History of Religion Commons^™

Nuns In The Newsroom: The Sisters Of Marillac College And U.S. Sisters’ Involvement In Social Justice Reform, Elizabeth D. Nako

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

"Nuns in the Newsroom: The Sisters of Marillac College and U.S. Sisters' Involvement in Social Justice Reform" is a senior honors history thesis project.  The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) was guided by the spirit of aggiornamento, or “a bringing up to date” of the Catholic Church.  As a result of Vatican II documents such as Gaudium et Spes, they influenced U.S. sisters to expand their ministry from performing works of mercy to advocating for legal, economic, and social justice in addition to their charitable endeavors.  However, after doing research at the Daughters of Charity Archives in Emmitsburg, Maryland and …

Review Of Reviving The Eternal City: Rome And The Papal Court, 1420-1447 By Elizabeth Mccahill, Brian Maxson

ETSU Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Case Study Two: Jewish Time Jump: New York, Owen Gottlieb

Articles

Gottlieb presents an early case study of his mobile augmented reality game Jewish Time Jump: New York design on the ARIS platform for the iPhone and iPad (iOS). The game is set on-location in Washington Square Park in New York city. Players in 5th-7th grade take on the role of time-traveling reporters, landing on site on the eve of the Uprising of 20,000, the largest women-led strike in U.S. History. Based on their GPS location they receive media from over 100 years in the past, interactive with digital characters as they work to gather a story for the fictional Jewish …

The Spiritual And Secular Effects Of The Holocaust, Christine Coughlin

Fall 2014, Storytelling and the Life of Faith

My research paper focused on the topic of the Holocaust, and how this tragic event in history had a lasting effect, not only on the victims, but on future generations as well. My paper focused on two autobiographies, “Night,” and “After Long Silence” written by Elie Wiesel and Helen Fremont respectively, each of which portray a different perspective on the Holocaust and the significance it had in the peoples’ lives. Using these two autobiographies, as well as a number of articles referencing the Holocaust, I portrayed how this horrible period of history shaped many peoples' lives, both secularly and spiritually.

Printing And Protestants: An Empirical Test Of The Role Of Printing In The Reformation, Jared Rubin

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

The causes of the Protestant Reformation have long been debated. This paper seeks to revive and econometrically test the theory that the spread of the Reformation is linked to the spread of the printing press. I test this theory by analyzing data on the spread of the press and the Reformation at the city level. An econometric analysis that instruments for omitted variable bias with a city's distance from Mainz, the birthplace of printing, suggests that cities with at least one printing press by 1500 were at minimum 29 percentage points more likely to be Protestant by 1600.

Using Census Bureau Data For Current And Historical Gis Research, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

Provides examples of how geographic information system (GIS) data can be used to conduct historical and contemporary research using Census Bureau data and mapping and other resources. Such data and mapping can enhance understanding of historical and contemporary subjects in a multidisciplinary variety of topics.

The Qur'anic Jesus: A Study Of Parallels With Non-Biblical Texts, Brian C. Bradford

Dissertations

This study examines which texts and religious communities existed that could well have contributed to Muhammad’s understanding of Jesus. The most important finding is that the Qur’anic verses mentioning Jesus’ birth, certain miracles, and his crucifixion bear close resemblance to sectarian texts dating as early as the second century. Accordingly, the idea that such verses from the Qur’an involving Jesus are original productions of the seventh century should be reconsidered.

The research covers a series of significant topics that support these findings. They include theological conflicts in third century Arabia; the interaction between Christian monks, Saracens, Arabs, and Ishmaelites; sectarian …

The Trials Of Robert Ryland, Edward L. Ayers

History Faculty Publications

Robert Ryland tried to behave in a generous Christian way with the African-American people among whom he lived all his life even as he presided over what he recognized was a compromised form of the church. He faced skepticism and criticism from all sides, and experienced considerable doubt, but he pressed on.

Lobos Y Perros Rabiosos: The Legacy Of The Inquisition In The Colonization Of New Spain And New Mexico, C. Michael Torres

Student Papers (History)

No abstract provided.

Reclaimed From A Contracting Zion: The Evolving Significance Of St. Thomas, Nevada, Aaron James Mcarthur

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Historians tend to treat Mormon history separately from the larger patterns of western American and U. S. history. The history of St. Thomas, Nevada, the remains of which are within the boundaries of the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, show that this segregated treatment is inadequate. St. Thomas was established in 1865 by Mormon missionaries after the Mormon leader Brigham Young sent them to the Moapa Valley in what is now southern Nevada to grow cotton. The town, like a few other Mormon sites in the region, was abandoned by the LDS Church, taken up by other people, and assigned …

The First Prejudice: Religious Tolerance And Intolerance In Early America, Adrian Chastain Weimer

History & Classics Faculty Publications

Reviews The First Prejudice: Religious Tolerance and Intolerance in Early America, edited by Chris Beneke and Christopher S. Grenda.

Memory In Paintings Of Quattrocentro Renaissance Florence: Religious Paintings And Secular Portraits, Ashley Matcheck

Psi Sigma Siren

Collective memory studies as a field has always been the interdisciplinary study of how and why memories have been created. The difference between collective or cultural memory studies and that of a strictly historical study is often discussed and debated as people question whether memory or history is more valuable regarding past events. Jan Assmann explains that “in the context of cultural memory, the distinction between myth and history vanishes. Not the past as such, as it is investigated and reconstructed by archaeologists and historians, counts for the cultural memory, but only the past as it is remembered.” Assmann has …

The Jesuits In Latin America, 1549 - 2000: 450 Years Of Inculturation, Defense Of Human Rights, And Prophetic Witness, Charlotte M. Gradie

History Faculty Publications

A review of the book "The Jesuits in Latin America, 1549-2000: 450 Years of Inculturation, Defense of Human Rights, and Prophetic Witness," by Jeffrey L. Klaiber is presented.

Hopedale, A Moderate Utopia: Distinguishing Practical Christianity From Radical Idealism, Noah Symynkywicz

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

Historians often define the utopian communities of the nineteenth century as those that tried to alienate themselves from their contemporaries in thought. However, a spectrum of these communities developed with a more ordinary worldview. Specifically, a community called Hopedale tried to balance elements of mainstream New England society with those of its “Christian socialist” leader, Adin Ballou. By looking at the community’s day-to-day life, this equilibrium becomes clear.

An Army Of Housewives: Women’S Wartime Columns In Two Mainstream Israeli Newspapers, Shira Klein

History Faculty Articles and Research

At the height of Israel's 1948 war, women's columns in the newspapers Ha'aretz and Ma‘ariv offered readers advice, stories, and letters. They focused on domestic practices such as preparing food, sewing clothes, dressing fashionably and providing comfort. At first glance, they completely ignored the war raging around them. However, this essay shows that the columnists portrayed housewives' roles, no less than men's front-line fighting, as an important part of the nation's wartime effort. The columnists and their responding readers took the housewives' domestic practices, which made them seem so unfit for battle and turned them into a battlefield of their …

Commending Religion To All Around Us: Baptist Church Discipline, 1780-1850, Claire White

Psi Sigma Siren

In 1818, a letter signed “B.” was sent to The American Baptist Magazine and Missionary Intelligencer. The letter, titled “Things to be set in order in the churches,” stated that the Baptists’ “moral and social habits, including [their] general intercourse with the world, must be such, as to commend religion to all around us.” While all religions fashion themselves pure and saintly, B., and his Baptist contemporaries, truly believed that their discipline and social habits, not just their internal piety, made them the world’s saviors. In the early decades of the nineteenth century, American Baptist congregations were flourishing. In 1740, …

Prophecy And Porneia In Shenoute's Letters: The Rhetoric Of Sexuality In A Late Antique Egyptian Monastery, Caroline T. Schroeder

College of the Pacific Faculty Articles

The writer examines the apparently ubiquitous sexual references in the first surviving letters of Shenoute. Shenoute's references to sexuality constitute one aspect of his self-representation as his community's prophet. His textual performance as a prophet in these texts indicates that his sexual rhetoric served not only to condemn sexual activity among ascetics but also to help construct a relationship between God and the monastic community that is based on the relationship between God and the people in the Christian Old Testament. The sins of the monastery, as understood by Shenoute, like those of Israel or the nations in the prophetic …

Buildings At The Center: Reasons For Building Tabernacles, Aaron Mcarthur

Psi Sigma Siren

There were generally three different motivations for the construction of a tabernacle in a specific community. The first was that the leadership of the Church in Salt Lake directed communities to build one. Leaders did this in settlements that they believed were to become important central communities for gatherings and large meetings. The decision was also made in areas that the Church desired to strengthen their claim to, legally and emotionally. In 1863, Brigham Young decided that the struggling cotton mission in St. George needed a shot in the arm. To rally the community, he determined that a tabernacle would …

A History Of The Latter-Day Saints In The Columbia Basin Of Central Washington 1850-1972, Rick B. Jorgensen

Theses and Dissertations

The Columbia Basin of Central Washington has a relatively recent Latter-day Saint history among the regions of the western states. Most of the sparsely populated rural areas in the west that have large concentrations of Latter-day Saints were originally established as "Mormon" settlements. The basin referred to lies between the Snake and Columbia Rivers and now has thousands of Latter-day Saints who have chosen to inhabit the historically barren land and call it their home. A brief visit or casual observance of the area leads many to question what were the major factors and characteristics leading to the twentieth century …

American Prophet, New England Town: The Memory Of Joseph Smith In Vermont, Keith A. Erekson

Theses and Dissertations

In December 1905, a large granite monument was erected at the birthplace of Joseph Smith on the one hundredth anniversary of his birth. This thesis relates the history of the Joseph Smith Memorial Monument from its origins through its construction and dedication. It also explores its impact on the memory of Joseph Smith in the local, Vermont, and national context. I argue that the history of the Joseph Smith Memorial Monument in Vermont is the story of the formation and validation of the memory of Joseph Smith as an American Prophet.

Nineteenth century Mormons remembered a variety of individual memories …

Multiple Discourses In Early Mormon Religion, Jon M. Duncan

Theses and Dissertations

The development of early Mormon religion is best viewed in the context of multiple discourses, each of which contained various competing symbols. These discourses shaped the mind and world-view of early Latter-day Saints and determined in part their behavior. Prophetic symbols existed simultaneously with other, more American symbols; and while neither discourse excluded the other, a prophetic discourse gradually came to dominate. At the same time, however, the American discourse in Mormon religion remained intact and continued to influence the behavior and actions of early Mormons.

The History Of Louisa Barnes Pratt, George Ellsworth

All USU Press Publications

In her memoir, and 1870s revision of her journal and diary, Louisa Barnes Pratt tells of childhood in Massachusetts and Canada during the War of 1812, and independent career as a teacher and seamstress in New England, and her marriage to the Boston seaman Addison Pratt.

Converting to the LDS Church, the Pratts moved to Nauvoo, Illinois, from where Brigham Young sent Addison on the first of the long missions to the Society Islands that would leave Louisa on her own. As a sole available parent, she hauled her children west to Winter Quarters, to Utah in 1848, to California, …

Utopian Marriage In Nineteenth-Century America: Public And Private Discourse, Brenda Olsen Andrus

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a rhetorical analysis of utopian discourse about marriage in mid-nineteenth-century America. Although utopian communities are usually approached within the fields of history and sociology, a rhetorical analysis adds to the discussion by uncovering the discursive complexity of marriage beliefs within a rapidly changing culture. Discursive features of the Shaker, Oneida Community and Latter-day Saint texts are outlined and compared according to the following format:

Chapter One examines the textures of conflict within the dominant culture's views of marriage and gender roles in nineteenth-century America, with a brief overview of reform efforts of the day. This chapter provides …

Mormon Opposition Literature: A Historiographical Critique And Case Study, 1844-57, William P. Connors

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is in three parts. The first part looks at the historical scholarship on writings opposed to Mormonism, especially those from the nineteenth century. The conclusion is that, despite hundreds of works written against Mormonism in its early years, the historical scholarship has not done justice to the writings or people involved. The vast majority of the writings and writers have not been analyzed, and those that are discussed are usually the most sensational and not representative of the genre.

The second part of this thesis is a a case study giving an example of the kind of work …

Ascetic Behavior And Color-Ful Language: Stories About Ethiopian Moses, Vincent L. Wimbush

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

The characterization of the fouth-century Black (Ethiopian) monk named Moses in late ancient Christian hagiographie narratives opens wide a window not only onto particular understandings of, and propaganda about, ascetic piety and religious orientations to the world, but also ancient (non-black) Christian sensitivies to racial/color differences. Four ancient sources— Palladius' Lausiac History, Sozomen's Ecclesiastical History, the anonymous Apophthegmata Patrum, and Acta Sanctorum—are analyzed on the basis of a recent translation.

Freud's Dream Of Interpretation, Ken Frieden

Books

Frieden explores methods of dream interpretation in the Bible, the Talmud, and in the writings of Sugmund Freud, and brings to light Freud's Troubled relationship to his Judaic forerunners. This book reveals unfamiliar associations in intellectual history and challenges received ideas in biblical, Talmudic, and Freudian scholarship.

Pennsylvania Folklife Vol. 37, No. 1, Edward W. Chester, Nancy K. Gaugler, Ralph Connor, William T. Parsons, Roger W. Fromm, Hans F. Sennholz, Guy Graybill

Pennsylvania Folklife Magazine

• Franklin in Fact and Fiction: The Double Perspective of Leland Baldwin
• Jost Hite: From the Neckar to the Shenandoah
• The Migration and Settlement of Pennsylvania Germans in Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina and Their Effects on the Landscape
• Bethesda Evangelical Church in Farmers Mills: Fact and Folklore
• The Tourist Bureau Shuns Me!

The Nonconformists Of Leeds In The Early Victorian Era: A Study In Social Composition, Susan L. Fales

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examined the Nonconformist denominational membership in the Borough of Leeds during the early Victorian era to determine the social composition of its members. The chapel goers of Old Dissent, represented by the Unitarians, Baptists, Independents, and the Society of Friends, and New Dissent, represented by the Wesleyan Methodists, Methodist New Connexion, Primitive Methodists and the Mormons were the basis for this study. The results of the occupational, residential, family, and migration analysis revealed a surprisingly high percentage of working classes (72) represented among the Dissenters. This fact flys in the face of contemporary observation and historical investigation, which …

Joseph Smith Iii: Moderate Mormon, Robert Duane Hutchins

Theses and Dissertations

Throughout the history of the Mormon movement, certain members or groups of members, have exercised free agency in the form of dissent against the direction which the prophet of that church chose to lead his movement. The form of this dissent varied but the theme was usually quite consistant: a demand for moderation. For many of these dissenters the extremes of Mormon doctrine seemed to take them out of touch with prevailing American values.

Joseph Smith III, a son of the Mormon founder, proved to be one of these moderates. He ultimately rejected all of his father's more radical theology …

The Relationship Of The Life And Work Of John Calvin To Renaissance Humanism, Jonathan R. Kelly

History Senior Independent Study Theses

Thesis digitized from History Department I.S. Archive.