Browsing by Author "Dawson, David, 1957-"

Now showing 1 - 20 of 23
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    A Critical Analysis of the Catholic Reaction to Gustavo Gutierrez
    (1988) Rivera, Gerardo J.; Dawson, David, 1957-
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    A Theology of Tension: Kart Barth on Israel and the Church
    (1993) Blau, Anna M; Dawson, David, 1957-
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    Covenant and Relationship in Night: Survival Made Possible Through an Other
    (1997) Weisfeld, Andrew; Dawson, David, 1957-
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    Dissenting from the Majority: The Presence and Power of Minority Religions
    (2002) Tenerella-Brody, Amanda; Dawson, David, 1957-
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    Entering the Kingdom of Abstraction: Kandinsky’s Viewer
    (2009) Hutchinson, Thea; Dawson, David, 1957-
    Abstract art offers the viewer an encounter with the spiritual. In a society that lacks proper expression of the spiritual, the artist advances the social whole towards a kingdom of visual abstraction. This claim challenges the existing method through which spirituality is generally thought to be communicated. How is this possible when the general conception of the spiritual relies on culturally recognized religious or spiritual forms? How is the viewer engaged in the process as an active participate, while the artist is the creator of the art work? At the beginning of the 20th century, Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky began creating abstract works of art. His manifesto, Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1913) presents a theory about how to view his works as expressions of the spiritual. A close textual analysis coupled with six of his six paintings, a sketch, and a series of photographs by Gabriele Münter, illustrates the visual links between Kandinsky’s writing and his paintings. The visual works are: Composition VII (1913), All Saints I (1911), All Saints I (2nd copy) (1911), Last Judgment (1910), Impression III (1911), Improvisation Deluge (1913), Sketch for Composition VII (1913), and 4 Photographs (1913).
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    Hidden Meanings: Metaphor as Salvation in the Gospel of Thomas
    (2011) Sturtevant, Peter; Dawson, David, 1957-
    The Gospel of Thomas provides a unique, independent representation of the figure Jesus, which warrants more attention to the idiosyncratic elements of this "gospel." Jesus' non-literal, image-based discourse in the Gospel of Thomas can be generally categorized and understood as metaphor. Drawing on an "inter-animation" theory of metaphor, I aim to show how a reader, in interpreting and making sense of the Gospel of Thomas as a whole, will extrapolate an overarching mythos that is suggested to them via metaphor. The reader is motivated to seek meaning within the sayings and recognize the immanent "light" of the "Father" that lays hidden within each person. Coming to know this light and transforming one's perception of reality leads one closer to the state of being called "the kingdom of the father," and is enacted by seeking the "obscure" meanings of the sayings.
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    Martha Nussbaum and Morality: How Novels Help Us Make Universally Valid Judgments
    (1995) Miura, Sandra K.; Dawson, David, 1957-
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    Martin Luther King Jr.: Re-Telling the American Story
    (1998) Smith, Alan; Dawson, David, 1957-
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    Metaphor and Sign in McFague and Augustine
    (1994) Weinberger, Lissa; Dawson, David, 1957-
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    Paradox & passion: despair and boredom along Kierkegaard's way
    (1991) Dugdale, Antony; Dawson, David, 1957-; Macbeth, Danielle
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    Teaching in the Academic Study of Religion
    (2001) Armstrong, Erin; Dawson, David, 1957-
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    The Gaiwiio, or Good Message of Handsome Lake: Cultural Affirmation Through Religious Validation
    (1988) Pincus, Ward; Dawson, David, 1957-; McGuire, Anne Marie; Luman, Richard
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    The Interdependence of the Sensible and the Intelligible: Kant's Theory of Moral Conversion
    (1991) Longwood, Wendy; Dawson, David, 1957-; Wright, Kathleen, 1944-; Dostal, Robert J.
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    "The Opposite of Poverty is Not Plenty, but Friendship:" Dorothy Day's Pragmatic Theology of Detachment
    (2011) Bakke, Katherine; Dawson, David, 1957-
    The following essay argues that Catholic Worker co-founder Dorothy Day's ultimate concern is to bring together in relationship the poor and the wealthy, who stood alienated from one another within the capitalist culture of the United States, and how she integrates Catholicism's tradition of detachment into her work as an activist in order to realize this goal. Adam Smith's theory of sympathy serves as a framework to explain the capitalist's perception of the poor, and why it degrades the poor and excludes them from society. Smith's theory of sympathy is inherently social because sympathy cannot be bestowed upon oneself. The impartial spectator, a metaphor for a psychological mechanism which all people possess, determines one's sympathetic or unsympathetic response to another's emotions by allowing the observer to imagine himself in the other's position in an effort to understand why one feels a certain way. Because one can more naturally imagine another's joy than pain, one more readily sympathizes with the joyous than those in pain. The wealthy exhibit joy more often than the poor; hence, people seek wealth because of its association with joy. Smith's theory of sympathy makes it difficult, if not impossible, for an observer to sympathize with the poor, instead making the poor appear contemptible and pathetic. Because of sympathy's social character, its absence serves to distance the wealthy and the poor from one another. Day hopes to change the negative perceptions the poor and the wealthy hold of one another in order to foster relationship between them. Day employs detachment in three principle ways in order to achieve this end. Focusing on the wealthy's need to understand the realities of poverty, Day advocates detachment from material goods through voluntary poverty. The lived experience of poverty exposes the wealthy to the pain of poverty. Knowing that few would change their lives in such a drastic way, Day also writes prolifically about poverty for The Catholic Worker newspaper, granting her readers an imaginative detachment from their wealth through the knowledge of the hardships of poverty. In Smith's framework, to understand another's situation leads to greater sympathy between peoples. Day adds her own gloss to Smith by saying such understanding, achieved through detachment, ultimately leads to love of God and others. Both voluntary poverty and reading serve to bring the wealthy into relationship with the poor. Day reestablishes the poor's relationship with the wealthy by guaranteeing the poor's privacy through the satisfaction of their immediate needs such as food and shelter. In doing so, Day creates time for the poor to build relationships with others, which are predicated on privacy. Privacy relies on the voluntary relinquishment of information about oneself in order to form relationships. While the detachment of privacy is unlike that of voluntary poverty in that it does not involve bodily deprivation, detachment in both privacy and voluntary poverty work toward the cultivation of relationships. Whereas the poor's attention and time was once dedicated to securing their basic needs for survival, now it is spent satisfying their need for privacy, which is also to say their need for relationship and community. Final reflections consider the Catholic Worker's legacy and its empowerment of the laity within the Roman Catholic Church.
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    The Serpent as Healer: Religion and the Vernacular Translation of Peacebuilding Theory in Rwanda
    (2002) Witmer, Heidi L.; Dawson, David, 1957-; Hucks, Tracey E., 1965-; Hebert, Martin
    This thesis explores the process of translating peacebuilding theory in the field by looking into a case study from Rwanda. The first section is a theoretical view on the necessity of using vernacular translation, considering the ways that linguistic translation illuminates issues of cultural translation. The second section deals with religious factors as a neglected element of the peace education and translation processes administrated by Western parties for nationals' education. The third section deals with a case study from Rwanda (August 2001) of vernacular translation of rehumanization theory. In this case study, the concepts of rehumanization theory are read into a constructed narrative of shifting images of the snake in the Bible. In conclusion, the potential impact of vernacular translation as a way to access indigenous conceptions of peace is highlighted.