Arts and Humanities Commons^™

From The Pen Of The Secretary: Latter-Day Saint Women And Relief Society Minute Books, 1868–1889, Mckall Erin Ruell

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

In 1868, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (also known as the Mormon church) re-organized their women's organization, the Relief Society. The secretaries of each local ward or congregation of the Relief Society in Utah kept a record of their meetings in their own minute books. These records have largely been neglected by scholars and much can be learned about nineteenth-century Latter-day Saint women through their pages. This thesis examines Relief Society minute books from Cedar City, Fillmore, Meadow, Holden, Spring Lake, Provo, Salt Lake City, and Millville, Utah, looking specifically at Latter-day Saint women's discourse, testimonies, and …

Queer Crises: Movements From Queerness And Feelings Of White Religion In The United States, Austin Williams Miller

Communication ETDs

Anchored by contemporary crises surrounding queer and trans people in the United States, I employ movements from queerness within an affective queer phenomenological framework to understand how arrangements of “white religion” (Schaefer, 2015, p. 63), a process whereby U.S. American Christian forms escape ideology into religious affective economies in the United States, relegate queer people “to the background… to sustain a certain direction” (Ahmed, 2006, p. 31). I assemble a queer rhetorical context analyzing white religious space in documentary film, secular sexual regulation through contemporary U.S. legal contexts around marriage, and settler colonial Christian nationalist political imaginations to critique how …

When “A Haircut Is Not Just A Haircut”: The Embodied Deconversions Of Former Pentecostal And Holiness Women, Casey Renee Kellogg

Masters Theses

Women of Pentecostal and Holiness belief traditions are known for embodying their faith through a set of dress standards which prevent women from cutting their hair, prohibit any form of pants, jewelry, or makeup, and require they adopt various forms of “modest” attire. While there has been significant scholarship on the social and personal significance of women’s religious dress among church members, there is little to no information about how former Pentecostal and Holiness women perceive these dress standards. Furthermore, while scholars have explored the concept of deconversion, specifically as told through narrative from a more general vantage point, there …

A Church Of The People: Coptic Church Building And Direction In Central New Jersey, Bishoy Garis

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Building off Michael Akladios’ work on early Coptic migration and the ad hoc institutionalization of the Coptic Orthodox Church in North America, this dissertation proposes that the construction and direction of Coptic churches in Middlesex County, New Jersey was laity driven, ad hoc, reactive, and dependent on local variables. Additionally, it reveals that the creation of St. Mary’s Coptic Orthodox Church in East Brunswick, New Jersey spurred migration to the Middlesex County area and transformed their small community into a domestic and international Coptic migration center. Unlike previous scholarship that places greater attention on urban Coptic communities and transnational networks, …

Flores, Rigoberto Flores

Masters Theses

My name is Rigoberto Flores and I was born in Guerrero, Mexico. The work I make involves politics, immigration, cartel violence and religious themes. I’m interested in presenting these challenging and difficult concepts, to have them remain in the public consciousness. The work I produce involve charcoal drawings, textiles, print, and painting. The work I create is intended to address inconstancies in established ideas, usually involving government violence. Throughout history art has been used to promote institutional propaganda. I am searching to do the same, but to oppose those structures.

Journey With A Purpose, Walter Prescher

Doctor of Ministry Projects and Theses

The modern church is in bondage from years of trauma rooted in the Post-Christendom decline. As the church has responded to the trauma it is enduring, it has responded by becoming stagnant as it seeks to maintain any relevance it still has. What the modern church is going through has strong parallels with the Hebrew people who were in bondage in Egypt and were delivered through the wilderness into the promised land of Canaan. Following this example, this dissertation walks church leadership through an understanding of the traumatized church and presents a what a modern-day Exodus journey could look like …

My Kinship With The Trees, C. Daniela Shapiro

MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture

This paper explores facets of patriarchy affecting women and the natural world. The paper suggests a cultivation of allyship and relationality between women and nature due to a shared experience of objectification within patriarchy. The separation of women from nature through origin stories, science, religion, language, and advertisement will be discussed. Examples from the graphic memoir Running without Moving are employed to emphasize this philosophy, including first person accounts.

The Voice Of One Crying In The Wilderness, Megan Kenyon

MFA in Visual Art

I am a Midwestern, Christian, and feminist artist. I make work about the beautiful, broken, and absurd ways in which American evangelical culture influences lives, especially women’s lives. I’m dragging everything into the light by deconstructing and critiquing the world in which I live, move, and have my being. I do this by harnessing prophetic imagination and incarnational space to shine a light on how patriarchy infects evangelical Christian theology and practice. Using prophetic imagination through photographic self-portraiture and text (my own and found texts using the Bible), I seek to make plain the effects of white, Christian patriarchy on …

Mother Goddess As Mother Nature, Elizabeth Ungar

Senior Theses

This paper analyzes the connection between the Ancient Mother Goddess and the modern EcoFeminist movement by illustrating similar traits and symbolic images that they share. I first examine how far back the mother figure was praised in human history, and how images of the feminine body connect to the nurturing aspect of our Earth in Paleolithic times. I then analyze the Mother Goddess figure through three ancient religious Goddesses; the Hindu Goddess Devi and all of her embodiments, the Ancient Egyptian Goddess Isis, and the mother goddess Gaia in Greek mythology.

Women And Religion In The Mongol Empire, Karlie Barnett

History Undergraduate Honors Theses

Aspects of the Mongol Empire have been well studied in academia, but these analyses, like much of our recording and analysis of world history overall, have largely excluded women. This thesis seeks to contribute to the effort to restore women to Mongol history, focusing on how the relationship between Mongol women and religion impacted the development of the Mongol Empire and Eurasian religions during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. With a focus on elite women due to the nature of the sources, I draw upon historical chronicles, traveler accounts, artwork, and contributions from scholars in this field to assert that …

The Prism, Darrah Melita Ellis

Graduate Thesis Collection

"The Prism" is a magical-girl-themed fantasy light novel series about four best friends who finally graduated junior high school. Miya, Teresa, Liana, and Destiny are anxious to start their new high school lives (for better or worse) in their rough, monotone, and corrupt urban town of Quaint Village. Their plans are interrupted, however, by the opening of a brand new private school. Then, for the first time ever, all four girls end up in the same program. They're ready to make great memories together and spend much more time with each other.

Unbeknownst to them, their new school is nothing …

House Of Grief, Megan Eralie

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This collection of essays examines how I house the grief for the losses of my religion and my grandfather. My first essay, “Body of Feathers,” looks at my body as a house of shame and how I transformed my body into something that could be mine instead. It explores a series of moments from my life where I felt disconnected from my body, usually because of rules or expectations set by someone other than me. In the essay, I move from feeling like I had no control of my body, to taking back control and experiencing my body as mine …

An Examination Of The Association Of Religiosity, Purity Culture, And Religious Trauma With Symptoms Of Depression And Anxiety, Kaelyn R. Griffin

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

While no consistent definition yet exists for religious trauma, religious abuse is typically defined as a misuse of authority by a spiritual leader to coerce, control, or exploit those under their leadership, which may in turn lead to the experience of religious trauma. Numerous studies suggest that experiencing abuse within a religious environment is a both global phenomenon and common experience. The impact of religious abuse has recently gained greater media attention, specifically related to the social and psychological impact of leaving high-cost religious groups (i.e., those with rigid rules or groups from which departure leads to isolation and rejection …

Honoring The Spirit: A Model For Observing, Witnessing, And Celebrating Spirituality And Religion In Dance/Movement Therapy, Rebekah Brown

Dance/Movement Therapy Theses

Research has shown that people of color are less likely to seek out therapy for mental health care. Instead, they, specifically members of spiritual Black communities, have relied on turning to leaders in religious communities or spiritual practices. There is a stigma around mental health care amongst Black communities. These stigmas are deeply rooted in the racial disparities in the mental health field and the historical oppression of our spiritual practices or rituals throughout the African diaspora. My intention is to help bridge the gap between religious/spiritual Black communities and mental health care by offering a model for observing, witnessing, …

Demythologizing Homer: Investigating Religion In Minoan Crete, Elizabeth Rybarczyk

Student Research Submissions

The Minoan civilization of Bronze-Age Crete has, until recently, been obscured in mythological uncertainty. As a prehistoric civilization, the available evidence for historic analysis is sparse and ambiguous. This paper evaluates the material evidence for ritual activity to chart the religious developments of Minoan Crete. In the earliest periods of their civilization, the Minoans practiced animism, which reflected their ideals towards survival and cooperation. As their prosperity grew due to technological advancements, a social hierarchy formed. The emerging elite employed religion to justify their claim to power by appropriating religion, which culminated in a dual-monotheistic Knossian theocracy. This lasted until …

Musical Behaviours, Dispositions, And Tendencies: Exploring Church Music-Making Through A Theory Of Practice, Laura E. Benjamins

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The purpose of this study was to examine two churches’ music-making practices and their reflection of, and response to, the musical and theological fields in which they are located. Using central concepts from Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice (1977) including habitus, capital, and field in connection with religion, the study considered how worship leaders and musicians strategized their musical behaviours and “disrupted” or affirmed traditional norms of music-making in each contemporary worship music-making setting. The study further explored whether such musical behaviours reflected and shaped habitus both institutionally and individually, and if so, the ways in which the process occurred.

This …

Higher Education Professionals Are Not Prepared To Support Students' Growth And Exploration Of Religion And Worldviews, Matthew Gibson

Culminating Experience Projects

Religion and worldview development is often ignored within higher education. Whether inside of the classroom or in initiatives towards diversity, equity, and inclusion, religions and worldviews are kept out. This project looks at why this is the case and uses the Interfaith Triangle as a theoretical framework to provide a possible solution to this problem. This project was completed in three chapters. The first provides an introduction into why religion and worldview identity development are left out of higher education and how this project will address the issue. The second is a literature review that uses the Interfaith Triangle to …

Dorothy Wordsworth, Religion, And The Rydal Journals, Emily Stephens Kasper

Theses and Dissertations

Dorothy Wordsworth’s religious practices continued to evolve throughout her life. She was baptized Anglican, but after her mother’s death she resided with her mother’s cousin, where she practiced Unitarianism. When she later moved in with her uncle, she embraced evangelical Anglicanism. Records of her religious beliefs in her twenties are scarce, as after moving to Racedown with her brother William in 1795 and throughout her years living in Alfoxden, she rarely wrote of her involvement with organized religion. Only in the 1810s while at Grasmere did Dorothy Wordsworth begin to record a gradual return to church attendance. Concerning her religious …

Monetary Muddles: Money And Language, Ethics And Theology, Tyler Womack

Religious Studies Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation offers a theological critique of political economy by turning to Wittgenstein in order to re-think what “criticism” is and can be. It diagnoses the current state of critical discourse about money as incapable of properly dealing with the confusions or illusions such criticism identifies as intrinsic to our ways with money and economic production and exchange. The dissertation argues that while political economic critiques and heterodox theories of money rightly challenge the economic orthodoxy’s individualism and its illusions of an apolitical money and an autonomous market economy, these “social” critiques are caught in a Geltungslogik that dichotomizes “value” …

Reimagining Yiddishkeit: Place And Belonging In A Modern Orthodox Synagogue Community, Joshua Jacoves

Senior Theses and Projects

This is a study of the disruption of place and belonging in an urban, multi-generational, Modern Orthodox Jewish community in the Northeastern United States. It asks how members define themselves as part of a religious community. Living within walking distance of their synagogue, members build community based upon shared space. In order to embrace a more pluralistic community, local leaders in the past ten years have been pushing the boundary on what is and is not religiously allowed. This creates new, more inclusive spaces to be formed within this community, which fall along the lines of gender, sexuality, and religious …

I Was Looking For God: A Study Of Wehrmacht Personnel And Their Personal Relationships With Religion, Christopher Bishop

Master's Theses

The Wehrmacht was Germany’s fighting force in the field during World War II. Its brutality and discriminatory practices rivaled that of the Nazi paramilitary and police units dispatched alongside them in newly conquered areas during this conflict. Coming from a society that was not at all unfamiliar with Christianity, some within the Wehrmacht related to Christianity in some form and attempted to use it to either justify actions or make sense of the world around them.

While considerable scholarship exists on the Nazi Party’s relationship to Christianity as a convenient propaganda tool for both soldier and civilian alike, the historiography …

The Impact Of Family Environment And Religion In Purple Hibiscus And Beloved, Thoa Phan

Theses and Dissertations

This study explores the repercussions of slavery-induced dehumanization and trauma depicted in Toni Morrison’s Beloved, and explores Kambili’s stifling home life characterized by her father’s rigid Catholicism in Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Morrison’s Beloved emphasizes the importance of personal engagement with the history of slavery so as to fully comprehend its horrors and overcome them. In Purple Hibiscus, the paper investigates the role religion plays in causing trauma, as Eugene’s strict adherence to Catholicism and dismissal of traditional rituals inflict both physical and psychological pain on his family. The complex and multifaceted depiction of religion in these novels …

The Sanctuary Of Demeter And Kore: The Portrayal Of Corinthian Gender Ideologies In Ritual Landscape, Kaia C. Brose

Dissertations and Theses

The Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore on Acrocorinth reflects gender ideologies and concerns within the larger region of Korinthia. Archaeological finds particularly serve to illustrate the sanctuary’s role in maintaining these gender ideologies and concerns. This thesis focuses on the depiction of gender ideologies that reflect a shift toward a wealthier material culture in sixth-century Corinth with themes of feminine virtue and fertility prevalent in the sanctuary. The study of certain ceramics shapes and iconography serves to reveal the sanctuary’s role within the larger religious landscape it was located in. The kalathos, pyxis/Frauenfest scene, and the liknon illustrate the presence …

Gender Dynamics In The Management Care Of Internally Displaced Persons: The Boko Haram Insurgency, Evelyn Kikelomo Ikuenobe Otaigbe

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The Boko Haram asymmetric insurgency and warfare have decimated the Northeastern region of Nigeria and its neighboring environs of Chad, Niger, and Benin. The purpose of this study was to explore the peculiar socioethnic and cultural challenges encountered by female victims of Boko Haram terrorism at internally displaced persons camps in Abuja, Nigeria, including challenges in functioning, relocating, and acclimating back into society. A phenomenological approach was applied to understand participants’ lived experiences. Data collection occurred through interviews and observation. Data analysis involved the synthesis of narratives, and generation of themes. Among the emergent themes were poor feeding; lack of …

Frozen Waters: Mohicans' Struggle For Identity Through Christian Leanings, Barak Zion Fellner-Dublin

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

Is Faith The Ultimate Divider?: The Intersections Between Religion And Political Behavior In The United States, Ryan Supple

Honors Projects

This thesis examines the complex relationship between religiosity and voting behavior in the United States. In a country where religion has diminished in importance over time, it seems rather fascinating that it still plays such a large role in the inner-workings of American politics. Chapter One analyzes the varying ways in which scholars have approached emergent political trends between religious groups, particularly with regards to political parties, voting behavior, and government representation. Chapter Two extends this analysis to the American National Election Studies (ANES), a national survey distributed to random samples of Americans during election seasons. The information from the …

Why Bad Things Happen To Good People: Polytheism As A Response To Questions Of Human Suffering, Mikaela L. Taylor

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

This thesis argues that there are some interpretations of Christian traditions which are not adequate in response to questions of human experience, particularly suffering, which results in a crisis of faith. Questions of purpose or greater meaning of suffering people face are often answered by their relationship to the divine. Through the process of critiquing the American Prosperity Gospel, Karl Barth’s Universal Predestination of Grace, and biblical narratives, I argue that there are some authoritarian monotheistic conceptions of divinity which do not adequately respond to questions of human suffering. As a way of providing an imaginative approach to divinity, I …

Gender Dynamics In The Management Care Of Internally Displaced Persons: The Boko Haram Insurgency, Evelyn Kikelomo Ikuenobe Otaigbe

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The Boko Haram asymmetric insurgency and warfare have decimated the Northeastern region of Nigeria and its neighboring environs of Chad, Niger, and Benin. The purpose of this study was to explore the peculiar socioethnic and cultural challenges encountered by female victims of Boko Haram terrorism at internally displaced persons camps in Abuja, Nigeria, including challenges in functioning, relocating, and acclimating back into society. A phenomenological approach was applied to understand participants’ lived experiences. Data collection occurred through interviews and observation. Data analysis involved the synthesis of narratives, and generation of themes. Among the emergent themes were poor feeding; lack of …

Kept Things, Caroline J. Tuss

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

The things that occupy our lives tell human stories. They often go beyond literal interpretation, leaving space for places, people, desires, dreams, and ideologies to be signified and examined. Personal history is a well-traveled source of inspiration, and it provides significant, meaningful symbols for the concepts I’m engaging with in my newest collection. My project, titled Kept Things, is a collection of three nonfiction pieces examining why and how things are kept, lost, and discarded, whether we have a choice in the matter or not. The significance of symbols to identity and memory acts as a through-line between each …

Domesticity And Religion: Women In Italian American Literature And Culture Of The 1930s, Madeleine J. Kirkpatrick

MSU Graduate Theses

The lives of Italian American women of the early twentieth century have been documented in fragments in histories of immigration and in the literature written by the children of first-wave immigrants. This documentation often leaves an incomplete picture of how Italian women lived and moved in their new American context in the first decades of the twentieth century. This thesis examines Pietro Di Donato’s portrayal of Annunziata in his 1939 novel Christ in Concretealongside the journals of Elba F. Gurzau, a real-life, second-generation Italian woman living in New York City during the 1930s. By holding these women up next to …