This dissertation is an examination of the Emperor Constantine's religious building program as presented in the writings of Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea. I seek to …
2009 Animal sacrifice, the ritualized slaughter and consumption of an animal in dedication to a divinity, is one of the most pervasive religious acts in …
"Apostolic Memories: Religious Differentiation and the Construction of Orthodoxy in Syriac Missionary Literature" is a dissertation project on Syriac hagiography and apocryphal narrative. I argue …
In "'You Divided Sea by Your Might': The 'Conflict Myth' and the Biblical Tradition," I analyze the ancient west Asian theme of divine combat between …
This dissertation is largely a project of redescription and taxonomy. In it, I redescribe, reclassify, and recontextualize the divinatory practices of the apostle Paul. Throughout …
This work seeks to explain the recurrent doubt and misunderstanding of, and hostility towards, naturalistic, Darwinian evolutionary accounts of the origins and development of living …
This dissertation proposes a new blueprint for an ethically informed reading of literary texts. It takes up four novels that highlight outsider or maligned protagonists …
This dissertation is a detailed study of ethics in the second-century BCE text Huainanzi, and its implications for our understanding of classical Daoist ethics in …
Interpreters of Thomas Hobbes take two distinctive approaches to his views on religion, either rendering God foundational to his vision or giving primacy to human …
This study examines evidence from approximately the mid-1C BCE − 1C CE for varieties of freelance religious experts at Rome, a period within which they …
This project provides a new way to describe and compare Paul's letters to facilitate nuanced comparison with texts and authors not typically used as comparanda. …
Dehumanization is a social and psychological phenomenon in which a distinctively human mind is not attributed to another person. Dehumanization is also endemic in hospitals. …
This dissertation is an analysis and critique of the use of the concept of religious capital in the explanation of religious beliefs and practices. The …
This dissertation examines the topic of animal sacrifice in ancient Judean/Jewish religion (Judaism) with a historical focus on the late Second Temple period. It analyzes …
This dissertation offers a reevaluation of the Synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) and a hypothetical document thought to be common to Matthew and Luke, …
Abstract of “Gaining Virtue, Gaining Christ: Moral Development in the Letters of Paul,” by Laura B. Dingeldein, Ph.D., Brown University, May 2014 Inhabitants of the …
People throughout history and around the world have drawn on religion to frame and negotiate disaster phenomena. Recent research shows that these links between religion …
This dissertation explores how Israelites regarded foreign lands, relates this to the debate about biblical categorizations of pollution and purification, and points to larger questions …
"'Inflamed by Daily Practices': John Cassian and Ethical Formation" is the first inter-disciplinary treatment of the ethical program fostered by the fifth-century Christian ascetic John …
This dissertation examines biblical and Mesopotamian texts that use caricatures of ethnic foreigners’ social practices to disparage them, with a special focus on how the …
"Non-Anthropomorphic Gods? Manufactured Entities and Divine Qualities and Attributes Characterized As Gods in the Textual Evidence from Ancient Mesopotamia, Syria, North Arabia, Palestine, and Elephantine" …
This dissertation redescribes the creation of biblical history, from Genesis to 2 Kings and in the books of Chronicles, as a late Persian period nationalist …
This dissertation investigates the promise and peril of the concept of vulnerability in contemporary ethical and political thought. Many strands of modern Western thought castigate …
This study examines the history and constructive prospects of a movement in modern thought and practice known as "personalism." Concerning its history, I argue that …
The recent recovery of manuscripts of a Sanskrit text calling itself the Skandapurāṇa has provided a critical impetus for this project of rethinking early Śaiva …
This project argues that Paul adapted Greco-Roman mythic resources to promote his Judean Christ-cult among Gentiles. His letters articulate the cultic and moral-psychological corruption of …
"The Sacred Commons: Reconstructing Hegel, Religion, and National Memory" turns to a new interpretation of Hegel in order to understand two "sacred" sites constructed by …
This dissertation is an interdisciplinary work that integrates material from the humanities and social sciences in service of a more sophisticated theory of the relationship …
This thesis investigates an emergent cyberreligion called Syntheism. This group of spiritual atheists attempt to sacralize the internet, re-enchanting modern subjectivities by turning digitality into …
This thesis examines the spiritual, ethical, and political writings of Simone Weil. In particular, I endeavor to articulate Weil's theory of \"decreation\" in the content …
Abstract of “Early Intertextual Uses of Parallels with the Laozi and Their Role as Source of Authority” by Larson Di Fiori Ph.D., Brown University, May …
This dissertation examines the ways in which late antique rabbis in Palestine and Babylonia read and discussed reading. It aims to understand the rabbinic orientation …
The purpose of this thesis is to demonstrate that Abba Silver’s ideology and tactics represent the cultivation of an originally Americanist Zionism. This Zionism is …
This thesis seeks to understand the nature of trilateral relations between the Israeli, American, and Yemeni Jewish communities during Operation On Eagles’ Wings through the …
This thesis suggests a re-evaluation of Francis Bacon’s major writings based on biographical and historical evidence. I argue that Bacon’s lack of training in philosophy …
Using canonization as a framework to engage the process of history creation and collective memory, this thesis seeks to understand why certain narratives gain a …
This dissertation analyzes encounter and exchange between Christianity and Islam in late antiquity and the Middle Ages through the lens of saints’ stories, their textual …
In this thesis, I investigate how women are challenging clericalism in the contemporary Roman Catholic Church by illuminating a small cohort of Catholic women in …
Abstract of “Kalām as a Way of Life: al-Jāḥiẓ, Natural Philosophy, and the Ontology of Human Difference,” by Michael Lawrence Payne, Ph.D., Brown University, October …
This thesis is an examination of hospital spiritual care in Rhode Island during the COVID-19 pandemic, based on qualitative interviews with ten Rhode Island-based chaplains …
This study investigates how and why Tunisia’s 2014 Constitution describes the nation as both an Islamic and civil state, and what effect this duality has …