The following is a list of theses submitted and approved in the Department of
Religion in recent years.

THESES 2006-2007

Tiffany Lorraine Betts
Transformational Healing: From Experience to Articulation
Advisers: Prof. Brashier & Prof. Wasserstrom

Jane Lindsay Boyle
A Return to Meaning: Spirituality and Historical Tradition at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral
Adviser: Prof. Foat

Mark S Chapman
The Adoption of Buddhist Terminology, Imagery, and Concepts in the Chinese Manichaean Hymnscroll
Advisers: Prof. Brashier & Prof. Wasserman

Benjamin Francis Cordell Colahan
Classics-Religion
The Progress of Procopius: A Martyr’s Byzantine Tale and Its Changing Theology
Adviser: Prof. Foat

Geoffrey Thomas Finger
The Sacralizing Stage: Late Imperial Chinese Ritual Opera, Performative Exorcisms, and Mulian Rescues His Mother, An Opera for Goodness
Adviser: Prof. Brashier

Michael Yeley Frederick
Quotation Marks and the Study of Hinduism
Adviser: Prof. Roberts

Suzanna Lynn Goldblatt
Condoms and the Catholic Church: Vatican II and AIDS
Adviser: Prof. Roberts and Prof. Foat

Alana Henderson Hein
Reason, Erotic Theurgy, and Divine Humanity: Vladimir Solovyov’s Legitimation of Sophia
Adviser: Prof. Foat

Dana Wiggins Logan
American Studies/Religion
The Greatest Churches Have Yet to Be Organized: Architecture and Religion at the Drive-In Church
Adviser: Prof. Foat

Megan Anne McInerney
After Prophecy: The Prophetic Practice of Wendell Berry
Adviser: Prof. Foat

Marianna Elaine Mullens
 “Thugs Turn to Religion:” Signifying Religion within the Nation of Gods and Earths
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom

Julia Elisabeth Palmer
 “Give Yourselves to God”: An Examination of Baptism in the Hutterite Community
Adviser: Prof. Wasserman

Sara Ruth Robberson
Upgrading Religion: A Study of Media Practice at Crossroads Community Church
Advisers: Prof. Wasserman & Prof. Wasserstrom

Daniel James Toman
Wilderness and the Book of Nature: Rewriting the American Environment
Adviser: Prof. Roberts

Miriam Judith Woods
Formation of Religious and National Identities through Pakistani Educational Systems
Adviser: Prof. Wasserman

THESES 2005-2006

Evan Maxwell Brewer
One Ray of the Sun: The Education and Early Theology of Nikolaj Velimirovic
Adviser: Prof. Noon

Eliza Marie Buhrer
From Theologian to Physicus: William of Conches and a Twelfth Century Rift between Theology and Natural Philosophy
Adviser: Prof. Foat

Michael Phillips Casper
Day of the Living Dead: The Spirit Possession Paradigm in Early Modern Yiddish
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom

Amanda Leigh Cooper
Facing Indra’s Net: A Text-based Analysis of the Case for an Innate Buddhist Environmentalism
Adviser: Prof. Brashier

Tristram Coffin Dammin
 “Hail to the Chief”: Ideology and Religion
Adviser: Prof. Lofton

Samuel Benjamin Kigar
Islam on the Inside: An Ethnographic Case Study of Muslims in an Oregon Prison
Adviser: Prof. Noon

Margot Pyne Kniffin
Falun Gong and Li Hongzhi’s Mechanized Redemption in the Information Age
Adviser: Prof. Brashier

Samantha Rose Lundequam
Hallowed Ground: Arlington National Cemetery, Sacred Space, and American Symbol-Making
Adviser: Prof. Lofton

Miranda Noel Meadow
Rewriting Religion: W. D. Muhammad’s Construction of an African-American Muslim Identity
Adviser: Prof. Noon

Benjamin Paul Murphy
 (Re)readings of Paul: The Epistle to the Ephesians and the New Paul Paradigm
Advisor: Prof. Foat

Reanne Theresa O’Sullivan
Woman, the Last Fortress of Every People: The Grail Movement, Feminist Theology, and American Catholicism
Adviser: Prof. Lofton

Jeffrey Wyatt Peterson
The Immortal Discourse: Tracing Ge Hong’s Tradition of Transcendence
Adviser: Prof. Brashier

Paul Mark Robertson
Classics-Religion
Didymus the Blind and his Commentary on Paul’s Epistle to the Romans
Adviser: Prof. Foat

Michael Jared Salk
From Spiritual Beings to Counterintuitive Agents: God-Beliefs, Cognitive Science, and the New Naturalism in Religious Studies
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom

Jeffrey Andrew Wermer
Classics-Religion
ΠΕΡΙ  ΤΟΥ  ΥΠΕΡΟΥΣΙΟΥ  ΟΥΣΙΩΜΕΝΟΥ Jesus as a Principle of Meditation in the Philosophy of Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite
Adviser: Prof. Foat

Theses ‘04-05

Annette Lynn Cantu
Roman Catholic Identity, Vatican II and the Current ‘Crisis’ of the Catholic Church in the United States
Adviser: Prof. Foat

Roma Giannina Carpenter
The Function of Gravestones Within Catholic Soteriology: Mt. Calvary Catholic Cemetery, 1888-1910
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom

Jason Denning
Self-educated Buddhism and Alan Watts
Adviser: Prof. GhaneaBassiri

Noah Depper
Blazing Trails on the Steep Pass: A Study of the Progressive Muslim Movement
Adviser: Prof. GhaneaBassiri

Avigail Hurvitz-Prinz
Homemade “Haggadot”: A Study of Contemporary Jewish Ritual Practice and Identity
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom

Joelle Marr
Immanent Objects: A Study of Buddhist Relics, Icons, and Sutras Through the Lens of Ennin's Diary
Adviser: Prof. Brashier

Emily B. Miller
The Baby Boom in the Neo-orthodox Nursery: Protestant Education in 1950's America
Adviser: Prof. GhaneaBassiri

Ilana Moll
The "Dao De Jing" and Expression of Interpretation Through Translation
Adviser: Prof. Brashier

Alexander Landry Neely
Breaking the Maximus Code: A Systematic Exposition of the “Mystagogia”
Adviser: Prof. Foat

Andrea Lynn Neuhoff
The Unedited Thomas Merton: Autobiography to Autohagiography
Adviser: Prof. Foat

James A. Ramos
Reading “Rome and Jerusalem”
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom

Jeffrey W. Schroeder
Gary Snyder’s Imagined Window on Paleolithic Buddhism
Adviser: Prof. Brashier

Theses ‘03-04

Philip John Chagoya
The First Principle Aspect: The Operation, Purpose, and Meaning Of Divine Providence in Giambattista Vico’s New Science
Adviser: Prof. Foat

Emily Marie Craven
The Huarochiri Manuscript: Postcolonial Theory in Peru
Adviser: Prof. McCalla

Camille Claire Curry
Zaynab al-Ghazali’s Prison Memoirs: Ethics and Politics Through Divine Inscription
Adviser: Prof. GhaneaBassiri

Jasmin Afarin Kahn
Nativism in Scholarship on Early Irish Christianity, with a Case Study of Pelagianism
Adviser: Prof. Foat

Dylan Mark Madenski
Avelokitesvara in a Raincoat: Heart Sutra Interpretation And Ritual Practice in Portland, Oregon
Adviser: Prof. GhaneaBassiri

Kurt Christopher Petschke
Religion and the Picturesque: The Contested Landscape of Hafod, Cardiganshire
Adviser: Prof. McCalla

Megan Clare Price
Walter Wink and the Religion of Nonviolence
Adviser: Prof. Foat

Lincoln Turner Taggart
A Theology of Muslim Nationalism: Muhammad Iqbal and The Pakistan Movement
Adviser: Prof. GhaneaBassiri

Theses ‘02-03

Ligaya Ann Beebe
For "You," From "Me": On Constructed Audiences and Identities of Two Taiwan Buddhist Organizations
Adviser: Prof. Brashier

Dylan Michael Burns
Hyper-Orphic Myth, The Theurgy of Proclus
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom

Lauren Elizabeth Frank
The Sharing of Eternal Life: Love and Salvation in Symeon the New Theologian
Adviser: Prof. Foat

Virginia Grace Griffin
Left Behind in America?: Fundamentalism and Popular Culture
Adviser: Prof. McCalla

Brannan Dobbs Ingram
The Ahmadiyya Movement: Orthodoxy, Heterodoxy, and Global Islam
Adviser: Prof. GhaneaBassiri

Jonathan Zachary Nelson
Aberrant Trance States in Buddhist Meditation: A Cognitive View of Mysticism
Adviser: Prof. Brashier

Minna Adrienne Scholten
The American Mosque: Representation and the Formation Of American Islamic Identities
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom

David Marshall Ward
Inventing Antiquity: The Role of Time-Depth in Creating Religious Significance in Modern Wicca
Adviser: Prof. Brashier

Theses ‘01-02

Kip Matthew Berman
Over and Out: An Examination of the CCM Cross-over Phenomenon
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom

Megan Roberta Bongle
What Do you Do with an Apostate Messiah?
Adviser: Prof. Feener

Dustin James Gillham
What She Really Says: Elizabeth Schussler's Fiorenza's Hermenneutics in Context
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom

Katherine Laura Hug
Orthodoxy versus Heresy: An Essay on the Battle Over The Authority of Interpretation Between Church and the New Prophecy
Adviser: Prof. Feener

Ruchama Jerusha Johnston-Bloom
A Life Lived in Translation: Muhammed Asad Adopts and Adapts Islam
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom

Michael Belden McAteer
Redefining the Ancient Tribal Ritual for the 21st Century: Goa Gil and the Trance Dance Experience
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom

Julia V. Meltzer
Tranquility in Turmoil: The Zhuangzi's Therapeutic Skepticism
Adviser: Prof. Schmid

Jesse Josef Mischel
Teaching Plainness: The Socialization of Children in an Old Order Mennonite Community
Adviser: Prof. McCalla

Jessica Lynn Stults
Banners of Progress: Spiritualism, Democracy, and Science On the Pacific Coast, 1867-1896
Adviser: Prof. McCalla

Laura Gail Valenti
The Goddess is Alive and Magic is Afoot: An Analysis of Myth and Modern Goddess Worship
Adviser: Prof. Schmid

Elizabeth Rose von Kreisler
Elitism and Esotericism: Allegory in Ibn Tufayl’s Hayy ibn Yaqzan
Adviser: Prof. Feener

Jonathan Dean Warren
Vipassana in the Pacific Northwest: Seeking the Moment In a Sea of Metaphors
Adviser: Prof. Schmid

Patricia Ann Williams
Why Canonize John? A Discourse Applying the Praxeology of Bourdieu
Adviser: Prof. Feener

Nicole Larissa Wiswell
Recreation, Race, and Lynchin: Toward a New Theory in The Study of Southern Religion
Adviser: Prof. McCalla

Theses ‘00-01

Azure Akamay
Thus They Become Wicked Interpreters of Genuine Words: Scripture, Wisdom, and Spirit Second Century Valentinianism
Adviser: Prof. Foat

Jeremy Phillip Brown
The Dimona Dybbuk: Exorcism, Media, and Politics in the 1999 Israeli Elections
Adviser: Prof. Feener

Emily Jane Carter
Compelling God: Mystical Christology in Five of Meister Eckhart's German Sermons
Adviser: Prof. Foat

Erin Elizabeth Dobson
"And on the side of their oppressors there was power": The Nazi State; Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the World Come of Age
Adviser: Prof. McCalla

Lena Elizabeth Eberhart
Tradition Imprisoned: Can Buddhism Support the Rehabilitative Function?
Adviser: Prof. Brashier

Luciana Jude Fontanini
The Archangel Michael Who is Holy and his Sidekick, John Who is Small
Adviser: Prof. Foat

Caryn Louise Garner
Catholic Hospitals and Health Care in the United States: The Sanctity of Life and the Sacrifice of Women's Reproductive Rights
Adviser: Prof. Brashier

Leah Amelia Halvorson
Forbidden Sects: John Locke, Natural Law, and Religious Toleration
Adviser: Prof. McCalla

David Andrew McDougal
Community Building and Ritualism in the Han Kitah: A Study of Chinese Muslim Writers, 1642-1723
Adviser: Prof. Feener

Kimber Ann Nelson
American Buddhist Ritual: A Case Study in Ritualization, Ritual Change, and Ritual Interpretation at a Portland, Oregon Templt
Adviser: Prof. Brashier

Whitney Leslie Olson
When Cowboy's Die: Myth and Religion in Preacher
Adviser: Prof. Foat

Eliot Shambelan Rasenick
Starhawk and Her Witchy Friends: Finding Unity in Constructivist Analysis
Adviser: Prof. McCalla

Samuel Jordan Schaeffer
"ER=Eliade rex"?
Adviser: Prof. McCalla

Cecily Frances Whitworth
This Text is Very Useful and Inspiring of Dread: Word, Image and Authority in Hildegard of Bingen's Liber Scivia
Adviser: Prof. Foat

Theses ‘99-00

Adam Howard Davis
To Apprehend the Still Point: T.S. Eliot and the Via Negativa of the Four Quartets
Adviser: Prof. McCalla

J. Clifford Dyer
I Know This Because Tyler Knows This: Relationships of Obedience in the 18th-Century Russian Orthodox Monasticism of Paisy Velychkovsky
Adviser: Prof. Foat

Martha Susan Fletcher
Healing as Performative Ritual in American Pentecostalism
Adviser: Prof. McCalla

Elizabeth Edith Gustafson
Correspondences with the Uncanny: The Shan Hai Jing and Sacred Knowledge in Early Imperial China
Adviser: Prof. Brashier

Anmol Avinash Nayvar
(Re)constructing Falun Gong: An Empirical Approach
Adviser: Prof. Brashier

Eloise Violet Nelson
Interpreting Jonestown: The Effect of the Media Portrayal of Jonestown on the Academic Study of Religion
Adviser: Prof. McCalla

Michelle Nicole Pallak
"Anguish in the Face of Nothing": Gender and Failure in the Life of the Abbess Thaisia
Adviser: Prof. Foat

Maggie Dara Rosenbloom
Discourse on Desire: Controversy over Spiritual Marriage in Fourth-Century Egyptian Asceticism
Adviser: Prof. Foat

Rebecca Ellen Stewart
Women's Haggadot: Text and Ritual Change in Modern American Judaism
Adviser: Prof. Feener

Sarah Rose Weinman
Secularizing Sabbatianism: The Reconstruction of a Religious Tradition in the Virtual New Age
Adviser: Prof. Feener

Theses ‘98-99

Thomas Michael Belote
(Dis)establishing Religion: Thomas Jefferson and the (Dis)course of Religious Freedom
Adviser: Prof. Foat

Erica Marie Hagen
The Kalachakra Tantra in the Age of Strife: Modern Tibetan Identity and the Globalization of Ritual
Adviser: Prof. Brashier

Kristel Ann Halter
Contextualizing the Spiritual Doctrine of Evagrius of Pontus in Fourth Century Egyptian Monasticism: Determining the Sources of Desert Animosity
Adviser: Prof. Foat

Amy Kathleen Hendrix
The Bride and Her Jewels: the Roman Catholic Church and Religion in Africa
Adviser: Prof. Foat

Nina Lee Johnson
Love Hurts: The Suffering Body in Bonaventure's Lengenda Maior
Adviser: Prof. Foat

Julie Kenner
A Poet's Eugenics: Merrill's Sandover as a Third Testament
Adviser: Prof. Foat

Dustin White Latka
Naming and the Return to Unity: Name Magic in the Mao Shan Tradition of Great Purity
Adviser: Prof. Brashier

Benjamin Thomas Leech
The Face of the Earth: "Theography" and the drawings of Opicinus de Canistris
Adviser: Prof. Brashier

Nathan Dan Newberger
God's Descending in the Clouds (UFOs): Explication of a Modern Taiwanese Sectarian Movement
Adviser: Prof. Brashier

Noah Daniel Salomon
Expanding the Boundaries of Normative Judaism in the Middle Ages: An Historical Study of the Magical Texts from the Cairo Geniza
Adviser: Prof. Brashier

Samuel Hargrave Sanford
How David Koresh Controlled His Followers
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom

Mark Christopher Taylor
Why Become a Nephite? The Book of Mormon and Conversion
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom

Jeremy Francis Walton
Beyond God (hypertheos): Kataphasis, Apophasis, and Hyperphasis in the Works of Pseudo-Dionysus
Adviser: Prof. Foat

Theses ‘97-98

David Brown Alsdorf
Perfecting Gratia: Grace and Perfection in the Later Thought of Saint Augustine
Adviser: Prof. Foat

Bronwyn Boothe Bailey
Living Stones and Speaking Stones: Naim Ateek and Palestinian Theology During the Intifada
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom

James Hale Bilbro
ERGI
Adviser: Prof. Foat

Brenda Marisa Cooper
The Forgotten Buddhists: Chinese Women Resisting Acculturation in California 1853-1973
Adviser: Prof. Hsieh

Angela Katherine Eckhardt
From Chaos to Modernity: The Function of Nostalgia in Mircea Eliade's History of the World
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom

Joshua Jay Elliott
The Development of Hell in Ancient Judaism
Adviser: Prof. Sweek

Robert Law Griffin
Apocalypse Then: A Translation and Explication of the Apocalypse of Shenoute
Adviser: Prof. Foat

Guy Kendall Leavitt
A Translation of the Benedictions of the Abhinava-bharati Composed by the Great Reverend Devotee of Siva Abhinavagupta
Adviser: Prof. Gerow

Norah Amelia Newton
"The Way of Yao and Shun" Chu Hsi's Intellectual Genealogy (Tao-t'ung) As Myth
Adviser: Prof. Hsieh

Elizabeth Louise Nicholson
A Vision of the Great Eastern Sun: "Expedient Means" and Living Eschatology in Chogyam Trungpa's "Shambala Training"
Adviser: Prof. Hsieh

Anne Laura Oravetz
Critiquing Traditions: The Mysticism of Abraham Yagel's Apocalyptic Vision
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom

Michael McClary Ostling
Sheep and Goats: A Reinterpretation of Religious Tolerance in Early Modern Poland-Lithuania with Remarks on its Relevance
Adviser: Prof. Hsieh

Denise Marie Rhiner
An Additive Synthesis of Jungian and Eliadian Archetypal Theory
Adviser: Prof. Sweek

Waldemar Adrian Schmidt
New Age Religion and the Internet: Computer-Mediated Communications and the Evolution of New Religious Movements
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom

Andrea Elizabeth Speedie
Homiletic Liturgical and Iconographical Representations of the Mother of God Protectress of Constantinople
Adviser: Prof. Foat

Nicholas Wallace Stevens
Behing Every "Great Beast" is a Great System: Eclecticism and Experience in Aleister Crowley
Adviser: Prof. Sweek

Craig David Suffian
I Am an Ethiopian: A Subjective Biblical History of Rastafari
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom

Benjamin Waite Taylor
The Religious Music of John Coltrane
Adviser: Prof. Foat

Theses ‘96-97

James Bellerman
The Challenge of Engagement: Centrality and Expansion in the Theology of Thomas Merton
Adviser: Prof. Hsieh

Mauricio Chernovetzky
Creativity and Creation in Sava de Mishpatim: A Study in Zoharic Hermeneutics
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom

Peter Kahn
Irreconcilable Principles: An Examination of the Jewish Nationalist Ideologies of Simon Dubnow and Aha Ha'am
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom

Floyd Bruce Mann
Sympathy for the Devil: Saint Gregory of Nyssa and the Origenist Tradition
Adviser: Prof. Foat

Gabriel Jon Quitslund
Zen Master Dogen and the Tsiao-tung (Soto) Approach to Enlightenment Through Seated Meditation and Koan-Study: The Development of "The Koan of Realization" in relation to "Just Sitting"
Adviser: Prof. Hsieh

William Eric Vandever
Transconfessional Neoplatonists in the Fifteenth Century: Plethon, Ficino, Pico, and Cusansus
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom

Theses ‘95-96

Mimi Ann Hannon
Theologies of Darkness: Apophatic Expressions of Piety in Late Antique and Medievel European Mysticism
Adviser: Prof. Denning-Bolle

M. Akira Heshiki
Philo's Mirror: A reflection on Philo of Alexandria's Self-Understanding
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom

Justin Otto Sceva
Hey Joe Where Ya Goin With That Wach in Your Hand? Issues in the methodology of Joseph Mitsuo Kitagawa
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom

Stephanie Lynn Sleeper
Humilibus Deus dat gratiam: An Examination of Mysticism in St. Augustine, Meister Eckhart and Martin Luther
Adviser: Prof. Denning-Bolle

Amy Maline Wright
Knowing the Knower: An Investigation into Contemporary Enlightenment Claims in view of the Epistemology of Classical Advaita Vedanta
Adviser: Prof. Gerow

Theses ‘94-95

Edward Todd Addleson
Traditionalizing Jewish Worship in the Lives of Portland Women
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom

Lara Kathleen Aho
Theology of Darkness, Theology of Light: Pseudo-Dionysius in the Orthodox Tradition
Adviser: Prof. Kenney

Sarah Alderstein
The Origin of Jerusalem's Sanctity in Islam
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom

Anna Kathleen Cameron
Seeking Sources: Nineteenth-Century European Theories of Religious Origins
Adviser: Prof. Denning-Bolle

Mark Andrew Friedrich
The Promise of a Negative Eshatology: A Critical Assessment of Temporality, History, and Meta-History in Ernst BLoch's The Principle of Hope
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom

Ben Walker Glickman
Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Moral Underpinnings of The American Civil Rights Movement
Adviser: Prof. Kenney

Matthew Paul Jeschke
The Interpretation of Zen in the West
Adviser: Prof. Gerow

Alistair Taft Jones
Mind and Spirit in Contemporary Literature on Religion
Adviser: Prof. Bolle

Kristen Ann Kelley
The Pursuit of Beauty in Art and Religion: An Experiment in Practical Scholarship
Adviser: Prof. Bolle

Ryan Kent Manner
An Inquiry into Religion, Ideology, and Change in Japan's Meigi Era
Adviser: Prof. Gerow

Jonah Seigel
Thinking in Buddhism: Nagarjuna's Middle Way
Adviser: Prof. Bolle

Theses ‘93-94

Laurence David Banks
An Essay on English Catholicism from 1509 to 1603, and of the Effects of the Reformation and of the Counter Reformation thereon and an Explanation of its Continued Existence in the Face of Great Peril
Adviser: Prof. Denning-Bolle

Mark Douglas Flummerfelt
Gods and Grammar: Religious Language in Classical India
Adviser: Prof. Gerow

Bronson Don James
Al-Tawhid--God is One: The Philosophy of Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Adviser: Prof. Kenney

Andrew Todd Markell
Franz Rosenzweig: A Rediscovery of Revelation
Adviser: Prof. Bolle

Peter Michael O’Connor
The Dissemination of the Vision: John Neihardt and the Creation of Black Elk Speaks
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom

Theses ‘92-93

Wayne Bennett
The Tao Te Ching: Fill Your Belly and Not Your Mind
Adviser: Prof. Bolle

Allison Kay Berland
But How Can One Accept Monstrosity?: Practical Responses to the Problem of Evil in The Brothers Karamozov and The Plague
Adviser: Prof. Franklin

Carl Benjamin Brinkley
A Stone Woman Bears a Child at Night: Duality and Nonduality in the Practice and Doctrine of Dogen Kigen
Adviser: Prof. Franklin

Heather Hindman
Hindu Folk Drama and its Exploration in Western Theatrical Tradition
Advisers: Prof. Clinton and Prof. Bolle

Matthew Perkins Hoffman
Metaphysical Foundations for the Christian Contemplative Tradition: Omnipresence and Participation in Plotinus's Enneads and Augustine's Confessions
Adviser: Prof. Kenney

Forrest Hylton
Live Free or Die: Prophetic Christian Thought in the African-American Tradition
Adviser: Prof. Bolle

Sarah Johansson Locke
Institution and Inspiration: Questions of Religious Authority and the Boundaries of the Christian Tradition in Rosemary Radford Ruether's Feminist Theology
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom

Stephen Magro
Some Problems of Maronite Identity
Adviser: Prof. Denning-Bolle

Stuart M. Margolis
An Examination into the Dialectical Relationship Between Religion and Politics: or the Quagmire of Despair
Adviser: Prof. Bolle

Colette Leo Rabin
The Problem of Evil in Theodicy, The Brothers Karamazov, and The Plague
Adviser: Prof. Franklin

Brett Terason Wilmot
Flooding the Center with Light: a Phenomenological Investigation of a Jungian Mystic
Adviser: Prof. Kenney

Theses ‘91-92

Daniel James Beveridge
Pascal's Wager Reconsidered
Adviser: Prof. Franklin

Deirdre Blair Brennan
A Study of Meontology in the Periphyseon of John Scottus Eriugena
Adviser: Prof. Denning-Bolle

Johanna C. (Turner) Colgrove
Tales From the Iranian Plateau: Theories on the Origins of Zoroustrianism”
Adviser: Prof. Gerow

Marie Drennan
Something Very Strange and Singular: The Figure of Eve as Myth, Image and Ideology
Adviser: Prof. Denning-Bolle

Aaron Douglas Fein
The Myth of Utopia: The Significance of More's Utopia in View of Late Mediaeval Religious Thought
Adviser: Prof. Bolle

Ilana Guttmann
Tradition and Transition: the Myth System of Iris Murdoch
Adviser: Prof. Franklin

Lavonda Mee-Lee
Politics and Religion in the Han Dynasty: Hsien Taoism's Assimilation of Buddhism
Adviser: Prof. Gerow

J. Elizabeth Mitchell
Moral and Epistemological Justifications of Religious Belief
Adviser: Prof. Franklin

Stephen Hulme Shoup
AA's Umbilical Cord: A History of the Religious Ideas from Which the Twelve Step Program of Alcoholics Anonymous is Composed
Adviser: Prof. Franklin

David A. Weinstock
Encountering Religions: An Essay on the Relationship Between the Historian of Religions and His Elusive Subject-Matter
Adviser: Prof. Bolle

Theses ‘90-91

Moira D. Bowman
Martin Luther's Ideal Woman: An Exploration of the Construction of Gender and Sexuality in Theological Discourse
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom

Katherine Lynn Castles
How to Make Love to a God: Hierarchy, Reversal and Divine Love in Jayadeva's Gitagovinda
Adviser: Prof. Gerow

Jeremy Lynn Michaelson
In Touch with the Dazzling Obscurity: Mysticism and the Poetry of Paradox
Adviser: Prof. Kenney

Kira Plagge
Albert Camus: a Religious Perspective
Adviser: Prof. Franklin

Kermit F. Rosen
The Garland Which Consists of a Series of Brahman-knowledges: A Translation of the Brahmajnanavalimala with Commentary Based on Samkara's Advaita Vedanta
Adviser: Prof. Gerow

Deepak Sarma
Bhedasadhanam (the Establishment of Difference): An Examination of the Dvaitin Notion of Visesa
Adviser: Prof. Gerow

Susan M. Snyder
Amazing Grace: Grace and Free Will in the Thought of St. Augustine
Adviser: Prof. Kenney

Robert L. Stein
An Explanation of the Traditionalist Doctrine of Rene Guenon and Frithjof Schuon
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom

Duncan Williams
The Interface of Buddhism and Environmentalism in North America
Adviser: Prof. Gerow

Theses ‘89-90

A.F.F.H.S. Bates
Neoplatonism and Gnosticism: The Conflict Between Philosophy and Myth with a Focus on the "Fall"
Adviser: Prof. Kenney

Steven A. Browne
Scientology: A Study of World-Affirmation in a New Religious Movement
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom

Astrid Marie Persans
The Necessity of Evil in Saint Teresa of Avila's Spiritual Ascent
Adviser: Prof. Kenney

Joel Benjamin Schalit
Mysticism and Authority
Adviser: Prof. Franklin

Jeremy Wheelwright Sharp
Religious Perspectives in Fourth Century Antioch: Julian the Apostate and Saint John Chrysostom
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom

Christopher Norman Williams
The Idols of Death and the God of Life: The Process of 'Becoming Christian' in the Lives of Six Central American Catholic Priests
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom

Barbara Jill Yetman
Saved But Not Safe: The Religious Voice of Mary Grodon
Adviser: R. Miles

Theses ‘88-89

Jane Elizabeth Bonnem
The Hindu Temple and the Practitioner of Kundalini-Yoga: Microcosms of the Sacred Universe
Adviser: Prof. Gerow

Karen Karinna Robin Perry
Christology and Sociology: Dynamic Determinants of American Quakerism
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom

Laurie Livingstone
Gnostic Myth as Self-Definition
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom

Michele Rosenthal
Jewish-Christianity in the 1980's: The Theory and Practice of "Messian Judaism"
Adviser: Prof. Wasserstrom

Donald Edwards Whitley
What Does Dharma Mean? A History of Some Early Notions of the Word Dharma
Adviser: Prof. Gerow

Theses ‘87-88

Donna Anderson
A Unitary Reading of Meister Eckhart's Mystical Theology
Adviser: Prof. Kenney

Theses ‘86-87

Philip J. Eickhoff
A Comparison of Luther's and Calvin's Commentaries on Romans: Exegesis and Pauline Theology on the Eve and at the Height of the Reformation
Adviser: R. Cogley

H. Paul Manning
Ulixea Peregrinatio: the Golden Ass as Cynic Odyssey
Adviser: R. Cogley

Laura Lynn Roberts
Cotton Mather and Religious Toleration
Adviser: R. Cogley

Theses ‘85-86

Zeff Bjerken
God's Relationship to Man in the Neoclassical Theology of Charles Hartshorne
Adviser: Prof. Kenney

Anne Bothner
The Role of "The Gospel of Thomas" in the Development of Early Christianity
Adviser: R. Cogley

William Blackburn Douglas
The Unexamined Is: A Reading of Platonic Ontology
Adviser: Prof. Kenney

Michael Eugene Foat
Who Shall Declare His Generation?: the Arian Controversy of the Early Fourth Century
Adviser: Prof. Kenney

Anne Elizabeth Magruder
Falwell's Crusade: The Tradition of Reform in American Evangelicalism
Adviser: R. Cogley

Jeniffer Anne Sepez
Methodology and Metaphysics in St. Anselm's Ontological Argument for the Existence of God
Adviser: R. Cogley

Tasha C. Spencer
The Likelihood of Plato's Likely Account: A Reading of Plato's Timaeus
Adviser: W. Englert

Stephanie Stevens
All My Relations: A Theology of a Natural Order in the Work of Mary Daly and Alfred North Whitehead
Adviser: Prof. Kenney

Alan T. L. Sun
The Transmission of Authority in the New Testament
Adviser: R. Cogley

Theses ‘84-85

Becky Chiao
Sociological Concepts and New Testament Scholarship: The Relationship Between Status and Religion in First Corinthians
Adviser: Prof. Long

Deborah Coggins-Clark
The Theme of the Reditus in the German Sermons of Meister Eckhart
Adviser: Prof. Long

Frank Joseph Garcia
Friedrich Schleiermacher's Concept of Religion: A Study in 19th Century Theology
Adviser: Prof. Long

Elliot Garufi
Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Religionless Christianity in a World Come of Age
Adviser: B. Leftow

Mark Andrew Hadley
The Incarnation of the Word: Thomas J.J. Altizer on the Death and Omnipresence of God
Adviser: W. Peck

Merri Baehr Whipps
The Snake is a Rope is a Snake: Knowledge of Brahman in Advaita Vedanta
Adviser: B. Leftow

Theses ‘83-84

Lafcadio Cortesi
Mircea Eliade's Phenomenology: Expression and Practice of a "Theology of Meaning"
Adviser: Not Listed

Jason Weeks
Gerhard Von Rad and the Hiddenness of God
Adviser: Prof. Long

Theses ‘82-83

Robert B. Bowler
Breakthrough and Birth: Meister Eckhart's Working Conception of God and Man
Adviser: Prof. Kenney

William L. Brown
Evil and the God of Job
Adviser: Prof. Long

Paul Lacrampe
Socio-Economics and Social Structure of the First Century Christian Communities
Adviser: Prof. Long

Ronald Steven Marsh
Thank God He Doesn't Exist: Negative Theology in a Positive World
Adviser: Prof. Kenney

Joseph Niski
Look Before You Leap: Paradox and Christianity in Kierkegaard's Concluding Unscientific Postscript
Adviser: Prof. Kenney

Lawrence Eric Portnoff
Assessing the Cogency of the Kantian Moral Law and its Development into a Rational Moral Religion
Adviser: Prof. Kenney

Sarah Price Spencer
Religious and Philosophical Thought of Mahatma Gandhi
Adviser: Prof. Kenney

Theses ‘81-82

Drew Carleton Marquet McCormick
399 B.C.: Casting the First Stone
Adviser: Prof. Hoffman

Drew Carleton Marquet McCormick
399 B.C.: I Am Not a Number, I Am a Phre Man
Adviser: Prof. Kenney

Barbara Anne Pijan
Cinderella's Revenge: Lies, Secrets and Self-Consciousness
Adviser: Prof. Kenney

Theses ‘79-80

Elaine Helene Marie Balawejder
Structura/Essentia: Structuralist Theory of Literary Texts and Practica of Ancient Hebrew
Adviser: Prof. Segal