Past Theses
2020-21
Naomi Fastovsky
Speaking-Back: A Circulatory History of Yiguandao
Adviser: Kenneth Brashier
Xingang He
Studies on Fang Yizhi: Sketches of a Chinese Intellectual in Tumultuous Time
Adviser: Kenneth Brashier
Ursula Hirschi
American Dakinis: Understanding the Encounter between Western Feminism and Tibetan Buddhism
Adviser: Michael Foat
Natalie Lasko
Anthropology-Religion
4chan and Islamophobia
Adviser: Kambiz GhaneaBassiri and Paul Silverstein
Teddy Lindberg
Religious and Racial Inheritance in White Racialist Paganism
Adviser: Steven Wasserstrom
Aleena Ortiz
The Transnational Eco-Religiosity of Hayao Miyazaki
Adviser: Steven Wasserstrom
Hannah Tutt
Faith and Prophetic Activisim
Adviser: Michael Foat
2019-20
Claire Berlinger
Systemizing the Chemical Divine: On the Relationship Between God and Matter in F.J.W. Schelling
Adviser: Michael Foat
Lucía Fernández Calleja
Meditation Apps: An Autoethnographic and Ritual Analysis
Adviser: Kristin Scheible
Sophia DeVita
Words Make Worlds: Complicating the Secular
Adviser: Steve Wasserstrom
Louise Hewitt
Circling Back to Religion: An Exploration of Restorative Justice as Ritualized Practice
Adviser: Kristin Scheible
Delainey Myers
Religious Foundations: Interfaith Organizations and Affordable Housing
Adviser: Kristin Scheible
Tom Sullivan
A Light on the Margins: A Study in the Inter-religious Life of Shlomo Ibn Gabirol
Adviser: Steve Wasserstrom
2018-19
Ateha Bailly
I and I: An Analysis of the Ritualized Use of Haile Selassie in Rastafari
Adviser: Steven Wasserstrom
Chiara Boisserée
The Borders of Universalism: Islam and Public Discourse in France
Adviser: Kambiz GhaneaBassiri
Michael Benjamin Carbone
Workers of the Ummah, Unite!: Gamal al-Banna's Conception of Islamic Trade Unions
Adviser: Kambiz GhaneaBassiri
Sara Córdoba
Castles in the Sky: The Role of Architecture in Built Religious Space
Adviser: Kristin Scheible
Andrea Deniz Güriş Herrera
Drinking to Get Drunk: The Influences of Wine in Islamic History
Adviser: Kenneth Brashier
Ruth E. Hale
Revisiting Scriptures for America: Myth and Media in a 20th Century Theology of White Nationalism
Adviser: Steven Wasserstrom
Riley Hert
Two Paths to the Same God: Finding Faith and God in Alfred Tennyson's In Memoriam and William Buckland's Geology and Mineralogy
Adviser: Kenneth Brashier
Lauren Jewell Matthews
Rabi'a al-Adawiyya: A Woman on the Path
Adviser: Kambiz GhaneaBassiri
Jona Ford Mensch
Knowledge Becomes Love: An Analysis of Pavel Florensky's The Pillar and Ground of the Truth
Adviser: Michael Foat
Tehniyat Naveed
Religion, Land Use and Zoning Laws: Islamic Institutions in Oregon
Adviser: Kambiz GhaneaBassiri
Sah Nelson
Richard Dawkins and the God-hypothesis: Is New Atheism's Founder Religious?
Adviser: Michael Foat
Riley H. Woollen
Profane Angels: U.S. Advertising's Cultural Ascendence Post-1971
Adviser: Steve Wasserstrom
2017-18
Ava Kamb
The Hospital Chaplain between Worlds
Adviser: Ken Brashier
Sophia McKean
I’m Right in the Center of What Moves Me: Gay and Lesbian Experience in the First Unitarian Universalist Society of San Francisco
Adviser: Michael Foat
Dustin Weinreb
The Wrath of Turāth: Hassan Hanafi’s Construction of Modernism through Islamic Tradition
Adviser: Kambiz GhaneaBassiri
Katharine Steele
Forced Crossings and Katrina Crosses: How Religion Survived the Hurricane
Adviser: Ken Brashier
2016-17
Melaina Ecker
"Sharing the Good News" : Mobilizing Protestant Values through Faith-Based Anti-Sex Trafficking Activism
Adviser: Kambiz GhaneaBassiri
Maria Carpenter
Sharing with Mortals: The Goddess Athena, Gender, and Power in 5th century Athenian Religion
Adviser: Kenneth Brashier
Sofiya Hyder
Embodied Scripture & Scripted Embodiment: Cross Channels of Practice & Transmission
Adviser: Kristin Scheible
Shea McElroy
Queer Terrorism Is Nonsensical: A Material Analysis of Symbolic Communication about the Orlando Shooting
Adviser: Steven Wasserstrom
Aysha Ann Pettigrew
Forging New American-Muslim Identities after 9/11: Through Islamic Education, Children's Books, and Muslim Women's Online Media
Adviser: Kambiz GhaneaBassiri
Emily Rose Garcia
Religious Experience Revisited
Adviser: Steven Wasserstrom
Max Taino Hughes Velez
Islamic Art in Museums: Secularism and Epistemological Aporias
Adviser: Kristin Scheible
2015-16
Emily A. Curtis
Krishna on the Tongue: Voicing Tradition, Geographies, and Bodies of Bhakti in Vrindavan, India
Adviser: Prof. Scheible
Briana I. Foley
The Decay of Mud and God: Tactility, Transformation and Divine Absence in a Newar Life-Cycle Ritual in Bhaktapur, Nepal
Adviser: Prof. Scheible
Carolyn L. Foerster
Classics-Religion
Caesar et suos: Charisma, Pietas, and Discipline in the Gallic War
Adviser: Prof. Millender (Fall), Prof. Sabnis (Spring)
Pema McLaughlin
Pointing At the Moon: Categorizing and Creating American Buddhism
Adviser: Prof. GhaneaBassiri
Madison B. Mintz
"Love unknown, why? Why? Why?": Understanding the Screaming Episode in Angela of Foligno's Memorial
Adviser: Prof. Foat
Ali D. Neyzi
Rebellion and Religion: The 1703 Edirne Incident in its Context and the "Religiosities" of Its Actors
Adviser: Brashier
James F. Sissler
Philosophy-Religion
Practice Makes Perfect: Moral Development in Aristotle and Confucius
Adviser: Brashier
2014-15
Su Y. Bang
Classics-Religion
Radical Love: Paul's Epistle to Philemon
Adviser: Prof. Foat
Timothy H. Brandow
The Fool's Hermeneutic: Toward a Trialogic Model of Understanding Authority within the Confines of the Tarot Divination Event
Adviser: Prof. Kory
David C. Grovic-Rauenzahn
The Light of Gnosis, the Prism of Reason, and the Spectrum of Truth: A Dialectical Critique of Jeffrey Kripal's (Post)modern Gnosticism and Pure Rationalism in Religions Studies
Adviser: Prof. Foat
Wyatt R. Heidenfelder
From Religion to "Transreligion"
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Christopher Lu
A Study of Transmedia Types in Academic Forms
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Sienna M. Lyon
Mallikā's Hermeneutics: A Feminist Revalorization of the Jātaka Stories
Adviser: Prof. Scheible
Peter Smith
Muslim Interfaith Marriages in America
Adviser: Prof. GhaneaBassiri
2013-14
Megan Bradley
Between Oppression and Opposition: the Muslim Brotherhood's Articulation of Islam in Post-revolutionary Egypt
Adviser: Kambiz GhaneaBassiri
Kirsten Collins
Negotiating Edith Stein: "Bildung" and Identity Politics in the Making of a Modern Saint
Adviser: Steven M. Wasserstrom
Erin M. Guy
Art-Religion
Monstrance in Miniature: The Granville Manuscript's Painted Windows on the Crystal Palace
Advisers: Ken Brashier and William Diebold
Kelly M. Holob
Classics-Religion
Rise and Shine: Contextualizing the Hymns of Synesius of Cyrene
Adviser: Michael E. Foat
Imani E. Jackson
Towards a New Heaven: Reading Black Catholicism in the Work of Sister Thea Bowman
Adviser: Michael E. Foat
Sharon A. Massey
"What the Hell is a Syrian Jew?": Religious Change and Ethnic Persistence in the History of Syrian Jewish Immigrants in New York
Adviser: Kambiz GhaneaBassiri
Joshua McCarty
Carthusian Desire
Adviser: Michael E. Foat
Zuzu Rebecca Myers
Between Language and Violence: a Dialogue Group's Attempt at Communicating with the Religious Other
Adviser: Michael E. Foat
Louise Webster
Goddesses, Gray Areas, and Cyborgs: the Contemporary Apotheosis of Pele, a Hawaiian Volcano Goddess
Adviser: Stephan N. Kory
2012-13
Melissa Lynn Aslo
The 99: A Study of Religion and Media
Adviser: Prof. Foat
Laila Judith Caron
The World is waiting to Sing the Song of Shabbos: Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach and Twentieth Century Jewish Revitalization
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Anna Marilyn Cooper
The Ongoing Conversation: Tradition, Authenticity, and Contemporary Mosque Architecture
Adviser: Jyväsjärvi
Gina Camille Giliberti
Henry Chichele's Corpus: Transi Tombs and the Reconceptualization of the Ecclesiastic Body in 15th Century England
Adviser: Prof. Foat
Aria Ceridwyn Joughin
(Re)Creating God's Story: New Monasticism, Narrative, and the Construction of Religious Identity
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Laura Jeannette Nelson
Classics-Religion
Sensing Divinity: The Dynamics of Sense Perception in Kassia's Troparion for Holy Wednesday
Adviser: Prof. Foat
Claire Lauren Ramey
Through the Veil: The Lord of the Rings as Illuminated by Simone Weil
Adviser: Prof. Jyväsjärvi
Lori Vanessa Rodriguez
Recovering the Feminine Principle: Ecofeminist Spirituality and Gandhian Stayagraha in the Activism of Vandana Shiva
Adviser: Prof. Schofer
Robert Sanderson Shryock
Authenticity in Contemporary Christian Worship Music
Adviser: Prof. Brashier
Katherine Eleanor Werner
Bill vs. William: A Story of Bill Wilson, William James and Alcoholics Anonymous
Simone Elise Wood
A Dynamic and Digital Zohar: An Experiment in 3D Textual Environments
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
2011-12
Hannah Catherine Brannan
A Study of the Negotiation of the Islamic Legal Tradition
Adviser: Prof. GhaneaBassiri
Taylor Alexander Colwell
The Drama of Orthodoxy: Father Alexander Schmemann and the limits of religious pluralism within Orthodox Christianity in American
Adviser: Prof. Foat
Kylie Yvonne Gilchrist
Signals Along the Skyline: Minarets in the German Public Sphere
Adviser: Prof. GhaneaBassisi
Amelia Josephine Goldsmith
Medical Remediation: Buddhist Monasticism and Political Rhetoric in Seventeenth-Century Tibet
Adviser: Prof. Jyväsjärvi
Maria Rachel Hermsen
One Hell of a Problem: An Analysis of the Discourse of Religion vs. Culture in Contemporary American Evangelicalism through the Lens of the Rob Bell Firestorm
Adviser: Prof. Brashier
Katherine Elizabeth Lantz
Mahommah Baquaqua and the American Baptist Free Mission Society: A Study of Religious Discourses on Slavery and Individualism in Antebellum America
Adviser: Prof. GhaneaBassiri
Joanna Dorothy Szynal
Gender and Genre in The Martyrdom of Saints Perpetua and Felicitas
Adviser: Prof. Foat
Rachel Elizabeth Waterhouse
Community and God in the Writings of Gustavo Guitérrez and Émile Durkheim
Adviser: Prof. Brashier
2010-11
Audrey June Davidson
Punk Islam? Muslim Punk? Taqwacore as a Multivalent Means through which to Counteract a Monolithic Image of Islam
Adviser: Prof. GhaneaBassiri
Leah Davis Early
Discourse & Deity
Adviser: Prof. Roberts
Kelsey Elizabeth Elving
The Case of Amina Lawal: Women's Rights and Shari'a Implementation in a Post-Colonial Nation State
Adviser: Prof. GhaneaBassiri
Paul David Flanders
Simone Weil and Violent Grace
Adviser: Prof. Brashier
Simon Rabin Goldstein
On the Masorah and the Process of Fixity
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Vincent Reed LaSala
Zhuangzi and His Humor
Adviser: Prof. Brashier
Andrew Glen Michaan
Are You There God? It's Me, Zantheos: The Roman Catholic Church and Extraterrestrial Life
Adviser: Prof. Roberts
Simone Ashe Morris
Letters and Dust: The Golem as Physical Manifestation of Righteousness
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Rebecca Anna Shapiro
Eroticism and Death: Micropolitical Rituality in the Body Art of Marina Abramoviç , 1973-1976
Adviser: Prof. Roberts
Hannah Lise Simonson
What does Islamic Art mean for Islam? An examination of word/image in the calligraphic works of Nja Mahdaoui, Mohamed Zakariya, and Kamal Boullata
Adviser: Prof. GhaneaBassiri
Eliot Stanley Stempf
"Truth shall budde out of the earth; and Righteousnesse shall looke downe from Heaven": Lancelot Andrewes, Early Modern Geography, and the Divine Mysteries
Adviser: Prof. Roberts
Maya Miller Wolf
Siddurim and the Cultivation of Klal Yisrael: A Study of Jewish Prayer Book Reform in Contemporary America
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
2009-10
Emma Barnett
Viking Who? A Translation and Analysis of the Chronicle of Roskilde: How the Author Came to Terms with Denmark's Pagan Past
Adviser: Prof. Foat
Emily Kasiana Corso
Opening the Black Box of Jewish Literacy: An Evaluation of the Florence Melton Adult Mini-schools as a Response to the "Crisis of Continuity"
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Kevin William Crooks
Emulating the Sage: the Chinese Islamic Knowledge of Liu Zhi's Tianfang Xingli
Adviser: Prof. Brashier
Anna Evans-Goldstein
Secrets from Dead People: Making Science and Religion Compatible in the Face of Death
Adviser: Prof. GhaneaBassiri
James Gregory Given
Classics-Religion
Anchoring the Areopagite: An Intertextual Approach to Pseudo-Dionysius
Adviser: Prof. Foat
Allison Jones
The Ethical Kosher Pickle: Reading the Discourse of a New Jewish Food Ethic
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Rachel Marie Leaf
Tikkun Olam and Tikkun HaLev: The Messianism of Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and the Jewish Renewal Movement
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Paige Merritt
Think Religiously, Act Pragmatically: The Strategic Function of the Interfaith Environmental Movement in America and its Implications for Religion
Adviser: Prof. Brashier
Andrew Glen Michaan
Are You There God? It's Me, Zantheos: The Roman Catholic Church and Extraterrestrial Life
Adviser: Prof. Roberts
Joseph Parmalee
Gaining the Whole World: The Consequences of Premillennial Dispensationalism's Emergence into the American Mainstream
Adviser: Prof. GhaneaBassiri
Christopher Timothy Rubio
Verbal Converts and True Believers: The Origins of the Heaven's Gate Suicide Cult
Adviser: Prof. Roberts
Angélique Geneviève Thomas
Martyr Posters and the Construction of Contemporary Palestinian Landscapes and Identities
Adviser: Prof. GhaneaBassiri
Michael Wayne Waldon
Translating the Wordless Transmission: The American Koan
Adviser: Prof. GhaneaBassiri
Katherine C A Walker
Through a Venetian's Eyes: Marco Polo and 13th Century Tengriism
Adviser: Prof. Brashier
Andrew Warner
Prophetic Prostheses and the Cybernetic Sublime: A Study of our Transhuman Condition
Adviser: Prof. Roberts
Matthew M Zeltzer
From Syncretism to Signifying: Son House's "Preachin' Blues"
Adviser: Prof. Foat
2008-09
Pooja Bhaskar
Toward Divinity: Muhammad Iqbal’s and ‘Ali Shari‘ati’s Constructions of the Ideal Modern Muslim Self
Adviser: Prof. GhaneaBassiri
Dana Bublitz
Classics-Religion
"Are you there God? It's me, Margaret": A Study of Thomas of Froidmont's "Odoeporicum et Pericula Margaritae Iherosolimitanae"
Adviser: Prof. Sabnis
Lee Lipton
The Problem of Dignity: Exception and the Heterosexual Norm in Conservative Halachah
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Samara Holub-Moorman
Hazrat Inayat Khan and His Metaphysics of Vibration
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Chase Munson
Race, Religion, and Revival: The Story of William J. Seymour
Adviser: Prof. Foat
Margaret Amanda Grove Nelson
Classics-Religion
A Mind Against the Mindless: A Commentary on Gregory of Nazianzus' "First letter to Cledonius"
Adviser: Prof. Foat
Caitlin Rose Oliver
American Civil Religion: Myth, Terror, and Story
Adviser: Prof. Roberts
John Arthur Peetz
Worship the Board, Worship the Lord: Phenomenological Conversion Experience in Skate Ministries
Adviser: Prof. Roberts
Dora Emily Pollack
The Cosmos in Ink: Spirit Resonance and Correlative Realms in Early Chinese Philosophy of Landscape Painting
Adviser: Prof. Brashier
Martin M. Souza
Do the Impossible, See the Invisible: Ritual as Self-Cultivation in the "Li Ji"
Adviser: Prof. Brashier
Kate Williams
"Dancing for an Audience of One": Megachurches, Ballet, and the Creation of Bodily Religious Identity
Adviser: Prof. Roberts
2007-08
Kristina Marie Clark
Today the Sacrament is LSD: "Start Your Own Religion," Timothy Leary, and the League for Spiritual Discovery
Adviser: Prof. Roberts
Zoë A. Calman
The Place of Ethics: A Critical Reading of Giorgio Agamben's "Remnants of Auschwitz"
Adviser: Prof. Wasserman
John C. Dawson
Gaps in History: Arthur Cohen and American Jewish Theology of History After the Holocaust
Adviser: Prof. GhaneaBassiri
Madeline LeNore Klink
"I Type the Amens and Think the Rest": An Ethnographic Look at Religion in Virtual Reality
Adviser: Prof. Brashier
Erin Rose Lenhardt
Flannery O'Connor's Anagogical and the Author, Character, Reader Trialogue
Adviser: Prof. Roberts
Adrienne Julia Mahar
Classics-Religion
Self and Selflessness: Travels With a Handmaid of the Lord
Adviser: Prof. Nicholson
James Meador
Russian-Religion
Moscow Tantric Blues: Bidiya Dandaron's Letters to Nataliya Kovrigina, 1956-1959
Adviser: Prof. Lena Lencek
Laura Platt
Dialogues in Diaspora: The Construction of Jewish Life and Identity at Cedar Sinai Park
Adviser: Prof. Foat
2006-07
Tiffany Lorraine Betts
Transformational Healing: From Experience to Articulation
Advisers: Prof. Brashier & Prof. Wasserstrom
Jane Lindsay Boyle
A Return to Meaning: Spirituality and Historical Tradition at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral
Adviser: Prof. Foat
Vahid J. Brown
Muhammad b. Masarra al-Jabali and His Place in Medieval Islamicate Intellectual History: Towards a Reappraisal
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Mark S Chapman
The Adoption of Buddhist Terminology, Imagery, and Concepts in the Chinese Manichaean Hymnscroll
Advisers: Prof. Brashier & Prof. Wasserman
Benjamin Francis Cordell Colahan
Classics-Religion
The Progress of Procopius: A Martyr’s Byzantine Tale and Its Changing Theology
Adviser: Prof. Foat
Geoffrey Thomas Finger
The Sacralizing Stage: Late Imperial Chinese Ritual Opera, Performative Exorcisms, and </1em>Mulian Rescues His Mother, An Opera for Goodness</1em>
Adviser: Prof. Brashier
Michael Yeley Frederick
Quotation Marks and the Study of Hinduism
Adviser: Prof. Roberts
Suzanna Lynn Goldblatt
Condoms and the Catholic Church: Vatican II and AIDS
Adviser: Prof. Roberts and Prof. Foat
Alana Henderson Hein
Reason, Erotic Theurgy, and Divine Humanity: Vladimir Solovyov’s Legitimation of Sophia
Adviser: Prof. Foat
Dana Wiggins Logan
American Studies/Religion
The Greatest Churches Have Yet to Be Organized: Architecture and Religion at the Drive-In Church
Adviser: Prof. Foat
Megan Anne McInerney
After Prophecy: The Prophetic Practice of Wendell Berry
Adviser: Prof. Foat
Marianna Elaine Mullens
“Thugs Turn to Religion:” Signifying Religion within the Nation of Gods and Earths
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Julia Elisabeth Palmer
“Give Yourselves to God”: An Examination of Baptism in the Hutterite Community
Adviser: Prof. Wasserman
Sara Ruth Robberson
Upgrading Religion: A Study of Media Practice at Crossroads Community Church
Advisers: Prof. Wasserman & Prof. Wasserstrom
Daniel James Toman
Wilderness and the Book of Nature: Rewriting the American Environment
Adviser: Prof. Roberts
Miriam Judith Woods
Formation of Religious and National Identities through Pakistani Educational Systems
Adviser: Prof. Wasserman
2005-06
Evan Maxwell Brewer
One Ray of the Sun: The Education and Early Theology of Nikolaj Velimirovic
Adviser: Prof. Noon
Eliza Marie Buhrer
From Theologian to </1em>Physicus</1em>: William of Conches and a Twelfth Century Rift between Theology and Natural Philosophy
Adviser: Prof. Foat
Michael Phillips Casper
Day of the Living Dead: The Spirit Possession Paradigm in Early Modern Yiddish
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Amanda Leigh Cooper
Facing Indra’s Net: A Text-based Analysis of the Case for an Innate Buddhist Environmentalism
Adviser: Prof. Brashier
Tristram Coffin Dammin
“Hail to the Chief”: Ideology and Religion
Adviser: Prof. Lofton
Samuel Benjamin Kigar
Islam on the Inside: An Ethnographic Case Study of Muslims in an Oregon Prison
Adviser: Prof. Noon
Margot Pyne Kniffin
Falun Gong and Li Hongzhi’s Mechanized Redemption in the Information Age
Adviser: Prof. Brashier
Samantha Rose Lundequam
Hallowed Ground: Arlington National Cemetery, Sacred Space, and American Symbol-Making
Adviser: Prof. Lofton
Miranda Noel Meadow
Rewriting Religion: W. D. Muhammad’s Construction of an African-American Muslim Identity
Adviser: Prof. Noon
Benjamin Paul Murphy
(Re)readings of Paul: The Epistle to the Ephesians and the New Paul Paradigm
Adviser: Prof. Foat
Reanne Theresa O’Sullivan
Woman, the Last Fortress of Every People: The Grail Movement, Feminist Theology, and American Catholicism
Adviser: Prof. Lofton
Jeffrey Wyatt Peterson
The Immortal Discourse: Tracing Ge Hong’s Tradition of Transcendence
Adviser: Prof. Brashier
Paul Mark Robertson
Classics-Religion
Didymus the Blind and his Commentary on Paul’s Epistle to the Romans
Adviser: Prof. Foat
Michael Jared Salk
From Spiritual Beings to Counterintuitive Agents: God-Beliefs, Cognitive Science, and the New Naturalism in Religious Studies
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Jeffrey Andrew Wermer
Classics-Religion
ΠΕΡΙ ΤΟΥ ΥΠΕΡΟΥΣΙΟΥ ΟΥΣΙΩΜΕΝΟΥ Jesus as a Principle of Meditation in the Philosophy of Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite
Adviser: Prof. Foat
2004-05
Annette Lynn Cantu
Roman Catholic Identity, Vatican II and the Current ‘Crisis’ of the Catholic Church in the United States
Adviser: Prof. Foat
Roma Giannina Carpenter
The Function of Gravestones Within Catholic Soteriology: Mt. Calvary Catholic Cemetery, 1888-1910
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Jason Denning
Self-educated Buddhism and Alan Watts
Adviser: Prof. GhaneaBassiri
Noah Depper
Blazing Trails on the Steep Pass: A Study of the Progressive Muslim Movement
Adviser: Prof. GhaneaBassiri
Avigail Hurvitz-Prinz
Homemade “Haggadot”: A Study of Contemporary Jewish Ritual Practice and Identity
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Joelle Marr
Immanent Objects: A Study of Buddhist Relics, Icons, and Sutras through the Lens of Ennin's Diary
Adviser: Prof. Brashier
Emily B. Miller
The Baby Boom in the Neo-orthodox Nursery: Protestant Education in 1950's America
Adviser: Prof. GhaneaBassiri
Ilana Moll
The "Dao De Jing" and Expression of Interpretation through Translation
Adviser: Prof. Brashier
Alexander Landry Neely
Breaking the Maximus Code: A Systematic Exposition of the “Mystagogia”
Adviser: Prof. Foat
Andrea Lynn Neuhoff
The Unedited Thomas Merton: Autobiography to Autohagiography
Adviser: Prof. Foat
James A. Ramos
Reading “Rome and Jerusalem”
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Jeffrey W. Schroeder
Gary Snyder’s Imagined Window on Paleolithic Buddhism
Adviser: Prof. Brashier
2003-04
Philip John Chagoya
The First Principle Aspect: The Operation, Purpose, and Meaning Of Divine Providence in Giambattista Vico’s New Science
Adviser: Prof. Foat
Emily Marie Craven
The Huarochiri Manuscript: Postcolonial Theory in Peru
Adviser: Prof. McCalla
Camille Claire Curry
Zaynab al-Ghazali’s Prison Memoirs: Ethics and Politics through Divine Inscription
Adviser: Prof. GhaneaBassiri
Jasmin Afarin Kahn
Nativism in Scholarship on Early Irish Christianity, with a Case Study of Pelagianism
Adviser: Prof. Foat
Dylan Mark Madenski
Avelokitesvara in a Raincoat: Heart Sutra Interpretation And Ritual Practice in Portland, Oregon
Adviser: Prof. GhaneaBassiri
Kurt Christopher Petschke
Religion and the Picturesque: The Contested Landscape of Hafod, Cardiganshire
Adviser: Prof. McCalla
Megan Clare Price
Walter Wink and the Religion of Nonviolence
Adviser: Prof. Foat
Lincoln Turner Taggart
A Theology of Muslim Nationalism: Muhammad Iqbal and The Pakistan Movement
Adviser: Prof. GhaneaBassiri
2002-03
Ligaya Ann Beebe
For "You," From "Me": On Constructed Audiences and Identities of Two Taiwan Buddhist Organizations
Adviser: Prof. Brashier
Dylan Michael Burns
Hyper-Orphic Myth, The Theurgy of Proclus
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Lauren Elizabeth Frank
The Sharing of Eternal Life: Love and Salvation in Symeon the New Theologian
Adviser: Prof. Foat
Virginia Grace Griffin
Left Behind in America?: Fundamentalism and Popular Culture
Adviser: Prof. McCalla
Brannan Dobbs Ingram
The Ahmadiyya Movement: Orthodoxy, Heterodoxy, and Global Islam
Adviser: Prof. GhaneaBassiri
Jonathan Zachary Nelson
Aberrant Trance States in Buddhist Meditation: A Cognitive View of Mysticism
Adviser: Prof. Brashier
Minna Adrienne Scholten
The American Mosque: Representation and the Formation Of American Islamic Identities
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
David Marshall Ward
Inventing Antiquity: The Role of Time-Depth in Creating Religious Significance in Modern Wicca
Adviser: Prof. Brashier
2001-02
Kip Matthew Berman
Over and Out: An Examination of the CCM Cross-over Phenomenon
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Megan Roberta Bongle
What Do you Do with an Apostate Messiah?
Adviser: Prof. Feener
Dustin James Gillham
What She Really Says: Elizabeth Schussler's Fiorenza's Hermenneutics in Context
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Katherine Laura Hug
Orthodoxy versus Heresy: An Essay on the Battle Over The Authority of Interpretation Between Church and the New Prophecy
Adviser: Prof. Feener
Ruchama Jerusha Johnston-Bloom
A Life Lived in Translation: Muhammed Asad Adopts and Adapts Islam
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Michael Belden McAteer
Redefining the Ancient Tribal Ritual for the 21st Century: Goa Gil and the Trance Dance Experience
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Julia V. Meltzer
Tranquility in Turmoil: The </1em>Zhuangzi's</1em> Therapeutic Skepticism
Adviser: Prof. Schmid
Jesse Josef Mischel
Teaching Plainness: The Socialization of Children in an Old Order Mennonite Community
Adviser: Prof. McCalla
Jessica Lynn Stults
Banners of Progress: Spiritualism, Democracy, and Science On the Pacific Coast, 1867-1896
Adviser: Prof. McCalla
Laura Gail Valenti
The Goddess is Alive and Magic is Afoot: An Analysis of Myth and Modern Goddess Worship
Adviser: Prof. Schmid
Elizabeth Rose von Kreisler
Elitism and Esotericism: Allegory in Ibn Tufayl’s </1em>Hayy ibn Yaqzan</1em>
Adviser: Prof. Feener
Jonathan Dean Warren
Vipassana in the Pacific Northwest: Seeking the Moment In a Sea of Metaphors
Adviser: Prof. Schmid
Patricia Ann Williams
Why Canonize John? A Discourse Applying the Praxeology of Bourdieu
Adviser: Prof. Feener
Nicole Larissa Wiswell
Recreation, Race, and Lynchin: Toward a New Theory in The Study of Southern Religion
Adviser: Prof. McCalla
2000-01
Azure Akamay
Thus They Become Wicked Interpreters of Genuine Words: Scripture, Wisdom, and Spirit Second Century Valentinianism
Adviser: Prof. Foat
Jeremy Phillip Brown
The Dimona Dybbuk: Exorcism, Media, and Politics in the 1999 Israeli Elections
Adviser: Prof. Feener
Emily Jane Carter
Compelling God: Mystical Christology in Five of Meister Eckhart's German Sermons
Adviser: Prof. Foat
Erin Elizabeth Dobson
"And on the side of their oppressors there was power": The Nazi State; Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the World Come of Age
Adviser: Prof. McCalla
Lena Elizabeth Eberhart
Tradition Imprisoned: Can Buddhism Support the Rehabilitative Function?
Adviser: Prof. Brashier
Luciana Jude Fontanini
The Archangel Michael Who is Holy and his Sidekick, John Who is Small
Adviser: Prof. Foat
Caryn Louise Garner
Catholic Hospitals and Health Care in the United States: The Sanctity of Life and the Sacrifice of Women's Reproductive Rights
Adviser: Prof. Brashier
Leah Amelia Halvorson
Forbidden Sects: John Locke, Natural Law, and Religious Toleration
Adviser: Prof. McCalla
David Andrew McDougal
Community Building and Ritualism in the </1em>Han Kitah</1em>: A Study of Chinese Muslim Writers, 1642-1723
Adviser: Prof. Feener
Kimber Ann Nelson
American Buddhist Ritual: A Case Study in Ritualization, Ritual Change, and Ritual Interpretation at a Portland, Oregon Templt
Adviser: Prof. Brashier
Whitney Leslie Olson
"Teaching God's People to Win!" : Charismatic Christianity and the Prosperity Movement Within
Adviser: Prof. Foat
Lucas Perkins
When Cowboys Die: Myth and Religion in "Preacher"
A dviser: Prof. Foat
Eliot Shambelan Rasenick
Starhawk and Her Witchy Friends: Finding Unity in Constructivist Analysis
Adviser: Prof. McCalla
Samuel Jordan Schaeffer
"</1em>ER</1em>=Eliade </1em>rex</1em>"?
Adviser: Prof. McCalla
Cecily Frances Whitworth
This Text is Very Useful and Inspiring of Dread: Word, Image and Authority in Hildegard of Bingen's </1em>Liber Scivia</1em>
Adviser: Prof. Foat
1999-2000
Adam Howard Davis
To Apprehend the Still Point: T.S. Eliot and the Via Negativa of the </1em>Four Quartets</1em>
Adviser: Prof. McCalla
J. Clifford Dyer
I Know This Because Tyler Knows This: Relationships of Obedience in the 18th-Century Russian Orthodox Monasticism of Paisy Velychkovsky
Adviser: Prof. Foat
Martha Susan Fletcher
Healing as Performative Ritual in American Pentecostalism
Adviser: Prof. McCalla
Elizabeth Edith Gustafson
Correspondences with the Uncanny: The Shan Hai Jing and Sacred Knowledge in Early Imperial China
Adviser: Prof. Brashier
Anmol Avinash Nayvar
(Re)constructing Falun Gong: An Empirical Approach
Adviser: Prof. Brashier
Eloise Violet Nelson
Interpreting Jonestown: The Effect of the Media Portrayal of Jonestown on the Academic Study of Religion
Adviser: Prof. McCalla
Michelle Nicole Pallak
"Anguish in the Face of Nothing": Gender and Failure in the Life of the Abbess Thaisia
Adviser: Prof. Foat
Maggie Dara Rosenbloom
Discourse on Desire: Controversy over Spiritual Marriage in Fourth-Century Egyptian Asceticism
Adviser: Prof. Foat
Rebecca Ellen Stewart
Women's Haggadot: Text and Ritual Change in Modern American Judaism
Adviser: Prof. Feener
Sarah Rose Weinman
Secularizing Sabbatianism: The Reconstruction of a Religious Tradition in the Virtual New Age
Adviser: Prof. Feener
1998-99
Thomas Michael Belote
(Dis)establishing Religion: Thomas Jefferson and the (Dis)course of Religious Freedom
Adviser: Prof. Foat
Erica Marie Hagen
The Kalachakra Tantra in the Age of Strife: Modern Tibetan Identity and the Globalization of Ritual
Adviser: Prof. Brashier
Kristel Ann Halter
Contextualizing the Spiritual Doctrine of Evagrius of Pontus in Fourth Century Egyptian Monasticism: Determining the Sources of Desert Animosity
Adviser: Prof. Foat
Amy Kathleen Hendrix
The Bride and Her Jewels: the Roman Catholic Church and Religion in Africa
Adviser: Prof. Foat
Nina Lee Johnson
Love Hurts: The Suffering Body in Bonaventure's </1em>Lengenda Maior</1em>
Adviser: Prof. Foat
Julie Kenner
A Poet's Eugenics: Merrill's Sandover as a Third Testament
Adviser: Prof. Foat
Dustin White Latka
Naming and the Return to Unity: Name Magic in the Mao Shan Tradition of Great Purity
Adviser: Prof. Brashier
Benjamin Thomas Leech
The Face of the Earth: "Theography" and the drawings of Opicinus de Canistris
Adviser: Prof. Brashier
Nathan Dan Newberger
God's Descending in the Clouds (UFOs): Explication of a Modern Taiwanese Sectarian Movement
Adviser: Prof. Brashier
Noah Daniel Salomon
Expanding the Boundaries of Normative Judaism in the Middle Ages: An Historical Study of the Magical Texts from the Cairo Geniza
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Samuel Hargrave Sanford
How David Koresh Controlled His Followers
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Mark Christopher Taylor
Why Become a Nephite? The Book of Mormon and Conversion
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Jeremy Francis Walton
Beyond God (</1em>hypertheos</1em>): Kataphasis, Apophasis, and Hyperphasis in the Works of Pseudo-Dionysus
Adviser: Prof. Foat
1997-98
David Brown Alsdorf
</1em>Perfecting Gratia</1em>: Grace and Perfection in the Later Thought of Saint Augustine
Adviser: Prof. Foat
Bronwyn Boothe Bailey
Living Stones and Speaking Stones: Naim Ateek and Palestinian Theology During the Intifada
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
James Hale Bilbro
ERGI
Adviser: Prof. Foat
Brenda Marisa Cooper
The Forgotten Buddhists: Chinese Women Resisting Acculturation in California 1853-1973
Adviser: Prof. Hsieh
Angela Katherine Eckhardt
From Chaos to Modernity: The Function of Nostalgia in Mircea Eliade's History of the World
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Joshua Jay Elliott
The Development of Hell in Ancient Judaism
Adviser: Prof. Sweek
Robert Law Griffin
Apocalypse Then: A Translation and Explication of the Apocalypse of Shenoute
Adviser: Prof. Foat
Guy Kendall Leavitt
A Translation of the Benedictions of the Abhinava-bharati Composed by the Great Reverend Devotee of Siva Abhinavagupta
Adviser: Prof. Gerow
Norah Amelia Newton
"The Way of Yao and Shun" Chu Hsi's Intellectual Genealogy (Tao-t'ung) As Myth
Adviser: Prof. Hsieh
Elizabeth Louise Nicholson
A Vision of the Great Eastern Sun: "Expedient Means" and Living Eschatology in Chogyam Trungpa's "Shambala Training"
Adviser: Prof. Hsieh
Anne Laura Oravetz
Critiquing Traditions: The Mysticism of Abraham Yagel's Apocalyptic Vision
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Michael McClary Ostling
Sheep and Goats: A Reinterpretation of Religious Tolerance in Early Modern Poland-Lithuania with Remarks on its Relevance
Adviser: Prof. Hsieh
Denise Marie Rhiner
An Additive Synthesis of Jungian and Eliadian Archetypal Theory
Adviser: Prof. Sweek
Waldemar Adrian Schmidt
New Age Religion and the Internet: Computer-Mediated Communications and the Evolution of New Religious Movements
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Andrea Elizabeth Speedie
Homiletic Liturgical and Iconographical Representations of the Mother of God Protectress of Constantinople
Adviser: Prof. Foat
Nicholas Wallace Stevens
Behing Every "Great Beast" is a Great System: Eclecticism and Experience in Aleister Crowley
Adviser: Prof. Sweek
Craig David Suffian
I Am an Ethiopian: A Subjective Biblical History of Rastafari
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Benjamin Waite Taylor
The Religious Music of John Coltrane
Adviser: Prof. Foat
1996-97
James Bellerman
The Challenge of Engagement: Centrality and Expansion in the Theology of Thomas Merton
Adviser: Prof. Hsieh
Mauricio Chernovetzky
Creativity and Creation in Sava de Mishpatim: A Study in Zoharic Hermeneutics
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Peter Kahn
Irreconcilable Principles: An Examination of the Jewish Nationalist Ideologies of Simon Dubnow and Aha Ha'am
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Floyd Bruce Mann
Sympathy for the Devil: Saint Gregory of Nyssa and the Origenist Tradition
Adviser: Prof. Foat
Gabriel Jon Quitslund
Zen Master Dogen and the Tsiao-tung (Soto) Approach to Enlightenment through Seated Meditation and Koan-Study: The Development of "The Koan of Realization" in relation to "Just Sitting"
Adviser: Prof. Hsieh
William Eric Vandever
Transconfessional Neoplatonists in the Fifteenth Century: Plethon, Ficino, Pico, and Cusansus
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
1995-96
Mimi Ann Hannon
Theologies of Darkness: Apophatic Expressions of Piety in Late Antique and Medievel European Mysticism
Adviser: Prof. Denning-Bolle
M. Akira Heshiki
Philo's Mirror: A reflection on Philo of Alexandria's Self-Understanding
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Justin Otto Sceva
Hey Joe Where Ya Goin With That Wach in Your Hand? Issues in the methodology of Joseph Mitsuo Kitagawa
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Stephanie Lynn Sleeper
</1em>Humilibus Deus dat gratiam</1em>: An Examination of Mysticism in St. Augustine, Meister Eckhart and Martin Luther
Adviser: Prof. Denning-Bolle
Amy Maline Wright
Knowing the Knower: An Investigation into Contemporary Enlightenment Claims in view of the Epistemology of Classical Advaita Vedanta
Adviser: Prof. Gerow
1994-95
Edward Todd Addleson
Traditionalizing Jewish Worship in the Lives of Portland Women
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Lara Kathleen Aho
Theology of Darkness, Theology of Light: Pseudo-Dionysius in the Orthodox Tradition
Adviser: Prof. Kenney
Sarah Alderstein
The Origin of Jerusalem's Sanctity in Islam
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Anna Kathleen Cameron
Seeking Sources: Nineteenth-Century European Theories of Religious Origins
Adviser: Prof. Denning-Bolle
Mark Andrew Friedrich
The Promise of a Negative Eshatology: A Critical Assessment of Temporality, History, and Meta-History in Ernst BLoch's </1em>The Principle of Hope</1em>
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Ben Walker Glickman
Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Moral Underpinnings of The American Civil Rights Movement
Adviser: Prof. Kenney
Matthew Paul Jeschke
The Interpretation of Zen in the West
Adviser: Prof. Gerow
Alistair Taft Jones
Mind and Spirit in Contemporary Literature on Religion
Adviser: Prof. Bolle
Kristen Ann Kelley
The Pursuit of Beauty in Art and Religion: An Experiment in Practical Scholarship
Adviser: Prof. Bolle
Ryan Kent Manner
An Inquiry into Religion, Ideology, and Change in Japan's Meigi Era
Adviser: Prof. Gerow
Jonah Seigel
Thinking in Buddhism: Nagarjuna's Middle Way
Adviser: Prof. Bolle
1993-94
Laurence David Banks
An Essay on English Catholicism from 1509 to 1603, and of the Effects of the Reformation and of the Counter Reformation thereon and an Explanation of its Continued Existence in the Face of Great Peril
Adviser: Prof. Denning-Bolle
Mark Douglas Flummerfelt
Gods and Grammar: Religious Language in Classical India
Adviser: Prof. Gerow
Bronson Don James
Al-Tawhid--God is One: The Philosophy of Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Adviser: Prof. Kenney
Andrew Todd Markell
Franz Rosenzweig: A Rediscovery of Revelation
Adviser: Prof. Bolle
Peter Michael O’Connor
The Dissemination of the Vision: John Neihardt and the Creation of </1em>Black Elk Speaks</1em>
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
1992-93
Wayne Bennett
The Tao Te Ching: Fill Your Belly and Not Your Mind
Adviser: Prof. Bolle
Allison Kay Berland
But How Can One Accept Monstrosity?: Practical Responses to the Problem of Evil in </1em>The Brothers Karamozov</1em> and </1em>The Plague</1em>
Adviser: Prof. Franklin
Carl Benjamin Brinkley
A Stone Woman Bears a Child at Night: Duality and Nonduality in the Practice and Doctrine of Dogen Kigen
Adviser: Prof. Franklin
Heather Hindman
Hindu Folk Drama and its Exploration in Western Theatrical Tradition
Advisers: Prof. Clinton and Prof. Bolle
Matthew Perkins Hoffman
Metaphysical Foundations for the Christian Contemplative Tradition: Omnipresence and Participation in Plotinus's </1em>Enneads</1em> and Augustine's </1em>Confessions</1em>
Adviser: Prof. Kenney
Forrest Hylton
Live Free or Die: Prophetic Christian Thought in the African-American Tradition
Adviser: Prof. Bolle
Sarah Johansson Locke
Institution and Inspiration: Questions of Religious Authority and the Boundaries of the Christian Tradition in Rosemary Radford Ruether's Feminist Theology
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Stephen Magro
Some Problems of Maronite Identity
Adviser: Prof. Denning-Bolle
Stuart M. Margolis
An Examination into the Dialectical Relationship Between Religion and Politics: or the Quagmire of Despair
Adviser: Prof. Bolle
Colette Leo Rabin
The Problem of Evil in </1em>Theodicy</1em>, </1em>The Brothers Karamazov</1em>, and </1em>The Plague</1em>
Adviser: Prof. Franklin
Brett Terason Wilmot
Flooding the Center with Light: a Phenomenological Investigation of a Jungian Mystic
Adviser: Prof. Kenney
1991-92
Daniel James Beveridge
Pascal's Wager Reconsidered
Adviser: Prof. Franklin
Deirdre Blair Brennan
A Study of Meontology in the Periphyseon of John Scottus Eriugena
Adviser: Prof. Denning-Bolle
Johanna C. (Turner) Colgrove
Tales From the Iranian Plateau: Theories on the Origins of Zoroustrianism”
Adviser: Prof. Gerow
Marie Drennan
Something Very Strange and Singular: The Figure of Eve as Myth, Image and Ideology
Adviser: Prof. Denning-Bolle
Aaron Douglas Fein
The Myth of Utopia: The Significance of More's Utopia in View of Late Mediaeval Religious Thought
Adviser: Prof. Bolle
Ilana Guttmann
Tradition and Transition: the Myth System of Iris Murdoch
Adviser: Prof. Franklin
Lavonda Mee-Lee
Politics and Religion in the Han Dynasty: Hsien Taoism's Assimilation of Buddhism
Adviser: Prof. Gerow
J. Elizabeth Mitchell
Moral and Epistemological Justifications of Religious Belief
Adviser: Prof. Franklin
Stephen Hulme Shoup
AA's Umbilical Cord: A History of the Religious Ideas from Which the Twelve Step Program of Alcoholics Anonymous is Composed
Adviser: Prof. Franklin
David A. Weinstock
Encountering Religions: An Essay on the Relationship Between the Historian of Religions and His Elusive Subject-Matter
Adviser: Prof. Bolle
1990-91
Moira D. Bowman
Martin Luther's Ideal Woman: An Exploration of the Construction of Gender and Sexuality in Theological Discourse
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Katherine Lynn Castles
How to Make Love to a God: Hierarchy, Reversal and Divine Love in Jayadeva's </1em>Gitagovinda</1em>
Adviser: Prof. Gerow
Jeremy Lynn Michaelson
In Touch with the Dazzling Obscurity: Mysticism and the Poetry of Paradox
Adviser: Prof. Kenney
Kira Plagge
Albert Camus: a Religious Perspective
Adviser: Prof. Franklin
Kermit F. Rosen
The Garland Which Consists of a Series of Brahman-knowledges: A Translation of the Brahmajnanavalimala with Commentary Based on Samkara's Advaita Vedanta
Adviser: Prof. Gerow
Deepak Sarma
Bhedasadhanam (the Establishment of Difference): An Examination of the Dvaitin Notion of Visesa
Adviser: Prof. Gerow
Susan M. Snyder
Amazing Grace: Grace and Free Will in the Thought of St. Augustine
Adviser: Prof. Kenney
Robert L. Stein
An Explanation of the Traditionalist Doctrine of Rene Guenon and Frithjof Schuon
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Duncan Williams
The Interface of Buddhism and Environmentalism in North America
Adviser: Prof. Gerow
1989-90
A.F.F.H.S. Bates
Neoplatonism and Gnosticism: The Conflict Between Philosophy and Myth with a Focus on the "Fall"
Adviser: Prof. Kenney
Steven A. Browne
Scientology: A Study of World-Affirmation in a New Religious Movement
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Astrid Marie Persans
The Necessity of Evil in Saint Teresa of Avila's Spiritual Ascent
Adviser: Prof. Kenney
Joel Benjamin Schalit
Mysticism and Authority
Adviser: Prof. Franklin
Jeremy Wheelwright Sharp
Religious Perspectives in Fourth Century Antioch: Julian the Apostate and Saint John Chrysostom
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Christopher Norman Williams
The Idols of Death and the God of Life: The Process of 'Becoming Christian' in the Lives of Six Central American Catholic Priests
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Barbara Jill Yetman
Saved But Not Safe: The Religious Voice of Mary Grodon
Adviser: R. Miles
1988-89
Jane Elizabeth Bonnem
The Hindu Temple and the Practitioner of Kundalini-Yoga: Microcosms of the Sacred Universe
Adviser: Prof. Gerow
Karen Karinna Robin Perry
Christology and Sociology: Dynamic Determinants of American Quakerism
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Laurie Livingstone
Gnostic Myth as Self-Definition
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Michele Rosenthal
Jewish-Christianity in the 1980's: The Theory and Practice of "Messian Judaism"
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom
Donald Edwards Whitley
What Does Dharma Mean? A History of Some Early Notions of the Word Dharma
Adviser: Prof. Gerow
1987-88
Donna Anderson
A Unitary Reading of Meister Eckhart's Mystical Theology
Adviser: Prof. Kenney
1986-87
Philip J. Eickhoff
A Comparison of Luther's and Calvin's Commentaries on Romans: Exegesis and Pauline Theology on the Eve and at the Height of the Reformation
Adviser: R. Cogley
H. Paul Manning
Ulixea Peregrinatio: the Golden Ass as Cynic Odyssey
Adviser: R. Cogley
Laura Lynn Roberts
Cotton Mather and Religious Toleration
Adviser: R. Cogley
1985-86
Zeff Bjerken
God's Relationship to Man in the Neoclassical Theology of Charles Hartshorne
Adviser: Prof. Kenney
Anne Bothner
The Role of "The Gospel of Thomas" in the Development of Early Christianity
Adviser: R. Cogley
William Blackburn Douglas
The Unexamined Is: A Reading of Platonic Ontology
Adviser: Prof. Kenney
Michael Eugene Foat
Who Shall Declare His Generation?: the Arian Controversy of the Early Fourth Century
Adviser: Prof. Kenney
Anne Elizabeth Magruder
Falwell's Crusade: The Tradition of Reform in American Evangelicalism
Adviser: R. Cogley
Jeniffer Anne Sepez
Methodology and Metaphysics in St. Anselm's Ontological Argument for the Existence of God
Adviser: R. Cogley
Tasha C. Spencer
The Likelihood of Plato's Likely Account: A Reading of Plato's </1em>Timaeus</1em>
Adviser: W. Englert
Stephanie Stevens
All My Relations: A Theology of a Natural Order in the Work of Mary Daly and Alfred North Whitehead
Adviser: Prof. Kenney
Alan T. L. Sun
The Transmission of Authority in the New Testament
Adviser: R. Cogley
1984-85
Becky Chiao
Sociological Concepts and New Testament Scholarship: The Relationship Between Status and Religion in First Corinthians
Adviser: Prof. Long
Deborah Coggins-Clark
The Theme of the Reditus in the German Sermons of Meister Eckhart
Adviser: Prof. Long
Frank Joseph Garcia
Friedrich Schleiermacher's Concept of Religion: A Study in 19th Century Theology
Adviser: Prof. Long
Elliot Garufi
Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Religionless Christianity in a World Come of Age
Adviser: B. Leftow
Mark Andrew Hadley
The Incarnation of the Word: Thomas J.J. Altizer on the Death and Omnipresence of God
Adviser: W. Peck
Merri Baehr Whipps
The Snake is a Rope is a Snake: Knowledge of Brahman in Advaita Vedanta
Adviser: B. Leftow
1983-84
Lafcadio Cortesi
Mircea Eliade's Phenomenology: Expression and Practice of a "Theology of Meaning"
Adviser: Not Listed
Jason Weeks
Gerhard Von Rad and the Hiddenness of God
Adviser: Prof. Long
1982-83
Robert B. Bowler
Breakthrough and Birth: Meister Eckhart's Working Conception of God and Man
Adviser: Prof. Kenney
William L. Brown
Evil and the God of Job
Adviser: Prof. Long
Paul Lacrampe
Socio-Economics and Social Structure of the First Century Christian Communities
Adviser: Prof. Long
Ronald Steven Marsh
Thank God He Doesn't Exist: Negative Theology in a Positive World
Adviser: Prof. Kenney
Joseph Niski
Look Before You Leap: Paradox and Christianity in Kierkegaard's Concluding Unscientific Postscript
Adviser: Prof. Kenney
Lawrence Eric Portnoff
Assessing the Cogency of the Kantian Moral Law and its Development into a Rational Moral Religion
Adviser: Prof. Kenney
Sarah Price Spencer
Religious and Philosophical Thought of Mahatma Gandhi
Adviser: Prof. Kenney
1981-82
Drew Carleton Marquet McCormick
399 B.C.: Casting the First Stone
Adviser: Prof. Hoffman
Drew Carleton Marquet McCormick
399 B.C.: I Am Not a Number, I Am a Phre Man
Adviser: Prof. Kenney
Barbara Anne Pijan
Cinderella's Revenge: Lies, Secrets and Self-Consciousness
Adviser: Prof. Kenney
1979-80
Elaine Helene Marie Balawejder
Structura/Essentia: Structuralist Theory of Literary Texts and Practica of Ancient Hebrew
Adviser: Prof. Segal