Religion Department Honors Theses

Religion Department Honors Theses Special Collections, Library

2015 Sarah Rose Cohen Religion, Violence and the Apocalypse: Honors The Case of the Islamic State

2015 Blake Alexander Harper Justification and the Disappearing Gap: Highest Honors Two Essays on the Philosophy of Perception & the Philosophy of Religion

2015 David Keun Woong Park Preaching in the Midst of Violence and Honors Conflict Case Studies of Past and Present

2015 Jack Schwarz Peisch The Anxious Search for Self-Realization: Highest Honors Synthesizing Ernest Becker's The Denial of Death and Indian Buddhist Thought

2014 Madeleine Therese Dai Blasphemy! (And Beyond): An Exploration Highest Honors of Religiously Offensive Art and its Contribution to Public Discourse, Artistic Diversity, and Theological Inquiry

2014 Adina Rebecca Marx-Arpadi “The Most Awesome of Human Experience”: Highest Honors An Exploration of Mothers’ Meaning-makings Throughout the Childbirth Process

2014 Peter Angelo Murray Equal Dignity Under the Law An Ethical Highest Honors Analysis of Catholic Political Participation & “Ad Hoc Theology” in the Minnesota Same-Sex Marriage Debate

2014 Preston Aaron Peralta Interpretations of Luther: Martin Luther's Honors Role in Nazi Germany

2013 Victoria Marie Anderson American Buddhism: A Case Study in High Honors the Formation of Religious Identity and Community

2013 Maria Roberta Benjamin Toward and American Islam: What the Highest Honors Debate over the Compatibility of the Shari’ah and the U.S. Constitution Reveals About American Religion

2013 Sandro Dakalovic Building the ‘Heavenly Kingdom’: The High Honors Construction of Serbian National Identity 2013 Hannah Lauren Elkin “O Mortal, Proclaim Jerusalem’s Honors Abominations to Her”: Understanding the Language of Ezekiel 15 in Antiquity and Today

2013 Diane Patricia Martin Maintaining “Dual Citizenship” to Church Highest Honors & State: Revisionist Moral Theologians Providing a Catholic Argument for Conception in Federally Funded Catholic Hospitals

2013 Adrienne Christine Matunas God, Evolution, and Morality’s Foundation Highest Honors (joint with Philosophy)

2013 William Per Gustaf Peterson Religious Curriculum at Middlebury: High Honors 1915-1966

2012 Jeremy Steven Cline Climbing on the World Tree Honors

2012 Catherine Joy Kessler Hermeneutics in the Conservative and Honors Progressive Muslim Reponses to HIV/ Aids

2012 Matthew Kingsbury The Scourge of Islam:The Endurance High Honors of European Theodicy in American-Christian Perceptions of Muslims

2012 Zachary Seth Mollengarden Sanctuary: Toward an Effective Christian Highest Honors Response to Asylum Seekers and Refugees

2012 John Philip Palmer Revealing the New Apostolic Reformation: High Honors A Little-Known Religio-Political Movement in the United States and Beyond

2012 Amie Pendleton-Knoll Seizing [Spiritual] Stardom: The Honors Intersection of Religion and Musical Theater as Illustrated by Godspell

2012 Charles Lesser Roberts Speaking in His Image: The Religious High Honors Rhetoric of Barack Obama and George W. Bush

2011 Alicia Danze Human and Divine, Conscious and Highest Honors Unconscious, Self and Other: The Paths to Mystical Union in the Poetry of Jalal Al-Din Rumi and St. John of the Cross.

2011 Paloma Dugan Tibetan Buddhism Preserved, Transmitted, Honors Mythologized, and Modernized: A Political Religion Depoliticized

2011 Shalyn Getz From Monstrous to American: An Highest Honors Examination of Family, Marriage, and Gender in Media Representations of Morman Polygamy

2011 Andrew Law An Introduction to Joseph Ratzinger, High Honors Benedict XVI

2011 Michael Pappa Arthurian Myth: The Once and Future High Honors Legend

2010 Sara Black The American Jewess: The Cultural Highest Honors Legacy of a Publication in the History Of Jewish Women in America and the Early Zionist Movement

2010 Alexandra Krieg Deciding How to Treat Highest Honors

2010 Hannah Lincoln The Martin Diaries: A Study of the Highest Honors Protestant Missionary Enterprise in Late Qing China (joint with Chinese)

2010 Angie Ramsey Social Transformation as Religious Highest Honors Catalyst: The Conditioned Arising of Buddhism in Mid-First Millennium B.C.E. Northern India

2010 Allison Shaffer Beyond Controversy: Teaching about Highest Honors Religion in American Public Elementary Schools

2010 Victoria Bommarito From the Fires of Extinction to the High Honors Waters of Life: Sufism, Conformity, and Critique in the Poetry of Ghalib

2010 David DeMarkis Francis Xavier and Matteo Ricci: High Honors Two Men, Two Missions, Two Methods

2010 David Dolginow The Brethren of Purity and the Honey- High Honors bees: An Inquiry into How the Brethren of Purity Use the Natural World as a Model for Human Society

2010 Ann Montgomery Crossfire and Cross Talk: New Ecumenism Honors In the Same-Sex Marriage Culture War

2009 David Meschke Ritual and Religious Identity in Highest Honors Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam

2009 Tegan O’Brien In the Court of David: The Politics of Highest Honors Kings, Advisors, and Prophets in II Samuel

2009 Caitlyn Olson Making Sense of Incoherence: An Highest Honors Investigation into the question of the divine attributes as debated in the sixth discussion of al-Ghazali’s Tahafut al-falasifa and Ibn Rushd’s Tahafut al-tahafut

2009 Robert McKay Christian Theology, Climate Justice, High Honors And the Problematics of Nature and Modernity

2009 Brittany Burnett “The Splendor of the Old”: An High Honors Analysis of the Role of Congregations In the Social Engagement of Senior Adults

2009 Susanna Merrill Seeing the Possessor/Non-Possessor Conflict Highest Honors Through the Visual Iconography of the Virgin of The Burning Bush

2009 Marie Lucci The Spiritual Marriage Between God High Honors and The Soul in the Spiritual Canticle of St. John of the Cross

2008 Jessica Haber Visiting the Prophet Samuel Today: Highest Honors Muslim and Jewish Experiences

2008 Jessica Polebaum Changing Visions of Ijtihad: An Highest Honors Exploration of the Use of Ijtihad in Classical Islamic Law and in Modern Reform Movements 2008 Donald Stuart “I came that they may have life, and Highest Honors have it abundantly.” The Prosperity Gospel in the South African Context

2008 Emily Irwin Communities of Salt and Light: The High Honors American Catholic Response to Climate Change

2008 Sarah McGowen Franco Jewish Environmental Ethics: Theory High Honors vs. Practice

2008 Caeli Nistler-Schnabel Ideas of Universality in Theory and High Honors In Practice: How China’s Religious Traditions Influence Attitude Toward Disability

2007 Jessica Cox The Ethics of Death: When Dying Highest Honors Well Enough is not Good Enough

2007 Thomas J. Heitkamp Illuminating the Remembrance of Highest Honors Amalek: Trends of Israelite Violence God-Sanctioned Genocide in the Hebrew Bible

2007 Emily Lee A Visual Universe: The Icon in Buddhist Highest Honors Thought and Practice

2007 Andrew Harrison The Legal Status of Non-Muslims Under Honors Muslim Rule

2007 Richard Klein All Things Being Equal? Two Arguments Honors For God and the Implications for Religious Proof

2006 Celia Cohen Judging the Seemingly Unjudgeable: Highest Honors A Normative Framework for Evaluating Transitional Societies’ Responses to Widespread Human Rights Violations

2006 Jessica Greenberg Modern Jewish Demoninationalism: Highest Honors Continuing the Tradition of Innovation And Change

2006 James Rogers Territorial Restoration in Early Christianity Highest Honors

2006 Deborah Tennen Italian Jewish Women in Ottava Rima: Highest Honors A Translation and Analysis of Mordecai Dato’s Sixteenth-Century Retelling of Megillat Ester

2006 Rebecca M. Bloom Syncretism and the Sacred Landscape: High Honors The Expression and Worship of Vajrayogini in the Kathmandu Valley

2006 Trevor F. Crowell Under the Fifth Rib: Joan ben Zeruiah High Honors And David’s Monarchy

2006 Megan P. Hickey The Friend, The Recluse, and The Three- High Honors Fold Love: The Paradox of Spiritual Friendship and the Life of Reclusion in Aelred of Rievaulx

2006 Joya Taft-Dick Sex and Islam: The Forgotten Discourse High Honors

2005 K. Parker Diggory From Ha-Akedah to ‘Id al-Adha’: The Highest Honors Story of Abraham’s Sacrifice in Judaism And Islam

2005 Devon Parish An Ecological Theology of the Inter- Highest Honors Dependent Americas: Sallie McFague, Ivone Gebara, and A Central American Case Study

2005 B. Ryan Dunn-Homeh AIDS in Zibabwe: An Ethical Argument High Honors For Why We Should Care

2004 Hannah W. Osier Finding a Voice: Virginity and Passion Highest Honors in Second Century Ephesian Religions

2004 Adam Fasoli Contemporary Catholic Moral Theology High Honors of Abortion

2004 Jill T. Snider Are You Another Me? A Secular and High Honors and Jewish Ethical Assessment of Reproductive Cloning

2004 Schuyler Van Horn A Reason to Believe: An Investigation High Honors of Buddhist Epistemology From Sakyamuni Buddha to Dharmakirti

2003 Alison E. Poppe The Model of the Urban Church – Past, Highest Honors Present and Future 2003 Alexandra Bottemanne Jefferson and the philosophies: High Honors A dialogue on social progress

2003 Abigail Christine Goff The Apocalypses of John of Patmos High Honors and Julian of Norwich: A Comparative Discourse

2003 Jeremy Holiday Four Simple Truths High Honors

2003 Elisha Schecter Definition and Redefinition: High Honors The Changing Identity of the Ethiopian Jews

2003 Buster Smith One World, Two Religions: High Honors A Case Study of Buddhism and Christianity in a Pluralistic World

2002 A. Hannah Robertson Ambivalent Flesh: The Second Century High Honors Catholic and Gnostic Polemic on the Resurrection

2002 Peter Park A Critical Analysis of Gustavo Gutierrez’s Honors “A Theology of Liberation”

2002 Laura Allen The Light-Giver: A Study on the Evolution Honors of the Magdalene Myth into the Thirteenth Century

2001 Catherine Dalton Emptiness Embodied: A Study of Highest Honors Symbolism and Feminine Imagery in Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Traditions

2001 David Arnold Man Glorified in God’s Dependence: High Honors Feuerbach’s Philosophy as an Endpoint In Religious Thought

2001 John Robertson American Public Religion High Honors A Reinterpretation of Religion in Contemporary America

2001 Sydney Copp Mysticism, Religion, Language Honors

2001 Luke T. Day The American Cultural Appropriation Honors of Asian Religious Traditions, 1784-1970

2001 Jonathan Reiber The Praxis of Love and the Creation of Honors Fellowship in the Lives of Legacies of Thomas Merton and Dorothy Day

2000 Benjamin Gitenstein The Liberation of Servitude: Highest Honors A Reading of benedict De Spinoza’s Theologico-Political Treatise

2000 Galen Murton The Cakrasamvara Complex: High Honors The Symbolism of the Mahesvara Myth In Mandala, Ritual, and Landscape in India and Tibet

2000 Melissa Russell Constructing the American Revivalist: Honors An Analysis of the Theology and Methodology Of Charles Grandison Finney and William “Billy” Franklin Graham

1999 Madhavi Nevader Priestly Torah: The Israelite Priesthood Highest Honors Re-Examined

1998 Anne Bruder (Missing)

1998 Hayden Baker Shadows of the Divine: The Evolution High Honors of Deities in Indo-Tebetan Buddhism

1998 Carole Barnsley A Comparison of Abraham’s Sacrifice in High Honors Islam and Judaism

1998 Kevin Sullivan Mastering the Mission: A Look at High Honors Manichaeism’s Malleable Message

1998 Andrea Yevuta Religious Progressivism in a Changing High Honors Society: Lyman Abbott’s Place in the Social Gospel

1998 Sherr Lo Daoist Inner Alchemy and Chinese Honors Medicine: Complimentary Partners In the Quest for Immortality

1998 Carri Smith Pentecostal Explosion: An Early History Honors of the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee)

1997 Elizabeth Fraizer Sallie McFague’s Multi-Dimensionality Honors and Its Affects upon Christianity

1997 Amy Starr Questioning Mark’s Questioning Jesus: High Honors A Rhetorical Analysis of the Questions In the Gospel according to Mark

1997 Howard Young Middlebury College and the University of Honors Vermont: The Calvinist/Liberal Debate Comes To the Classroom

1995 Douglas Rogers Missing

1995 Kira Greenholz “My Heart Is in the East”: The Poetry and Philosophy of Jehudah Halevi

1993 Sarah Humphries The Journey into Consciousness: A Feminist Interpretation of Judaism

1993 Timothy Juliani From Abhidharma to Yogacara: The Development of Critical Thought in Buddhism

1993 Michael Matheson Arguing for Definition: Faith, Scripture and the Law in Galatians 3:6-14

1993 F. B. (Chip) Muller, Jr. Doctrines of Innocence in Hua-Yen Buddhism and N. Whitehead’s Philosophy of Organism

1993 Leigh Ann Wolfe The Psalms of Lament: Reflections of the Experience of God in Ancient Israel

1991 Reiner Winkler Notions of Death and Afterlife During the early Christian Era

1990 Theodore C. Cole Exploring Life: Changing Perceptions of Religion, Theology and Doctrine

1990 Christina Conklin One Nation Under God: An Analysis of American Civil Religion

1990 Kim Gifford Who is Responsible for the Death of Jesus? An Examination of Roman and Jewish Participation In Jesus’ Death

1990 Kara Hordlow Traditional Progress: An Examination of the Institution of the Dali Lama and Tibet’s Changing Religio-Political Structures

1990 Nathaniel Levtow The Discovery of the Eschatalogical Kingdom: A Monograph on the Relation of Faith and History 1990 Alexander Perry Jung and Yogacara

1989 Lyn Agre The Silence of God (Holocaust)

1989 Susanna Green Studies on Women and the Feminine in Tantric Buddhism: India, Tibet and the U.S.A.

1989 Beatrice Metzger What Does it mean to be a Christian? A Study of the Thinking of Dr. Martin J. Heinecken, as Influenced by Soren Kierkegaard

1988 Marion C. Brune Missing

1988 Diana C. Stuart Missing

1987 Daniel L. Curtis Paul and the Christian’s Proper Attitude Toward the Civil Authorities

1985 James Kelley A Discussion of the Power of Paul Tillich’s Concept of Being- itself and Keiji Nishitani’s Concept of Sunyata in Overcoming Modern-day Nihility

1985 Suzanne Uhrig Edward Hicks: Painter, Preacher, Patriot

1984 Lesley Finlayson Jesus Christ and the Bodhisattva: A Comparison of the Ideal Human Being in Christianity and Mahayana Buddhism

1984 Cynthia M. King Human Alienation Overcome in the Work of Love: A Study in Estrangement, Eros and Agape

1984 Allison Wheatley The Ordination of Women in the Roman Catholic Church: An Issue that Needs a New Solution

1983 Laurie G. Oliver Echoes of Silence: The Voice of Elie Wiesel

1982 Pamela B. Nelson Why Freedom? An Inquiry into the Value of Individual Autonomy

1980 David Neale Buddhist Influence in the Thought of Wang Yang-ming

1979 Kim K. Harvie Presenting the Marketplace: An Inquiry into Mysticism in Social Action

1979 Susan M. McCafferty An Imperishable Idea

1979 Cathy Senzel The Final Foundation: The Public Philosophy and the Law of Love

1977 Richard Parker Dante’s Use of Scripture in The Inferno

1976 Josephine Herron Washington Gladden: Pastoral Social Reformer

1976 James Spink The Problem of Meaningless and a Modern Solution: The Thought of C. G. Jung

1975 Kathleen Blum Felix Adler and Rabbi Israel Salanter: Two Attempts to Make Ethics Work

1975 Priscilla Reidinger An Analysis of the Ambivalent Character of the Goddess, Devi, in Three Myths

1975 Jean Scandlyn Paul Tillich’s Participation in the Religious Socialist Movement

1975 Nancy L. Anderson The Parallels Between T. S. Eliot’s Burnt Norton and the Hindu Path

1974 Mary Lee The Gates of Eden are Closed – A Humanist Looks at Religion

1973 John Sorenson Untitled (The Philosophy of Non-Violence of Leo Tolstoy)

1972 Bernard C. Wessen Tantric Art and Philosophy