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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Bhaktivedanta Swami's American Scripture, Christa Marie Lasher
Bhaktivedanta Swami's American Scripture, Christa Marie Lasher
Religious Studies Theses
This essay explores ISKCON’s religious text A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada’s commentary on the Bhagavad Gita, the Bhagavad Gita As It Is, as an American scripture. This commentary expressed a philosophy which attracted ISKCON’s American converts and gave voice to the protest they had against the larger American culture. Using Thomas Tweed’s theory of dissent, I show how the Bhagavad Gita As It Is gave the American converts of the 1960s and 1970s a language of dissent in the larger American conversation and allowed them to create an alternative American identity. In this way, the Bhagavad Gita is an American text.
Wiccan Marriage And American Marriage Law: Interactions, Jeanelle Marie Carda
Wiccan Marriage And American Marriage Law: Interactions, Jeanelle Marie Carda
Religious Studies Theses
This project considers the ways in which Wiccan marriage and American marriage law interact with each other. The thesis examines certain aspects of the history of 20th-century American marriage law, the concurrent development of contemporary marriage ritual in Wicca, developing problems in this area, and possible solutions. In particular, the project focuses on the recognition of religious groups and their officials as they are authorized by state and federal law to perform marriages and how this process has affected Wiccan ritual.