Digital Commons Network^™

Political Repression And Islam In Iran, Amy Kirk

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Signs with the slogan, ‘I am Neda’, flooded the streets of Tehran in the violent aftermath of the 2009 presidential elections and assassination of Neda Agha-Soltan. The internationally publicized video of Neda’s death became an iconic rallying point for the reformist opposition in Iran. Stringent clampdowns since the 1979 revolution have signified a sociopolitical change that has endured for three decades. President Khatami’s reform efforts of the late 1990s were stifled by Ahmadinejad’s election of 2005. Since Ahmadinejad’s appointment there has been little official tolerance for political and fundamental Islamic dissent, leading to serious human rights violations against the reformist …

Islamic-Catholic Relations: A Local And Global Comparison, Matthew Hoppler, Jennifer Bell, Ruth Donaghey

Global Studies Student Scholarship

In our modern world, religion remains one of the most important aspects of an individual’s life, no matter what faith they choose to celebrate. Given the world’s increasing interconnectedness and continuing globalization, members of different faiths are becoming more exposed to communities of one another. In modern times, the disagreements between faiths continue just as they have in the past; however there are more efforts on each side to overcome differences and establish a peaceful coexistence and mutual understanding. Two of the most prominent faiths in today’s world are Catholicism and Islam, which have many differences between them. As Americans, …

The Problem With Eating Money: Remittances And Development Within Senegal's Muridiyya, Rebecca F. Sheff

Political Science Honors Projects

Contemporary development theory is poorly equipped to understand remittance-based development occurring in transnational spaces that partially escape the control of the state. An extended case study of the Muridiyya, a Sufi brotherhood in Senegal, reveals how collective remittances from Mouride transmigrants become tools for community-level development when channeled through transnational religious associations. I argue that remittance-based development projects transform the political, economic, and social contexts in which they are embedded, including the relationship between the Muridiyya and the state. Development theory must be reconceptualized to account for how remittance-based development defies conventional understandings of the scales of economic and social …

Natural Resources As A Source Of Conflict In The Middle East, Alanna C. Torres

Pitzer Senior Theses

The purpose of my thesis was to counter Samuel Huntington’s argument that the world’s conflict is over differing civilizations, religions, or cultures. Whether or not religion is declining or growing, it cannot be used to portray the world in a 'cosmic war,' or a battle between 'good and evil'. Natural resources, not religions, rest at the basis for the Islamic fundamentalist and militant movement due to its response to the Western structural pressures that are modernizing Muslim societies. Oil and water become vital tools for exercising power and authority of one nation over another, and are identified as the true …

Sac Outreach Bulletin 2009, The South Asia Center

Newsletters from the South Asia Center

No abstract provided.

Wmu International News February 2009, Haenicke Institute For Global Education

WMU International News

In this issue:

Community celebration honors life of former president Haenicke

Universidad de Burgos and WMU celebrate a decade of study abroad

Funny Hats Ice Capades

WMU international researcher out to double the number of women in physics

Report from Shanghai

WMU CELCIS hosts writing class at University of Tokyo

Jared Edward Siang’ani spotlight

Notes And News- Fall 2009

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

NEW ON-LINE COURSES

CALL FOR PAPERS

CALL FOR PAPERS

CALL FOR PAPERS

CALL FOR PAPERS

Critical Han Studies Conference Report

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Last weekend (April 24-27), I and about 70 other students, scholars, and members of the public attended the Critical Han Studies conference held at Stanford University. Organized by Tom Mullaney of Stanford and China Beat, Jim Liebold of La Trobe University, Stéphane Gros of Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, and Stanford PhD student Eric Vanden Bussche, the conference drew scholars from around the world—China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, England, France, Belgium, Australia, Canada, and the U.S.—and from a wide variety of disciplines: history, anthropology, religious studies, literature, East Asian Studies, etc. Most importantly, it was a lot of fun. …

Religious Education Initiatives In Russia: Update And Commentary, Dr. Joseph A. Loya O.S.A.

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.

Sociology Of Islam & Muslim Societies, Newsletter No. 1, Tugrul Keskin, Gary Wood

Sociology of Islam & Muslim Societies Newsletter

Table of Contents:

• Welcome
• Dr. Kemal Silay’s at Virginia Tech
• Upcoming Conferences and Web Sites of Interest
• Forthcoming Edited Volume: Survey of Islamic Ideas and the Sociology of Islam & Muslim Societies
• Subscriber Statistics

Tensions In Poland Over Ecumenical Dialogue, Krystyna Gorniak-Kocikowska

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

"If I would use the phrase, ‘the specter of secularization is haunting Poland right now,’ that would be probably a good description of the present mindset of great number of people in Poland. The presently existing tensions are not, I think, inter-religious or inter-church tensions. The inter-religious tensions are marginal due to the dominant position of the Roman Catholic Church on the national level.

The potentially tension-building problem is the issue of secularization. Because the Roman Catholic Church was very strong in Poland even in the times of Communism, secularization was not perceived then as a serious danger, unless people …

Inter-Church And Inter-Religious Tensions In Postcommunist Eastern Europe: The Case Of Albania, Ines Angeli Murzaku

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.

Naming A Place Nicodemus, Rosamond C. Rodman

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Nicodemus, one of the first all-black settlements in Kansas, and the sole remaining western town founded by and for African Americans at the end of Reconstruction, has received a good deal of scholarly attention. Yet one basic matter about it remains unclear: how the town came by its unusual name. Most scholars now think that the name of the town derives from a legendary slave rather than the biblical character.

This essay challenges that consensus, contending the name Nicodemus indeed refers to the biblical character, and in doing so exemplifies the way that the dominated disguise their speech, making it …

International Studies Colloquium To Be Held With Visiting Professor, Meg Dubuque

News and Events (Discontinued Series)

No abstract provided.

Review Of A Seat At The Table: Huston Smith In Conversation With Native Americans On Religious Freedom By Huston Smith, Michael D. Mcnally

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

As Native American religious traditions have reached new visibility and vitality over the last forty years, it is clear that constitutionally protected religious liberty has not extended to Native American communities. This is no mere matter of a tragic past; it is of currency today as a human rights concern. Indeed, two landmark cases by which the Rehnquist Court shrank the reach of constitutional protection for religious minorities generally involved Peyote practices of the Native American Church and management of sacred sites on federal lands.

A Seat at the Table explores the wide range of these contemporary issues, from protection …

Race, Nation, And Religion In The Americas, Edited By Henry Goldschmidt And Elizabeth Mcalister, R. Bryan Bademan

History Faculty Publications

Book review by R. Bryan Bademan.

Goldschmidt, Henry and Elizabeth McAlister, eds. Race, Nation, and Religion in the Americas. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.

ISBN 978-0195149197

Religion Classes In State Institutions In Post-Soviet Russia, Joseph A. Loya O.S.A.

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.

Buddhist Exploration Of Peace And Justice, Ronald S. Green, Chanju Mun

Philosophy and Religious Studies

Contains five speeches and twenty-three articles presented in the Fifth International Seminar on Buddhism and Leadership for Peace on the theme "Exploration of Ways to Put Buddhist Thought into Social Practice for Peace and Justice." The seminar was held under the joint auspice of Dae Won Sa Buddhist Temple of Hawaii and the Korean Buddhist Research Institute of Dongguk University, 1991.

Church And State Relations In Present-Day Serbia: Part Iv Serbia Within The European Context, Angela Ilić

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.

Dialogue Is The Only Way To Prevent Disaster, Ismail Bardhi

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.

Religious Schools: For Spirit, (F)Or Nation, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In this paper I draw attention to the study of 'unofficially sacred' sites in geographies of religion, which provide significant insights into the construction of religious identity and community, and the intersections of sacred and secular. I show that such sites deserve as much attention as places of worship (the more conventional focus in the geographical study of religion) in our understanding of the place of religion in contemporary urban society. In particular, using the case of Islamic religious schools in Singapore, I examine how Muslim identities and community are negotiated within multicultural and multireligious contexts, and particularly within one …

Review Of Roger Ames And David Hall, Daodejing: Making This Life Significant: A Philosophical Translation, Alan Kam Leung Chan

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Is there a need for another translation of the Laozi Daodejing? Although there are already over 100 translations in English alone, this present effort by Ames and Hall marks a welcome addition, in that it offers an engaging philosophical account of the Daodejing as chiefly concerned with “making this life significant.”

The Catholic Church In Hungary Now, András Máté-Tóth

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.

Shrader's "The Muslim-Croat Civil War In Central Bosnia – A Military History, 1992-1994" - Book Review, Tal Tovy

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.

Review Of Preserving The Sacred: Historical Perspectives On Ojibwa Midewiwin By Michael Angel, Katherine Pettipas

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

This volume is a critical historiography of the nature and meaning of the Midewiwin as it was, and still is, practiced by southwestern, western, and northern Anishinaabeg (Ojibwa or Chippewa) in both Canada and the United States. A self-described "culturally sensitive outsider," Angel has approached his subject from an interdisciplinary perspective, drawing heavily from religious studies and historic and ethnographic documentation. The origins and functions of the Midewiwin are examined within the contexts of Anishinaabeg religion and society. Angel takes issue with the classification of the Midewiwin as a "revitalization movement" or a "crisis cult" by demonstrating that the "essential …

Reflections On The Contemporary Religious "Revival" Religion, Secularization, Globalization, Nonka Bogomilova

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.

Review Of Archbishop A.-A. Tache Of St. Boniface: The "Good Fight" And The Illusive Vision By Raymond J. A. Hue!, Robert Choquette

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Alexandre Tache, one of the very first Canadians to join the French Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate who arrived in Canada in 1841, was sent to work in Canada's Northwest in 1845 where he became second bishop of St. Boniface in 1853, and later archbishop. He remained there until his death in 1894, a half-century during which the region was transformed from a vast hunting emporium for furs to a refuge for tens of thousands of Canadian, American, and European settlers brought into the area after 1860 on the rapidly expanding tracks of American and then Canadian railways. Tache built …

Aagaard & Bouteneff's "Beyond The East-West Divide: The World Council Of Churches And The Orthodox Problem" - Book Review, Paul L. Gavrilyuk

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.

Time To Make History, Time To Educate Women: A Narrative Of The Life And Work Of Christiana Thorpe Of Sierra Leone, Whitney Mcintyre Miller

Education Faculty Articles and Research

An examination of the life of Christiana Thorpe, a former nun from Sierra Leone who worked to improve education for girls and served as the only woman in a cabinet of nineteen members (as Minister of Education), then worked with the United Nations Development Programme and UNESCO amidst war and rebellion in her country.

Theology And Religious Studies In Post-Communist Ukraine: Historical Sources, Modern Status, And Perspectives Of Cooperation, Lyudmyla Filipovych, Anatoly M. Kolodny

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.