For a complete list of Religion Department Dissertations see the SUrface repository.

Dissertations since 2001

• 2024
  • Between Visits: Home Shrines, Domestic Religiosity, and Thirdspace in the Hindu Diaspora [Adviser: Joanne Punzo Waghorne]
  • Initiated Reading: Occult Hermeneutics in Helena Blavatsky's Isis Unveiled [Adviser: Joanne Punzo Waghorne]
• 2023
  • My Eyes are Up Here: Guardian Iconography of the Judean Pillar Figurine [Adviser: James W. Watts]
• 2022
  • Religious Experience and Virtual Reality [Adviser: Zachary Braiterman]
  • Catastrophic Christianity: An Iconological study of the messianic idea in American Protestant Christianity Circa 1900-1939 [Adviser: Zachary Braiterman]
• 2021
  • Sharing Hearts: Buddhist Charity and Urbanization in Vietnam [Adviser: Gareth Fisher]
  • The Emotional Heshel [Adviser: Zachary Braiterman]
  • Sacred Sites, Ceremony, and Belonging in Ohlone Territory: A Case Study in Indigenous Survival [Adviser: Philip P. Arnold]
  • Iconic Books, Design, and Gender [Adviser: James W. Watts]
• 2019
  • Within the Heart of Every Human Being: Sarah Farmer, Her Life, Her Work, and Her Search for Universal Truth [Advisor: Joanne Punzo Waghorne]
  • Sigmund Freud’s Dreams of Jewishness [Advisor: Zachary Braiterman]
  • Desiring Devastated Landscapes: Love After Ecological Collapse [Advisor: M. Gail Hamner]
• 2018
  • "I do";"No you don't": Same-Sex Marriage and the Moral Arguments of American Christianities, [Advisor: Ernest E. Wallwork]
  • From Religious Freedom to Indigenous Sovereignty: The Case of Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Association (1988), [Advisor: Philip P. Arnold]
  • Synaesthetic Shock: Gender, Politics and the Varieties of Islamic Experience in Moroccan Film by Moroccan Women Filmmakers, [Advisor: M. Gail Hamner]
  • Religion in Contemplative Studies, [Advisor: Joanne Punzo Waghorne]
• 2017
  • The Desire for Utopia in the Critical Study of Religion [Advisor: M. Gail Hamner]
• 2016
  • "Brothers in Blood: The Significance of Land and Loss in the Creation of Jewish and Native American Ethnic and Religious Identity" [directed by Philip Arnold and in collaboration with Chief Jesse Jacobs of the Onondaga Nation]
  • "Collective Becoming: Participation, Affect, and Religion in Protestant Hymn Singing and Contra Dancing" [advisor: M. Gail Hamner].
  • "Religiosity in Secular Spaces: Perinatal Bereavement Rituals in the Hospital." [Advisor: M. Gail Hamner]
  • "Visionary Architecture: Monastic Magic and Cognition in John Morigny's Liber Florum." [Advisor: Patricia Cox Miller]
• 2015
  • "The All World Gayatri Pariwar: Religion, Science, and the Body in Modern India." [Advisor: Joanne P. Waghorne]
  • "All Joking Aside: The Role of Religion in American Jewish Satire." [Advisor: Zachary J. Braiterman]
• 2014
  • "Attunements to the Good Life: Religious Joy and the Critique of Eudaemonism in the Writings of Soren Kierkegaard." [Advisor: John D. Caputo]
  • "Thoreau's A Week, Religion as Preservative Care: Opposing the Christian Doctrine of Discovery, Manifest Destiny, and a Religion of Subjugation." [Advisor: Philip P. Arnold]
• 2013
  • "Irreconcilable Mourning: Inheritance, Redemption, and the Critique of History."[Advisors: John D. Caputo and M. Gail Hamner]
  • "The Deconstruction of Hell: A History of the Resignatio Ad Infernum Tradition." [Adviser: John D. Caputo].
• 2012
  • "The Immanent Body: A Thematic Study of the Logic of Immanence in Christology, Philosophy and Aesthetics." [Advisor: John D. Caputo].
  • "'She's an All-In-One Guru': Devotion to a 21st-Century Mystic." [Advisors: Joanne Punzo Punzo Waghorne and Ann Grodzins Gold].
  • "Experiencing Zion: Contemporary Pilgrimage in the Latter-Day Saint Tradition." [Advisor: Joanne Punzo Waghorne].
  • "Animal Religion: Evolution, Affect and Radical Embodiment." Adviser: John D. Caputo].
  • "The Gospels as Ritualized Sites of Memory in Late Ancient Imperial Culture." [Advisor: James W. Watts].
• 2011
  • "Specters of Truth: Exercising Philosophy and Theology." [Adviser: John D. Caputo].
• 2010
  • "Beauty and/as Theology: The Theological Aesthetics of Hans Urs von Balthasar." [Advisor: John D. Caputo].
  • "Auguring Life: Interpretation and Guidance in Lukumi Cowry Shell Consultation." [Advisor: Philip P. Arnold]
  • "Political Theory After the 'Return of Religion': Radical Democracy as Religious Affirmation." [Advisor: John D. Caputo]
  • "Webs of Connectivity: Foundations of the Neopagan Internet Community." [Advisor: M. Gail Hamner]
  • "The Body of Love: Conceiving Perfection in the Oneida Community." [Advisor: Philip P. Arnold]
• 2009
  • "Asceticism and Allegory: Exegesis as an Ascetic Performance." [Advisor: Patricia Cox Miller]
  • "Guru Love: On the Tropes of Eroticism in the Spiritual Relationship between Master and Disciple." [Advisor: Ann G. Gold]
  • "The Iconic Book: The Image of the Christian Bible in Myth and Ritual." [Advisor: James W. Watts]
  • "Listening to Places: A Comparative Study of Zen, Sufism, and Cosmology." [Advisor: Joanne P. Waghorne]
  • "Promoting Research Ethics Training: Understandings of Community, Partnership, Virtue and Diversity." [Advisor: Ann G. Gold]
  • "Spinoza's Philosophy of Divine Order." [Advisor: Zachary Braiterman]
  • "When Bodhisattvas of the Earth become Global Citizens: Soka Gakkai in Comparative Perspective." [Advisor: Joanne P. Waghorne]
  • "Writing Holiness, Writing Violence: Suffering and the Construction of Female Sanctity." [Advisor: Patricia Cox Miller]
• 2008
  • "Seeing the Swarming Dead: Of Mushrooms, Trees, and Bees." [Advisor: Philip P. Arnold]
• 2007
  • "The Religious Invention(s) of John Cage." [Advisor: Richard B. Pilgrim]
  • "Policing Public/Private Borders: Religion, Liberalism, and the 'Private Judgment of the Magistrate'." [Advisor: M. Gail Hamner]
  • "Prolonged Response: The Kyoto School and the New Confucian Movement as Products of the Western Impact." [Advisor: Richard B. Pilgrim]
• 2006
  • "A Deleuzian Feminism: Philosophy, Theology, and Ethics." [Advisor: Gregg Lambert]
  • "Just Speech: The Grammar of an Ethics Beyond Essence." [Advisor: Ernest Wallwork]
  • "The Problem of Phantasia in the History and Study of Religion." [Advisor: David L. Miller]
  • "Secret Religion: Surrealism in the New Era of Religion." [Advisor: David L. Miller]
  • "Theatron and Theoria: Vision, Visuality, and Religious Spectatorship." [Advisor: Patricia Cox Miller]
  • "Zosimus of Panopolis: Alchemy, Nature, and Religion in Late Antiquity." [Advisor: Patricia Cox Miller]
• 2005
  • "Relationship Between Religion and Identity Development: A Study of Second Generation American Muslim Adolescents." [Advisor: Ernest Wallwork]
  • "A Theory of Purity From the Perspective of Comparative Religion." [Advisor: James W. Watts]
• 2004
  • "The Power of Sacrifice: Roman and Christian Discourse in Conflict." [Advisor: James W. Watts]
  • "Remember to Forget: The Theological Tropology of Disavowal and Confession." [Advisor: M. Gail Hamner]
  • "Translators and Converts: Religion, Exchange, and Orientation in Colonial New France, 1608-1680." [Advisors: Philip P. Arnold and Charles H. Long]
  • "Tumultuous Meetings and the Fury of Freedom: Rethinking African American Religion." [Advisors: Philip P. Arnold and Charles H. Long]
• 2003
  • "The Aesthetics of Nostalgia: The Return of the Real in Postmodern Christian Discourse." [Advisor: James W. Watts]
  • "Ethics 2.0: Post-Biological-Posthuman Subjectivity and the Challenge to Ethics." [Advisor: James B. Wiggins]
  • "Religion and Sexual Violence in Late Greco-Roman Antiquity." [Advisor: Patricia Cox Miller]
• 2001
  • "Christian Anarchism--The Catholic Worker Movement: Roman Catholic Authority and Identity in the U.S." [Advisor: James G. Williams]
  • "The Emptiness of Presence in Religion and Literature." [Advisor: David L. Miller]
  • "For the Sake of Sorrow: Christian Holocaust Theology and the Interpretation of the Resurrection." [Advisor: David L. Miller]
  • "Gift and Commodity: Sociocultural Economies, Indigenous Religions, and Academic Exchange Practices." [Advisor: Philip P. Arnold]
  • "The Problem of Philosophical Theology." [Advisor: Charles Winquist]
  • "Service and Performance: 'Leitourgia' and the Study of Early Christian Ritual." [Advisor: Patricia Cox Miller]