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Catholic Studies Newsletter 2024, Sacred Heart University

Catholic Studies Newsletter

Highlights: CS Minor Attends Summer Seminar on Integral Ecology -- Faculty Profile: Anna Ramirez -- The Center for Catholic Studies: Spring Speaker Series and Bergoglio Lectures -- Center for Catholic Studies Awarded $30K Grant for Social Justice Seminar.

Watering A Dying Canopy: How Peter Berger Can Help Us Understand Communication In A Modern Age, Julia M. Richardson

Student Scholarship

In many instances of conflict and confusion, effective communication can be a useful tool in solving problems. When individuals experience a breakdown in communication, it can be frustrating as well as harmful for everyone involved. This autoethnography seeks to explain and remedy issues of communication breakdown through the lens of religious theory, primarily with regard to Peter Berger’s ideas of world construction and maintenance. When once taken-for-granted “worlds” that provide stability become threatened, one way communities respond is by isolating themselves from ideas which pose a threat to their way of life. In a new age of pluralism, this isolation …

Donor Honors Former English Professor With New Ud Award For Writing Excellence, Dave Larsen

College of Arts and Sciences Newsroom

Bart Ng, dean and professor emeritus at IUPUI, wanted to make a gift in honor of John D. Groppe.

Caring For Creation: Catholics, Justice, And Socio-Ecologies In Appalachia, Dominic Wilkins

Dissertations - ALL

Geographers have long studied the challenge of achieving holistic justice. Rather than something found wholly within human relations, in recent years these analyses have increasingly understood justice as socio-ecological. The Catholic Church is a global institution with more than 1.3 billion adherents and millions of employees operating hundreds of thousands of parishes, schools, and other institutions across the world. The Church has long centered justice through both activism and intellectual theorizing. To date, however, geographers have not rigorously engaged this work or the ongoing environmental turn within the Catholic Church and its conceptions of justice. Scholars specializing in religions and …

Representation Matters: A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Media Texts About Eight Black Women College Presidents At 4-Year Institutions, Laura Hazel Jack

Dissertations - ALL

Research has found that diversity has a positive impact on innovation, but the profile of higher education leaders has not become drastically more diverse. Although there have been modest changes, they have not been consistent with the changing demographics of college students. The few high-profile presidential appointments of Black women that have received media attention have been the exception rather than the norm. This dissertation used critical discourse analysis and content analysis to examine how eight Black women college presidents were written about in the media. The research questions explored the discourse about Black women college presidents and their leadership …

An Analysis Of The Musical Gestures In Osvaldo Golijov’S The Dreams And Prayers Of Isaac The Blind And Their Relationship To The Kabbalah Sefirot, Jeremy Gdaniec

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Osvlado Golijov’s The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind, scored for klezmer clarinet and string quartet, remains one of his most influential works since its premier in 1994. Inspiration for the work came from the writings of Rabbi Isaac the Blind, a prominent 13^th century figurehead in the branch of Jewish mysticism known as Kabbalah. In Kabbalah, symbols known as the sefirot are emanations of creation and the key to unlocking the divine secrets of the God-head. The analysis presented in this document combines musical gesture theory with Kabbalistic concepts for new perspectives on Golijov’s …

Initiated Reading: Occult Hermeneutics In Helena Blavatsky's Isis Unveiled, Diana Brown

Dissertations - ALL

In this dissertation, I argue that Theosophical Society co-founder Helena Petrovna Blavatsky’s first major work, Isis Unveiled (1877), describes an occult hermeneutic of myth based on the privileging of intuition, theorized especially in Neoplatonic terms, and premised on a tripartite spirit-soul-body constitution of the human being. Her hermeneutic also privileges initiation, construed as experiential gnosis often produced by ritual, and she opposes both intuition and initiation to reason and empiricism. Theorizing global myths as allegories revealing elements of a universal religion, or secret doctrine, traceable to India, she brings together an esotericism premised on a combination of Indian religion and …

Between Visits: Hindu Domestic Religiosity, Home Shrines, And Thirdspace In The Diaspora, Aarti Patel

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation analyzes the importance of the domestic sphere as a site for the transmission and development of an individual devotional disposition for Swaminarayan Hindus living in the United States and Canada. Focusing on Hindus in the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS) community living in Canada and the United States, this dissertation presents a new direction for existing scholarship of Hinduism in the public sphere by arguing for a more holistic study of how Hindus living outside of India develop and maintain a religious identity in their daily lives in the domestic sphere, both collectively as a family and …

Fifty-Eighth Commencement (Undergraduate), Sacred Heart University

Commencement Programs

Program for undergraduate ceremonies, May 11, 2024.

Fallen Creator And Failed Christ: An Exploration Of Religious Imagery And Metafiction In Ian Mcewan’S Atonement, Tabitha Robinson

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

This paper examines the religious imagery in Atonement by Ian McEwan through a close reading of the structure and main characters Briony, Cecilia and Robbie. The novel is deeply concerned with questions of sin and redemption, which intersect with religious symbolism and metafiction to create the story. This paper reads Briony as both a creator god and a failed Christ figure and Cecilia and Robbie as Adam and Eve characters, showing the text’s self-awareness through its use of narrative to create meaning. It argues that the field of religious studies offers many theories and terms that enrich the field of …

Participation In The Martyred Christ: Augustine Of Hippo On Martyrdom And Martyr Veneration, Matthew Esquivel

Religious Studies Theses and Dissertations

In Augustine’s North Africa, when the likelihood of being a martyr virtually disappeared, various practices of martyr veneration were the means by which the church communed with the martyrs, obtained their intercessory aid, and experienced miracles associated with their relics. Augustine reflected upon the meaning of martyrdom in the midst of two unique contexts: 1) the socio-political context, in which the Roman empire had ceased persecuting the church and had adopted Nicene Christianity as the official religion of the empire, and 2) the ecclesial context, which included the martyr veneration practices inherited from preceding generations and the competing claims to …

Radical Explorations Of Radical Empiricism: William James’S Transmissive Theory Of Mind In The Context Of Visionary Experience, Rita Spellman

Religious Studies Theses and Dissertations

The dominant ontology in science is a form of materialism and it filters down into the social sciences in ways I will touch on throughout this paper. The influence of the current dominant ontology is especially apparent when it comes to experiences and phenomena that challenge its underlying assumptions which is why I will primarily focus on visionary experience and psi phenomena as studied by radical empiricists throughout the ages.

The philosophical position of William James challenges materialist assumptions by championing the idea that the only world we can speak of is the world of our experience. William James affords …

2024 Ursinus College Commencement Progam, Ursinus College

Ursinus College Commencement Programs

This Ursinus College Commencement program from 2024 contains the list of speakers, honors, awards and order of events for the day.

Moral Exemplars Of Note - Rodney Paul Gilliam, Sam And Pearl Oliner

Moral Exemplars Study

No abstract provided.

Considering Globalized Christian Supremacy In Our Discourse About Higher Education Internationalization, Sachi Edwards

Critical Internationalization Studies Review

No abstract provided.

Liquid Light: Ayahuasca Spirituality And The Santo Daime Tradition, Bonnie Glass-Coffin

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Liquid Light is an important addition to the growing number of published accounts that discuss the use of ayahuasca (known by the name, Daime), and its role within Santo Daime, a fundamentally Christian though highly syncretic new religious movement founded in 1930 in the Amazonian state of Acre by an Afro-Brazilian rubber tapper known to followers as Mestre Irineu. The text is a richly descriptive account of Barnard’s own evolution as a fardado (Santo Daime initiate) and includes first-hand accounts of his participation in many kinds and types of Santo Daime worship services in both the United States …

The Ecclesiology Of Catalino G. Arévalo: Inculturation, Mission, And Liberation In The Philippine Context, Zachary Ryan Dehm

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Catalino G. Arévalo, S.J., was an eminent Filipino ecclesiologist of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Through his work for the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences in particular, he played a significant role in the reception of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) in Asia and in the development of inculturation as a theological norm. Yet, Arévalo offered no systematic articulation of his theology of the church. By examining his work spanning seven decades, this dissertation traces the development of Arévalo’s ecclesiology and offers five foundational principles necessary for gaining a systematic understanding of his thought: (1) ecclesiology must be situated within …

“Freakish Man”: Sexual Blues, Sacred Beliefs, And The Transformation Of Black Queer Identity, 1870-1957., Xavier E. Sivels

Theses and Dissertations

“‘Freakish Man’: sexual blues, sacred beliefs, and the transformation of Black queer identity, 1870-1959” investigates how queer Black men expressed their gender and sexual identities. It follows how, from the days of Reconstruction to the modern civil rights movement, queer Black men used various aspects of Black culture—particularly the blues, working-class social culture, and charismatic religion—to form identities that departed from dominant Black and white norms. The “freakish man” emerged as queer Black men cultivated legible, subversive gender and sexual identities in sacred and secular spaces of working-class Black culture that prioritized masculine heterosexuality. Though queer Black men were briefly …

Clemson Commencement Program, May 2024, Clemson University

Clemson Commencement Programs

No abstract provided.

Vista: May 9, 2024, University Of San Diego

USD Vista (1965-)

No abstract provided.

2024 Phi Beta Kappa Induction Ceremony Program, Phi Beta Kappa, Psi Of California Chapter At Chapman University

Phi Beta Kappa Induction Ceremony Programs

The 2024 Induction Ceremony for the Psi of Chapter California was held on May 7, 2024 at the Hilbert Museum of California Art at Chapman University. In this ceremony, 22 outstanding students were inducted into Phi Beta Kappa.

Liberation Chronicles: Reformulating Black Liberation In The Face Of Persistent Oppression, Nia P. Gadson

Honors College Theses

Liberation movements for Black people have been prominent throughout American history. Chattel slavery and Jim Crow laws caused centuries of anti-black oppression. They continuously evolved into other anti-black structures – mass incarceration, predatory loan companies, and healthcare inequalities, to name a few – that require us to address these issues still today. The most recent Black liberation movement, Black Lives Matter, experienced a brief uptick in support after George Floyd’s murder but, overall, failed to address these issues. This thesis outlines three approaches to Black liberation in the U.S. to determine the most effective. First, drawing on Frederick Douglass’ autobiographies, …

Reimagining Work: Examining Work Under The Fair Labor Standards Act, Dustin W. Tucker

Honors Theses

The Fair Labor Standards Act is a document created in 1938 to protect workers in the United States. This literature review points to the idea that times have changed. The research presents a timeline to understand the fight for labor standards in the United States. Americans at one point in time were working 14-hour days leaving little to no room for anything else. The research presented offers context to working standards in America. The paper examines the Fair Labor Standards Act through a multi-perspective lens to understand how exactly the document meant to protect workers might be contributing to long …

The Prevalence Of Anti-Feminist Content On Tiktok And Youtube Shorts, Naomi Jones

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

In today's digital landscape, online platforms serve as hubs of political discourse, akin to modern-day town halls. Among these platforms, TikTok has surged in popularity, emerging as a significant arena for ideological exchange. However, it has also become a breeding ground for anti-feminist rhetoric, a trend not exclusive to TikTok but also observable across competitors like YouTube Shorts. A content analysis conducted on the initial 100 videos suggested by both TikTok and YouTube Shorts for a new account revealed several noteworthy insights. Within this sample, it was found that 5% of TikTok videos contained anti-feminist themes, while only 3% of …

Blake’S Green Symbols Of Humanity, Society, And Spirituality, Angela J. Heagy

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

William Blake is an exemplar of Romantic poetry characterized by depictions of the occult, the divine, and human nature. Despite Blake’s reputation as a Romantic poet, many critics claim that there is not sufficient evidence to consider him a nature writer. As a result, Blake’s name is frequently omitted from ecological discussions; some scholars go so far as to claim that Blake’s poetry demonstrates a disregard for nature altogether. This article argues that an eco-critical analysis of Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience reveals nature to be Blake’s continual source of inspiration. Within this collection, nature represents the struggles …

2024 Spring Commencement Ceremony Especially Meaningful For Dr. Sophia Steibel, Office Of University Communications

Gardner-Webb NewsCenter Archive

As the procession of Gardner-Webb students and faculty march into Spangler Stadium on Thursday, May 2, the moment will be savored by everyone.

For one professor, Dr. Sophia Steibel, the 2024 Commencement Ceremony will mark three significant milestones. Steibel is retiring after serving the University for 30 years, and she’s been named Professor Emerita in the M. Christopher White School of Divinity. Most importantly, the Brazilian native will reflect on the impactful day 50 years ago when she arrived on Gardner-Webb’s campus for the first time.

Sex, Sisterhood, And Survival In The Book Of Margery Kempe, Caitlin Scheresky

Arts & Sciences Undergraduate Showcase

This presentation studies The Book of Margery Kempe, the first known English autobiography, through Kempe's position within a patriarchal society: Kempe's postpartum depression/psychosis, the repeated sexual assault at the hand of her husband, John, resulting in the conception of her fourteen children, her religiously mandated celibacy, and several religious pilgrimages across Europe. Such experiences were primarily under the wing of Kempe's religious rebirth as not only Jesus' wife but as a "spiritual mother" in the footsteps of the Virgin Mary, emphasizes Tara Williams in her article, "Manipulating Mary." Kempe's writings, as autobiography, are immediately groundwork for which Judith Butler's concepts …

Kenyon Collegian - May 2, 2024

The Kenyon Collegian

No abstract provided.

Exploration Of Teachers’ Opinions Regarding The Instructional And Extracurricular Activities To Develop Transformational Leadership Qualities In Middle And Secondary School Students In Saudi Arabia, Mona Alkathiri

Theses & Dissertations

Research Focus. The purpose of the current study was to examine the opinions of KSA teachers regarding the appropriate instructional, extra-curricular, and understanding activities that pertain to the development of leadership, social skills, and personal traits of KSA secondary school students.

Research Methods. This study employed a qualitative, case study research design as an exploratory method of analyzing how transformational leadership principles could be the central organizing principle reorganizing the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) public school system by 2030. A purposive sample of 18 active secondary school participants were recruited from a population of teachers in middle and secondary …

Decentralization Implementation In Saudi Arabian Educational System: A Qualitative Study, Mohammed Alaklabi

Theses & Dissertations

Research Focus. In the unique context of Saudi Arabian high schools, this qualitative study aimed to understand how decentralization, a significant reform initiative, was experienced by principals and teachers. It explored their perspectives, challenges, and successes and actively sought their recommendations for enhancing decentralization's implementation. By focusing on the voices of these key stakeholders, the study aimed to provide practical guidance to inform future reforms and improve education quality for Saudi high school students.

Research Methods. This qualitative study employed an interpretive design to explore the experiences and perspectives of high school principals and teachers in Saudi Arabia regarding decentralization …