Near Eastern Languages and Societies Commons^™

Inception And Ibn 'Arabi, Oludamini Ogunnaike

Journal of Religion & Film

Many philosophers, playwrights, artists, sages, and scholars throughout the ages have entertained and developed the concept of life being a "but a dream." Few works, however, have explored this topic with as much depth and subtlety as the 13thC Andalusian Muslim mystic, Ibn 'Arabi. Similarly, few works of art explore this theme as thoroughly and engagingly as Chistopher Nolan's 2010 film Inception. This paper presents the writings of Ibn 'Arabi and Nolan's film as a pair of mirrors, in which one can contemplate the other. As such, the present work is equally a commentary on the film based on …

Love That Tames: Anti-Heroes, Power And Islamic Reform Reflected In Two Iranian Films, David Sander

Journal of Religion & Film

This paper is an exploration of two Iranian films that draw upon spiritual, artistic and literary roots in Islamic history, while at the same time engaging in critiques of knowledge and power in contemporary Muslim societies. These films offer a chance to explore ways in which culture (as distinct from theological discourse) deals with problems of reform in Muslim societies. This article juxtaposes the films with the trickster archetype in folklore, Sufi thought about leadership, and beliefs about the figure of the Mahdi (“the guided one” mentioned in Prophetic hadith as preceding the second coming of Jesus).

Gardens In The Air: A Reexamination Of The Ottoman Tulip Age, Rachel R. Fry

Student Publications

Scholars have long considered the “Tulip Age” to be a sort of Ottoman renaissance—a golden age initiated by the 1718 Treaty of Passarowitz and lasted until the Anti-Tulip Rebellion in 1730. However, recent scholarship has questioned the objectivity of the field’s founding historian, Ahmed Refik, who based his theory off of the twofold concepts of a marked increase in tulip culture and a movement toward westernization in the Ottoman Empire. Because of this shaky foundation, this research reexamines the debate from the beginning: the tulip’s connection to earlier Turkic arts and the actualities of Ottoman “modernization.” This perspective on the …

A Life By Wadih Saadeh, Ghada Mourad

Transference

Translated from the Arabic with commentary by Ghada Mourad.

Condoleezza Rice’S Piano By Sa‘Dī Yūsuf, Levi Thompson

Transference

Translated from the Arabic with commentary by Levi Thompson.

To The Jew First: A Socio-Historical And Biblical-Theological Analysis Of The Pauline Teaching Of `Election' In Light Of Second Temple Jewish Patterns Of Thought, Anthony Thornhill

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Paul's "doctrine" of election has remained a controversial and enigmatic topic for centuries. Few studies, however, have approached Paul's doctrine through the context of Second Temple Judaism. This study examines Paul's view of election through the lens of Second Temple Jewish texts written prior to 70 CE. In doing so, it is argued that the best framework through which to view Paul's discussion of election is through a primarily corporate model of election. While such a model is rooted in Judaism, Paul departs from his Jewish contemporaries in arguing that the locus of election is in God's Messiah, Jesus.

Imagining Kurdish Identity In Mandatory Syria: Finding A Nation In Exile, Ahmet Serdar Akturk

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation looks at the activities of the Kurdish nationalists from Turkey who were exiled in Syria and Lebanon during the period of the French mandate, and especially Jaladet and Kamuran Bedirkhan. Scions of a princely Kurdish family from the Botan region in Eastern Anatolia, the Bedirkhan brothers initiated a Kurdish cultural movement in exile following the failure of two armed rebellions against the new Turkish Republic in 1925 and 1930. Central to this cultural movement was the publication of journals in Damascus and Beirut, namely Hawar (1932-1943) Ronahi (1942-1945), Roja Nu/Le Jour Nouveau (1943-1946), and Ster (1943-1945).

This study …

A Comparative Study Of The Apocalyptic Kingdom Of God In Second Temple Jewish Literature And The Teachings Of Jesus In Matthew, Jeremiah Stallman

Masters Theses

The apocalyptic kingdom of God is a common theme in Second Temple Jewish literature. This kingdom is often presented differently in the various literary works of this era. This first chapter of this thesis considers the various aspects of the kingdom in relation to God's coming judgment and the coming messiah who is often seen as the one bringing judgment and setting up the kingdom of God. The second chapter elaborates upon Jesus' teachings about the apocalyptic kingdom of God and compares and contrasts them with the teachings of the kingdom in His day as understood through the Second Temple …

The Evolution Of The Term ‘Qarn’ In Early Islamic Sources, Abed El-Rahman Tayyara

World Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Faculty Publications

In modern standard Arabic, recurrences of the term qarn (pl. qurun), of the root q-r-n, revolve around two meanings: a "horn" or "one hundred years."2 The association of qarn with "horn" is borrowed from the animal domain due to the eye-catching sight oft he animal's horns. Hence, the etymology of qarn is based on the notion that two things are situated parallel to each other. This study, however, will not examine the first meaning of qarn, but instead focus on the second. The attestations of qarn in early Islamic sources point to a composite term that retained a wide range …

Phonological Adaptations Of English Loanwords In Turkish, Rachel Beel, Jennifer Felder

Other Undergraduate Scholarship

When trying to understand the phonological system of a language (the sounds used in speech), what are some of the ways to figure out the patterns of an unfamiliar language? The way that borrowed or loanwords (words taken from one language and used in another) are pronounced in a language reveals much about the language’s phonology. The phonological system of Turkish has accommodated for starkly different syllable structures when incorporating modern English words into this contrasting language.

A personal survey of Turkish syllable structure has revealed how native speakers of Turkish cope with the phonological features of borrowed English words …

Clay-Potter Imagery In The Bible: Theological And Practical Implications For Daily Christian Life, Karl Stelzer

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

God, the Master Potter, uses clay-potter imagery to explain spiritual truth. These passages are ignored, explained superficially, or misinterpreted and have not had the divinely intended impact. Theologically, doctrines of Theology Proper, Bibliology, and Anthropology have been compromised. Practically, the Holy Spirit has been hindered. To demonstrate the need for clay-potter instruction, research will include a comparative analysis of information gathered through questionnaires to churches that have held a clay-potter conference and those that have not, and an examination of written material and popular presentations. This author combines professional pottery expertise and biblical training to present accurate exposition. This thesis …

Turkish Shadow Puppetry And The Carnivalesque, Anna (Raff) Miller

Modern Languages and Literatures Annual Graduate Conference

No abstract provided.

The Gatekeepers, William L. Blizek

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of The Gatekeepers (2013) directed by Dror Moreh.

Fill The Void, John C. Lyden

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Fill the Void (2012) directed by Rama Burshtein.

A Contrastive Systemic Functional Analysis Of Causality In Japanese And English Academic Articles, Masaki Shibata

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Typological differences between languages have been a much debated topic in linguistic studies. Despite their usefulness in understanding syntactic features of various languages, such contrastive analyses have yet to thoroughly explore semantic variation among languages; furthermore, the results obtained have not been practically utilized in other areas of applied linguistics. This situation may come from the fact that a large number of contrastive studies have eclectically examined isolated areas of language variation either from syntactic, morphological, or from pragmatic perspectives. Viewing this issue from another angle, Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) focuses on language from a multi-dimensional perspective, where language is …

The Myths Of Muslim Women Liberation: Why Islamists Resist The Western Concept Of Universal Women’S Rights, Justine O'Sullivan

Self-Designed Majors Honors Papers

No abstract provided.

Kibbee, Community And Culture: Lebanese Food And Identity In Waterville, Miles De Klerk

Senior Scholars Papers in Jewish Studies

No discussion of Lebanese food is complete without the mention of kibbee. Whether the discussion is simply a description of the legendary dish in general, an examination of the various methods in which kibbee can be cooked (or not cooked), or the type of meat one uses, if you don’t know kibbee, you don’t know the Lebanese community of Waterville, Maine. Surely this is not to say that this singular dish can encompass Waterville’s entire particular brand of Lebanese identity. Dishes like cabbage rolls and grape leaves compete with kibbee in popularity, and like many other dishes, represent the local …

Zeugma As The Provenance Of 12 Mosaic Fragments At Bowling Green State University, Stephanie Langin-Hooper, S. Rebecca Martin, Mehmet Önal

Art History Research

Bowling Green State University (BGSU) in Ohio is the current owner of 12 sections of floor mosaic dating to the 2nd-3rd c. A.D. Purchased by the university in 1965, these mosaic fragments were believed to be from the site of Antioch. In 2010-11, the mosaics were conserved and installed in BGSU’s Wolfe Center. In the following year the first-named author, organizing a symposium to celebrate the new display of the mosaics, invited R. Molholt to be the keynote speaker. During the course of preparing their respective papers for the symposium, she and Molholt uncovered evidence that an Antioch provenance for …

Problematizing Typology And Discarding The Colonialist Legacy: Approaches To Hybridity In The Terracotta Figurines Of Hellenistic Babylonia, Stephanie Langin-Hooper

Art History Research

No abstract provided.

Terracotta Figurines And Social Identities In Hellenistic Babylonia, Stephanie Langin-Hooper

Art History Research

Terracotta figurines are proposed as a particularly useful object corpus through which to access social identities in Hellenistic Babylonia. Cross-cultural interaction between Greeks and Babylonians has traditionally been the primary interest of scholars researching this society, and figurines were often recruited as evidence for the opposition of ethnic identities. In this work, a new approach to the figurines is proposed, which deemphasizes the categorical rigidity of typology and substitutes a flexible methodology of accessing multiple inter-object entanglements. A particular case study of “nude heroic” figurines (which are often considered evidence for display of cultural difference) is explored in detail, utilizing …

Sexualized Collaborations And The Politics Of Ghost-Writing In Franco-Arab Literature: From Paul Bowles To Tout Le Monde Aime Mohamed, Mehammed Mack

French Studies: Faculty Publications

In the last few decades, the landscape of Franco-Arab fiction has seen a great many authorship scandals, in which French non-Arab authors have impersonated Arabs and found publishing success. In this essay, I revisit these scandals while focusing on a recent “autobiographical” novel that raised suspicions of ghostwriting: 2011’s Tout le monde aime Mohamed (Everyone Loves Mohamed ) by Malik Kuzman. An impressionistic collage of homo-erotic encounters, its fleeting structure recalls that of Barthes’ Incidents, a series of social vignettes culled from the author’s time in Morocco. I explore the simultaneity of Barthes’ Death of the Author argument and the …

The Fate And Power Of Heroic Bones And The Politics Of Bone Transfer In Ancient Israel And Greece, Brian R. Doak

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

No abstract provided.

Ezekiel’S Topography Of The (Un-)Heroic Dead In Ezekiel 32:17–32, Brian R. Doak

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

This essay is an attempt to address several interpretive problems in Ezek 32:17–32 in light of religious ideas prominent in ancient Mediterranean expressions of hero cult. Previous studies have not adequately dealt with the richness of Ezekiel’s striking and unusual imagery in this passage, and I contend that a reading that more fully develops the meaning of Ezekiel’s presentation vis-à-vis the history of religious ideas regarding the power of the heroic dead is the most appropriate one in terms of Ezekiel’s overarching message in this chapter. I argue that Ezekiel’s invocation of ancient Israelite heroic traditions involving the Gibborim and …

Inscriptional Evidence Of Pre-Islamic Classical Arabic: Selected Readings In The Nabataean, Musnad, And Akkadian Inscriptions, Saad D. Abulhab

Publications and Research

This book investigates the ancient roots of Classical Arabic through detailed tracings and readings of selected, Pre-Islamic, ancient inscriptions from the Northern and Southern Arabian Peninsula. It provides detailed readings of important Akkadian, Nabataean, and old Arabic Musnad inscriptions, including Namarah and the Epic of Gilgamesh inscriptions. The book provides clear inscriptional evidence indicating that Classical Arabic was predominantly utilized in the major population centers of the greater Arabian Peninsula, including Mesopotamia and the Levant regions, many, many centuries before Islam. In his book, the author presents several important new readings. Among them, a new reading of two important Classical …

After The Earthquake : Economic Governance And Mass Politics In The Arab World, Steven Heydemann

Middle East Studies: Faculty Publications

The revolutionary wave that washed over the Arab world in 2011 swept away the rulers of Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Yemen. This article compares the economic policies adopted by the various governments in response to popular dissatisfaction, finding significant similarities between post-authoritarian transition regimes and authoritarian "survivors". Both have relied on a similar mix of economic strategies : a temporary increase in redistribution, direct monetary transfers to what are deemed politically useful sections of the population and an ongoing commitment to preuprising policies of reduced social spending and economic liberalization. This convergence runs counter to expectations that elected transitional governments …