And Ethnic Identities: A Comparative Study Of Ethnodoxy In Contemporary Russia And Beyond, David M. Barry

Dissertations

The relationship between religion and ethnicity is well documented. However, previous studies have usually approached the relationship by focusing on the converging of two 'objective' social categories, religion and ethnicity. In doing so, the subjectivity, or the actor's own understanding of the interplay between religion and ethnicity is typically neglected. This study fills this gap by exploring popular perceptions of group identities and the affiliation with imagined ethno-religious communities. To accomplish this, the concept of ethnodoxy, first developed by Vyacheslav Karpov and Elena Lisovskaya, is applied that captures the belief that affiliation to an ethnic group's dominant religion is essential …

Faithful Remembering: Constructing Dutch America In The Twentieth Century, David E. Zwart

Dissertations

The people of the Dutch-American community constructed and maintained a strong ethnoreligion identity in the twentieth despite pressures to join the mainstream of the United States. A strong institutional completeness of congregations and schools resulted from and contributed to this identity. The people in these institutions created a shared identity by demanding the loyalty of members as well as constructing narratives that convinced people of the need for the ethnoreligious institutions.

The narratives of the Dutch-American community reflected and reinforced a shared identity, which relied on a collective memory. The framing, maintaining, altering, and remodeling of the collective memory from …

Toward A Holistic Interdisciplinary Model Of Human Being: A Hebraic-Christian Perspective Of The Human Observer And Its Beneficial Impact On The Theology-And-Science Dialogue, Society, And The Environment, Karen K. Abrahamson

Dissertations

Problem

A challenge faced by the theology-and-science dialogue is how to effectively communicate across disciplinary lines. The community assumes that there is a methodology or cluster of methodologies that allows for interdisciplinary conversation to take place. However, the community is not in agreement about how this process should occur or the hermeneutical principles that should guide it. Is it possible to surmount the problem of methodological compatibility and to generate mutually beneficial and fruitful dialogue through seeking a point of commonality between all the disciplines of the theology-and-science dialogue?

Purpose

The purpose of this dissertation is to discover a philosophical …