Digital Commons Network^™

Factors That Influence How Sunni Muslims In Western Michigan Perceive Violence, Joyce Busch

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Decisionmakers in organizations like the Department of Defense and the State Department rely on accurate information to develop strategies to engage foreign populations. There is gap in understanding how perceptions are formed in religious adherents, specifically understanding how Muslims determine if violence is an acceptable or unacceptable behavior. Informed by Hobföll's conservation of resources theory of stress, the purpose of this case study was to identify and understand the religious and secular factors that influenced a group of Sunni Muslims in Western Michigan to accept or reject violent behaviors. Research questions focused on how this population's perception of violence was …

… Like Animals., Brandon Schnur

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

No abstract provided.

Faith Development Beyond Religion: The Ngo As Site Of Islamic Reform, Nermmen Mouftah

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Anthropological field studies of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in their unique cultural and political contexts. Cultures of Doing Good: Anthropologists and NGOs serves as a foundational text to advance a growing subfield of social science inquiry: the anthropology of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Thorough introductory chapters provide a short history of NGO anthropology, address how the study of NGOs contributes to anthropology more broadly, and examine ways that anthropological studies of NGOs expand research agendas spawned by other disciplines. In addition, the theoretical concepts and debates that have anchored the analysis of NGOs since they entered scholarly discourse after World War II …

Brinson, Debbie (Fa 1117), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project FA 1117. Student folk studies project titled: “Preacher Tales,” which includes survey sheets with brief descriptions of preacher tales in Cadiz, Trigg County, Kentucky. Sheets may include a description of the preacher tale, traditional belief, poem, informant’s name, and text classification.

Mansfield, Sherry R. And Bruce Greene (Fa 1112), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 1112. Student folk studies project titled: “Just a Man—Captain William Hicks” which includes an interview of C. Jeff Hicks, the son of Confederate Captain William Hicks. The interview includes a description of the life of the son and his father while living in Barren County, Kentucky and Sumner County, Tennessee.

Pezet, Antoinette, Emily Durgin

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Antoinette Pezet was born in New York April 23, 1937 as William Anthony Pezet. She recognized she was bisexual in her early teens. Her family was accepting of her sexuality very early on. Before enlisted in the military in her early twenties, she married her first wife, Helga. Due to mental health issues, Helga and Antoinette divorced. Antoinette then married her second wife, Emily, and went on to have two children.

It was not until Antoinette was divorced from Emily that she started dressing as a woman. In her early fifties she had a conversation with Jean Vermette that first …

Cosgrove, John (Fa 1111), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scan of the paper (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Folklife Archives Project 1111. Student folk studies project titled: “The Process of Basket Making” which includes survey sheets with descriptions of the traditional basket making process in Edmonson County, Kentucky. Sheets may include a brief description of pictured equipment, traditional practice, tale, and belief.

Profile Interview With Pamela K. Sari, Keslee Diiorio

Purdue Journal of Service-Learning and International Engagement

Pamela K. Sari is a PhD candidate in American studies at Purdue University. She also is affi liated with the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) Program and the Anthropology Department. Her research, teaching, and engagement interests relate to how individuals and communities navigate issues of “home” and “belonging.” Her dissertation research examines a transnational connection between a Charismatic megachurch in central Java, Indonesia, and its American church partners, particularly Indonesian immigrant churches in southern California. Through her experience living in Indonesia and the United States where religious practices are prevalent, she is interested in the intersectionality between religion and …

The Acoustics Of Justice: Music And Myth In Afro-Brazilian Congado, Genevieve E. Dempsey

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

For the Afro-Brazilian musicians of popular Catholicism, or Congadeiros, who live precariously on the urban and rural margins of Brazil, ritual undergirds their struggles for subsistence, spiritual fulfillment, and racial equality. When Congadeiros create ritual, they enter into a tradition begun in the seventeenth century in Brazil by their enslaved African and Afro-descendant ancestors who intoned songs of redemption. In keeping with their ancestors’ evocations of dignity during slavery, worshipers in the present day embed multiple kinds of vested interests within ritual festivity to achieve racial equality. This article explores Congado, the ceremonies of these disenfranchised musicians, to …

Bowman, Sheila (Fa 1095), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project FA 1095. Paper titled “A Collection of Preacher Jokes” in which Sheila Bowman gathers together a selection of jokes relating to churches, congregations, and their ministers. Paper is based on data collected by Bowman from her father, Pastor Gates Bowman.

Woolsey, Kennaird E. (Fa 1093), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project FA 1093. Student folk studies project titled: “Epitaphs,” which includes survey sheets of gravestone epitaphs organized by theme in Barren County, Edmonson County and Warren County, Kentucky. Survey sheets may include the epitaph, location and text classification along with the rubbing.

Mcdonald, William Rush, B. 1951 (Fa 1090), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project FA 1090. Student folk studies project titled: “Singing Schools,” which includes survey sheets describing the traditions and practices of singing schools in Hart County, Kentucky. Sheets include informant’s age and address, memory, and text classification along with names and photos.

Religion And Esotericism Among Students: A Crosscultural Comparative Study, Franz Höllinger, Timothy B. Smith

Faculty Publications

Analyzing the results of a study on religious and esoteric beliefs and practice among university students from five European and five American countries, we found that the level of religiousness of students depends very much on their cultural environment: the level of religiosity and esoteric beliefs is significantly higher among North- and South-American students than among European students. On the other hand, Asian spiritual techniques and esoteric methods of healing are practiced more frequently by students in North-Western European countries. In the second part of the paper, we examine the relationship between academic discipline and religious worldviews. According to our …

Seidelman, Charles Allen (Fa 1049), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 1049. Student folk studies project titled: “A General Interest Survey of the Dutch in America,” which includes interviews and survey sheets with brief descriptions of Dutch folk practices in Okaloosa County, Florida, in Sioux County, Iowa, in Van Buren County, Michigan, and in Whatcom County, Washington. Sheets may include the recipe, song, belief, motif index number, and informant’s name.

Liberal Translations: Secular Concepts, Law, And Religion In Colonial Egypt, Jeffrey Culang

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is a conceptual history of Egypt’s national formation between the 1880s and the 1930s. This period involved the convergence of nationalism, colonial rule, missionary activity, and new modes of governance at the national and international levels. Drawing on state and missionary archival material, periodicals, legal compendia, laws, and parliamentary transcripts, and adapting methods developed by Reinhart Koselleck, I trace shifts within Egypt’s socio-political lexicon through processes of translation and demonstrate their effects upon social experience and political aspiration. I focus on a set of liberal-secular concepts critical to national politics—religious freedom, public interest, nationality, and the minority—as they …

Religious Differences For Customers And New Products Adoption, Atheer Abd Al Ameer Hasooni

Journal of Economics and Administrative Sciences

The problem with the search at the reduction of adoption of new products, as there are three hypotheses of research have been formulated , the first one is no significant correlation between the religious and differences to customers and adopt new products, and This Study Aimed To Investigate The Relationship Between Religious differences for customers And New Products Adoption, Applied On Arab Mall Commercial Customers/ Egypt, an Analytical Model Is Developed As Guideline To Test The The Relationship Between Religious differences for customers And New Products Adoption, Aquantative Method With Deductive Approach Were Chosen In This Research . In Order …

The Prince Of This World, Michael Murphy

Theology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

A review of Adam Kotsko's book The Prince of This World written by Michael Murphy.

The Racial Politics Of Secularity: Rethinking African-American Religiosity Through New Paradigms In Secularization Theory, Diana Christine Brown

Theses and Dissertations

Revisions to secularization theory over the past two decades call for reconceptualization of the relation between race and secularity. Structural theories— depicting secularization as the linear, straightforward decline of religion in modernity— commonly explain the tenacity of African-American religiosity as resulting from their marginalization in modern society, a product of educational and economic disparities. However, recent theories address the secular as a historically contingent, incidental phenomenon, what has been called an "accomplishment"; it merits substantive study in itself, carrying the distinct values, beliefs, and understandings of a particular social history. This new framework invites analysis of the racial assumptions embodied …

Separation In The Sara Female Initiation Ceremony, Kelsey Moe

Religious Studies Undergraduate Research

This paper employs hermeneutics as opposed to a comparative, explanatory, or descriptive method to engage the phenomenon of Sara female initiation as captured by Lori Leonard’s ethnography, “Female Circumcision in Southern Chad: Origins, Meaning, and Current Practice.” The Sara people of Southern Chad – although predominantly Christian – have their roots in a pre-colonial religion that reveres ancestors. The spirits of Sara ancestors are believed to exist in the bush outside of the village. In the female initiation ceremony, girls are removed from the village and enter the surrounding bush to undergo the ritual transition. This separation is key to …

Public Ritual Sacrifice As A Controlling Mechanism For The Aztec, Madeline Nicholson

Honors Scholar Theses

For decades, archaeologists have researched the fascinating finds of Aztec sacrifice. Evidence of their sacrifices are seen on temple walls, stone carvings, bones, and in Spanish chronicler drawings. Although public ritual sacrifice was practiced before the Aztecs, with evidence from the Olmec civilization (1200-1300 BCE) and Maya (200-900 BCE), Aztec sacrifices are among the most extensively documented. How does such a practice survive in different civilizations through different rulers? This thesis will analyze the phases of Aztec public ritual sacrifice (specifically the location, length, and number of sacrifices) and the close relationship to their origin myths, or founding stories. It …

Time After Time: An Iconographical Analysis Of Images Of Time And Eternity In The New Kingdom Netherworld Books, Amber Lue Ward

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

To the ancient Egyptians, time in the afterlife differed from time on earth. In the Netherworld, time could be manipulated in ways unperceivable in the human realm: it was born and devoured, measured for the blessed dead, and inverted to rejuvenate the sun god and the blessed dead who accompanied him. Images of these occurrences were manifested pictorially in the Netherworld Books, compositions that traced the sun god's nocturnal journey through the Netherworld, from sunset in the evening to sunrise in the morning. This thesis deconstructs and analyzes the iconography of these scenes according to the artistic principles of ancient …

Practical Theology In An Interpretive Community: An Ethnography Of Talk, Texts And Video In A Mediated Women's Bible Study, Nancie Hudson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study of social interaction in a small religious group used ethnography of communication as a research method to collect and analyze data from 20 months of fieldwork. As a long-term participant-observer in a women-only interdenominational Bible study, I investigated the group’s patterned ways of speaking, how print and electronic learning materials influenced the practical application of Scripture to daily life, and how the contemporary format for women’s Bible study alters the traditional Bible study experience. Patterned ways of speaking in this setting included group discussions and conversational narratives about religion, motherhood and lack of time. Using affirmations of faith, …

Religion And Violence In Jesse James Films, 1972–2010, Travis Warren Cooper

Journal of Religion & Film

This essay analyzes recent depictions of Jesse James in cinema, examining filmic portrayals of the figure between the years of 1972 and 2010. Working from the intersection of the anthropology of film and religious studies approaches to popular culture, the essay fills significant gaps in the study of James folklore. As no substantial examinations of the religious aspects of the James myths exist, I hone in on the legend’s religiosity as contested in filmic form. Films, including revisionist Westerns, are not unlike oral-history statements recorded and analyzed by anthropologists, folklorists, and ethnographers. Jesse James movies, in other words, have much …

Religious Conceptions Of Corporate Purpose, Ronald J. Colombo

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Study On The Reputation Of Religion And Its Influence On South Korean Christianity, Shin-Ho Choi

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Religious Difference In A Secular Age: The Minority Report By Saba Mahmoud (2016) Book Review, Lama Abu-Odeh

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Minority Report is a text that tries to respond to the problem of essentializing Islam (the culturalism problem) by performing a flip so that all the bad attributes typically associated with “Islam” are now attributed to secularism instead. It is secularism that discriminates, that is sectarian, that encourages violence, that is repressive, sexist, etc. This Mahmood does by on the one hand hyper-politicizing secularism (depleting it of its universalist drive), and on the other under-politicizing it by ignoring its internal indeterminacy, complexity, open structure and varied distributive effects. The result is an account that moves between crude historicism-secularism is …

Next Steps For The Usu Interfaith Initiative: Engaged Anthropology Meets Interfaith Cooperation On A Public University Campus, Bonnie Glass-Coffin

Interfaith Initiative Research

As a result of Campus Climate research undertaken in the fall of 2013, the USU Interfaith Initiative was developed to address identified needs. The PowerPoint presentation summarizes a few of the curricular and co-curricular programs and events undertaken as part of this initiative to promote interfaith cooperation on our campus.

The Intersection Of Politics And Theology: Reading Augustine In Light Of Augustine, Landon P. Wilcox

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

Augustine’s The City of God is a foundational theological text for the development of Christian thought across time. Over the centuries, political scientists and theologians have been especially interested in this text in a variety of ways, but for the purposes of this discussion, the focus will be on Books I-V and Book XIX. Typically, theologians have been interested in Augustine’s rebuttal of pagan claims that are found in the first five books, while political scientists focus most of their attention on Book XIX for its discussion of the highest ends of the state through the means of politics in …

Plekon Looks At The Evolution Of Religious Beliefs., Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

Abraham Lincoln once said, “When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That’s my religion.” He sounds like a precursor of today’s millennials, who, although they do not feel attracted to any organized religion, still have a space for spirituality and righteousness in their hearts.

Someone who looks at religion from many different viewpoints is Dr. Michael Plekon, a professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology in the Weissman School of Arts and Sciences at Baruch College of the City University of New York.

Shenoute’S Feast: Monastic Ideology, Lay Piety, And The Discourse Of Food In Late Antiquity, Dana Robinson

Faculty Publications - Department of History and Politics

In the fourth and fifth centuries c.e., food provides a dense and value-laden web of meaning which lay and monastic Christians use to negotiate their identity with the culture at large, but also vis-à-vis each other. The works of Shenoute of Atripe are a valuable source of insight into the workings of this discourse in a Christian community, since they embrace both internal monastic instruction (the Canons) and public sermons (the Discourses). The first half of this paper constructs Shenoute’s ideology of the Christian meal in terms of the larger discourse of food in which it participates. He …