Intellectual History Commons^™

Theories Of The Self, Race, And Essentialization In Buddhism In The United States During The “Yellow Peril,” 1899-1957, Ryan Anningson

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation is an intellectual history tracing developing notions of the Self in Buddhism through Buddhist publications during the years from 1899-1957. I define this time period as the Era of the Yellow Peril, due to common views in the United States of an Asian “other” which formed a larger clash of civilizations globally. 1899-1957 was marked by pessimism and dread due to two World Wars and the Great Depression, while popular and academic cultures argued for the validity of race sciences, and the application of these “sciences” through eugenics. Buddhism in the United States was created through a global …

Contributors To Indian Catholicism: Interventions And Imaginings, Mathew Schmalz

Journal of Global Catholicism

Contributors to Indian Catholicism: Interventions and Imaginings, the inaugural issue of the Journal of Global Catholicism.

Authority, Representation, And Offense: Dalit Catholics, Foot Washing, And The Study Of Global Catholicism, Mathew Schmalz

Journal of Global Catholicism

In reflecting on a sharp scholarly exchange at a conference, this article explores issues of authority, representation, and offense in global Catholic and South Asian Studies. Focusing on the act of foot washing by Dalit Catholics, the article examines how scholarly offense is linked to particular claims of representational authority. The article also puts this discussion within the context of contemporary debates about Western portrayals of Indian culture and society.

The Tying Of The Ceremonial Wedding Thread: A Feminist Analysis Of “Ritual” And “Tradition” Among Syro-Malabar Catholics In India, Sonja Thomas

Journal of Global Catholicism

This article presents a feminist analysis of patriarchy persisting in Catholicism of the Syro-Malabar rite in Kerala. The article specifically considers the impact of charismatic Catholicism on women of the Syro-Malabar rite and argues that it is important to interrogate this new face of religiosity in order to fully understand how certain rituals are allowed to change and be fluid, while others, especially concerning female sexuality, are enshrined as “tradition” which often restricts the parameters for women’s empowerment and may reinforce caste and patriarchal hegemonies preventing feminist solidarity across different religious- and caste-based groups.

Dalit Catholic Home Shrines In A North Indian Village, Mathew Schmalz

Journal of Global Catholicism

This article examines three Catholic home shrines in a Dalit community in North Indian and argues that it is misleading to think that home shrines and other collections of material objects are somehow static conveyors of meaning. “Meaning” can mean many things or nothing at all, depending upon the terms we are using and the scholarly methods we deploy. The crucial aspect of Dalit Catholic home shrines is that they are literally open to interpretation and reinterpretation, to touching and being touched. Their significance—their meaning—depends not on decoding their structure or symbolic logic, but interacting with them as part of …

The Grace Of God And The Travails Of Contemporary Indian Catholicism, Kerry P. C. San Chirico

Journal of Global Catholicism

This essay discusses the challenges faced by Indian Catholicism, particularly as it seeks to adapt to and in contemporary, post-colonial India through the process or program of what is called inculturation, a self-conscious program of adaptation to Indian religion and culture. Since Indian Catholicism is constituted by so many irreducible persons-in-relation, the article focuses on the life of the Catholic priest, Swami Ishwar Prasad in whose life we may chart something of the inculturation movement and the Catholic tradition as it is found in North India region, in one rather long and rich lifetime connecting two centuries. The article seeks …

In Continuity With The Past: Indigenous Environmentalism And Indian Christian Visions Of Flora, James Ponniah

Journal of Global Catholicism

This article considers whether Indian Christianity can be said to have a distinctive ecological vision. The first two parts of the article examine Christian environmentalism in two native forms of Indian Christianity: Tamil Christianity and Tribal Christianity. Continuing with the theme of conformity to the local culture—though of the elite—the third part of the article investigates how Christian Ashrams function as dynamic centers for ecological praxis. The last part of the article considers how contemporary Indian Christian communities can respond to the ecological challenges confronting them.

Antoniyar Kōvil: Hindu-Catholic Identity At The St. Anthony Shrine In St. Mary’S Co-Cathedral, Chennai, Pj Johnston

Journal of Global Catholicism

This article combines ethnographic description of the practices of Hindu and Christian visitors of the St. Antony Shrine in Chennai with the observation that this material cannot be understood using the standard world religions paradigm that essentializes Christianity as exclusivistic. Drawing upon the visual and material culture of the shrine in light of premodern and Vatican II templates for inculturation and the negotiation of religious difference, the article highlights overlap between Tamil Hinduism and the Tamil Popular Catholicism of the site to argue that the beliefs and practices documented should inform descriptive and normative accounts of Catholic Christianity. Because Tamil …

Rethinking Greece: Despina Lalaki On Hellenism, State-Building, Archaeology And The "Democratic West", Despina Lalaki

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

The Unwanted Immigrant, Frank A. Bozich Iii

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

The social and religious differences between Chinese migrants and Americans of European descent played a large role in the exploitation of the Chinese. Ultimately, nativism became ingrained in Californian society as Irish Americans began to view Chinese as a threat to their economic success and violence toward Chinese became more common due to the Californian government’s support of anti-Chinese and nativist legislation.

The Fictions Of Whiteness: Transatlantic Race Science, Gender, Nationalism, And The Construction Of Race In Nineteenth-Century American Fiction (1823-1867), Philip E. Kadish

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Fictions of Whiteness argues that political beliefs preceded and determined the race science theories which nineteenth century American white novelists applied or invoked in their work, the inverse of the current critical consensus. For issues ranging from Indian removal to slavery and Reconstruction, and utilizing theories from of Condorcet, Buffon, Camper, Louis Agassiz, James Pritchard, Johannes Blumenbach, and George Borrow these authors shifted allegiances to divergent race theories between and within works, applied those theories selectively to white, black, and Indians characters, and applied the same scientific race theories to politically divergent rhetorical ends. By analyzing shifting application of different …

Luther And The Jews: An Exposition Directed To Christians On Martin Luther's Anti-Semitism, Defense, And Legacy, Megan Wilson

Senior Honors Theses

This thesis is an analysis of the historical relations between reformer Martin Luther and the Jewish people. Its primary purpose is to defend Luther’s image as a prominent figure in Christian history while considering the possibility of his anti-Semitic views. This thesis focuses particularly on a number of Luther’s written works in order to achieve this goal, with a secondary concentration on historical and incidental defenses that can be used to exonerate him. This thesis also serves to inform contemporary Christians of the controversy surrounding these views and the result of his legacy in more recent centuries.

Beyond Domestic Empire: Internal- And Post-Colonial New Mexico, John R. Chávez

History Faculty Publications

The purpose of this paper is to outline the connections between internal colonialism and post-colonialism, two dimensions of an evolving colonial paradigm. To test these theories against historical reality, they are applied to ethnic Mexicans and Indians, especially Navajos, in New Mexico in order to ground them and colonialism in general at the regional level. This paper claims that internal colonialism continues effectively to explain the historic subordination of indigenous and mixed peoples within larger states dominated by other groups. This condition understood, the paper sees postcolonial theory as providing ideas to end internally colonized societies since the theory critiques …

A Monastery For The Revolution: Ernesto Cardenal, Thomas Merton, And The Paradox Of Violence In Nicaragua, 1957-1979, Brendan Jordan

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

In 1957, a young Nicaraguan poet named Ernesto Cardenal, recently graduated from Columbia University, entered the Trappist Abbey of Gethsemani, located outside Louisville, Kentucky. There he met a prominent Catholic thinker and pacifist, Thomas Merton, who soon mentored young Cardenal. Though Cardenal departed Gethsemani in 1959, Merton continued to counsel him in spirituality, poetry, and social activism until Merton’s death in 1968. While Cardenal during these earlier years was a committed pacifist, his experiences after returning to Nicaragua in 1965 radically altered his view of social action. Cardenal established a semi-monastic community in the Solentiname islands in southern Nicaragua, and …

Black Radicals And Marxist Internationalism: From The Iwma To The Fourth International, 1864–1948, Charles R. Holm

Department of History: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This project investigates historical relationships between Black Radicalism and Marxist internationalism from the mid-nineteenth through the first half of the twentieth century. It argues that contrary to scholarly accounts that emphasize Marxist Euro-centrism, or that theorize the incompatibility of “Black” and “Western” radical projects, Black Radicals helped shape and produce Marxist theory and political movements, developing theoretical and organizational innovations that drew on both Black Radical and Marxist traditions of internationalism. These innovations were produced through experiences of struggle within international political movements ranging from the abolition of slavery in the nineteenth century to the early Pan-African movements and struggles …

Nietzsche And Darwin, Babette Babich

Working Papers

Abstract

I argue against the popular view of Nietzsche as Darwinist and I concur with other Nietzsche scholars who have also noted that other authors worked in Nietzsche’s thinking in association with Darwin, not only Spencer and Malthus but also Roux and Haeckel among others which also for Nietzsche included Empedocles and other ancient scientists. Nietzsche offers plain condemnation of Darwin’s views but he is also often associated with Darwin owing to Darwin’s racism and his own vision of rank-order. I conclude with an emphasis on style and Nietzsche’s reading of antiquity to highlight the distinction he sought to make …

Aliens In Their Native Lands: The Persistence Of Internal Colonial Theory, John R. Chávez

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Totalitarian Threats And Colonial Geography: The Politics Of Defining Terrorism In Beauvoir, Camus, And Dib, Araceli Hernandez-Laroche

Re-visioning Terrorism

Can terrorism be justified as a means for social justice? Can a so-called democratic state engaged in indiscriminate bombardments of civilian populations be held accountable for terrorist acts? How is political crime different from senseless murder? Can and should genocide be defined differently from a civil war operation? Who has the right to decide for the life or death of others?

This paper compares important representations in prose and theater of moral dilemmas that plagued war-torn Europe and France during the Spanish Civil War, World War II, and the Algerian War. I analyze the complexities and divergences of existential writers …

Edward Said And The Study Of Music, Kofi Agawu

Publications and Research

My first encounter with Edward Said’s work was in the 1980s with the book, Beginnings: Intention and Method (1975). I was exploring a semiotic approach to late 18^th-century music, specifically, a beginning-middle-ending paradigm (an Aristotelian paradigm) that seemed to me to capture the rhetorical intentions of Classic composers. Said’s wide-ranging reflections and ruminations on beginnings – as inaugural moments, as sites for the establishment of difference, as authorially privileged moments, and as "first steps in the intentional production of meaning" – proved inspiring. My enduring impression of him at the time was that he was a very good …

The Formative Influence Of French Colonialism On The Life And Thought Of Malek Bennabi (Malik Bn Nabi), Phillip Chiviges Naylor

History Faculty Research and Publications

Malek Bennabi (1905–73) fut un intellectuel algérien de premier rang. Cet article étudie l’effet du colonialisme sur sa vie et ses idées. L’étude considère ses livres et offre une comparaison entre Bennabi et Frantz Fanon. Bennabi montre qu’il n’était pas « colonisable » à cause de sa formation et sa conscience historique.

Micronesia: Writing And Rewriting The Histories Of A Nonentity, David Hanlon

Pacific Studies

No abstract provided.

Some Origins And Migrations Of Ideas Leading To The Aryan Polynesian Theories Of Abraham Fornander And Edward Tregear, K. R. Howe

Pacific Studies

No abstract provided.

Hubert Murray And The Historians, Roger C. Thompson

Pacific Studies

No abstract provided.

Pacific History As Seen From The Pacific Islands, David Routledge

Pacific Studies

No abstract provided.

The Society For The Propagation Of The Gospel In Foreign Parts And The Assimilation Of Foreign Protestants In British North America, Anne Polk Diffendal

Department of History: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts from its foundation in 1701 to the beginning of the American Revolution attempted to minister to non-English white settlers in the North American colonies. The Society sent clergymen to Dutch, to Germans, to Swedes, and to French Huguenots in various provinces, gave financial help to foreign ministers, and distributed books to foreign churches. Anglican religious services were open to foreigners living near the Society's missions. These activities have been chronicled in 1952 in a dissertation by William A. Bultmann, who published two articles from that paper. One is a …

The Nature And Importance Of True Republicanism With A Few Suggestions Favorable To Independence: A Discourse, Delivered At Rutland, (Vermont,) The Fourth Of July, 1801. — It Being The 25th Anniversary Of American Independence., Lemuel Haynes, Paul Royster , Ed.

Electronic Texts in American Studies

This intriguing document is a political 4th of July “discourse” by an African American New England Congregational ordained minister and Revolutionary War veteran from the very early years of the Republic. Lemuel Haynes’ personal history is an interesting story, as is his assessment of the progress, needs, and future prospects of the new nation. Ostensibly and formally, the discourse is about selecting leadership dedicated to serving the public welfare and avoiding men who seek office for personal preferment, power, or fame. Taking a text from the gospel of Luke, Haynes applies the advice of Jesus to his disciples to the …