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Refractions Through The Secular: Islam, Human Rights And Universality, Zara Khan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Universal human rights (HR) are often theorized as philosophically neutral. Because they do not espouse any particular theory of the human being, it is argued, they can be reasonably appropriated by all. In this thesis, I explore HR’s universality claim, by focusing on the discourse’s secular foundation. In the universal human right to freedom of religion, I find a distinctly modern grammar of ‘religion,’ one that separates ‘religion’ from politics and power, law from morality, and the public and private realms. The modern concept of religion also espouses a secular theory of the human, insofar as the human is defined …

Breaking Cover: Confronting Crisis And Displacement In Timbuktu, Mali, Andrew Hernann

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In Spring 2012, a loose alliance of ethnic Tuareg nationalist and Jihadi-Salafist militant groups occupied Mali’s northern regions, forcibly displacing nearly 300,000 residents and ultimately imposing their harsh interpretation of shari’a among those who remained. Later, in January 2013, as these groups began marching towards southern Mali, the French army suddenly intervened, “liberating” urban centers in the North as the militants fled into the Sahara Desert and across the Algerian border. My research examines this period of occupation, displacement and intervention, which most Malians have come to term “the crisis.” Specifically, I analyze the cultural and religious frameworks through which …

The Relative Impact Of Psychosocial Well-Being And Mental Health On The Relationship Between Economic Circumstance And Religiosity, Veronica Momjian

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Employing Norris and Inglehart’s concept of existential security as a theoretical framework, this dissertation utilizes three data points from the Americans’ Changing Lives study (1986, 1994 and 2011) to interrogate the link between the economic circumstance and religiosity. More specifically, the mediating impact of psychosocial well-being and mental health on religiosity are explored.

This dissertation hypothesizes that individuals employ religious coping strategies to deal with the stress of economic uncertainty; and when that uncertainty subsides, so too does religiosity. The results of this study show that, on average, religiosity increases during times of economic instability, and decreases when the economy …

Lucumi And The Children Of Cotton: Gender, Race, And Ethnicity In The Mapping Of A Black Atlantic Politics Of Religion, Akissi M. Britton

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this dissertation I have examined claims to religious authenticity, purity, legitimacy and authority through the lens of a Black and African American Orisa community in Brooklyn, New York. Through these claims, made both internally and to a broader Orisa community within the United States and throughout different locales in the Black Atlantic, I have articulated how they are more often than not linked to very non-religious aspects of social life. Members of this community, and the broader Orisa Atlantic of which they are a part, do not practice this tradition in a social, cultural, or political vacuum. In fact, …