Both within and outside of South Asia, sadhvis are revered by Jain laypeople as paragons of the religion’s ascetic imperative. Yet while some might conceive of these renunciant women as unaffected by the nexus of relationships ...

Scholars who study the Jews of the Southern United States often struggle to understand how Jewish identity affected the way in which Jews presented themselves, the way in which outsiders viewed them, and the extent to which ...

Over the past few years biblical films have seemingly increased following the release of the 2004 film The Passion of the Christ. Since then, topics ranging from the life of Christ to the life of Noah have gone to the box ...

Contrary to the claims of religious fundamentalists, the Torah is not a single, consistent work of sacred literature, handed by God to Moses on Mt. Sinai. Instead, it is a composite text, representing a collection of ...

Given the central importance of sacred geography in Hindu traditions, how is it possible for members of the Hindu diaspora to practice their religion “authentically” while abroad? To address this question, my thesis examines ...

Feminist theorists Alicia Ostriker and Phyllis Trible argue that as a nonpatriarchal text free of gendered hierarchy and sexual stereotyping, the Song of Songs is the most prominent example of countertext in the Hebrew ...

This thesis aims to add to the existing academic conversation on the juncture between law and religion. In this thesis, I unpack the myriad ways in which religious rhetoric was used to defend and instigate legal positions ...

This thesis seeks to understand the constructions of gender and sexuality fundamentally a part of Abu Hamid al-Ghazali’s analysis of the virtue of marriage, as translated by Madelin Farah in Marriage and Sexuality in Islam: ...