Matching Items (17)
Description
Between 1820 and 1875, the United States saw a surge in German-Jewish immigration. This wave of immigration brought Jews that were eager to adapt Judaism to their modern lives in a rational and accessible way. The challenge in America, however, was maintaining the desire to be Jewish and practice Judaism within a societal context that did not require them to be Jewish. The adoption of Reform Judaism in the 19th century amongst German-Jewish immigrants helped these new immigrants remain faithful and proud to be Jewish in within their new American lives. Furthermore, Reform Judaism helped these determined Jews balance their Jewish identities within the context of American society and culture.
ContributorsBurke, Randall Maxwell (Author) / Tirosh-Samuelson, Hava (Thesis director) / Gereboff, Joel (Committee member) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
Since the 1960’s and 1970’s, ethnographic research on Jewish menstrual rituals known as niddah, Taharat HaMishpacha, or Family Purity has associated their practices with religious behavior. Much of this research organizes around questions of women’s agency within ostensibly patriarchally constructed religious practices that carry the potential to oppress its women practitioners. This premise is built upon a number of implicit assumptions about the history of today’s niddah practices: that niddah is observed exclusively by Orthodox Jews; that increasing rates of niddah observance correlate exclusively with the trend toward stricter observance levels among the Orthodox since the 1960s; and that this increasingly strict observance itself reflects a reactionary trend among the Orthodox community (a.k.a. tradition versus modernity). All these assumptions currently circulate, in various degrees, among the American Jewish lay community and are shared by a significant number of congregational rabbis. Until the 1990s, no history of niddah existed to either support or refute these assumptions. I initially intended that this project would provide future ethnographers with a comprehensive history of niddah in America during the past one and a half centuries. I engaged Victor Turner’s theory of Social Drama as a framework for understanding this history as a socio-cultural process, rather than as a series of less than related events. However, this study h*as resulted in the identification of many more specific assumptions about the decline and revival of niddah observance in the twentieth century, which are not supported by the scant evidence available. These challenged assumptions beg new directions for research; a thorough reworking of the history of niddah in America; and a fresh look at the literature advocating niddah produced in the 1990’s and early 2000’s. This genealogy as Social Drama presents niddah in twentieth century America as undergoing periods of crisis, negotiation, and reintegration. This drama was triggered by late nineteenth century concepts of religion, body, and ritual that undermined and ruptured the integrity of niddah as a bodily religious ritual practice. Niddah’s twentieth century social drama culminated in fresh articulations of a unique Jewish sexuality and Jewish marital ethic.
ContributorsJohnston, Isobel-Marie (Author) / Gereboff, Joel (Thesis advisor) / Talebi, Shahla (Thesis advisor) / Bennett, Gaymon (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
The concept of Velayat-e Faqih as a type of Shi’ite Islamic government gained popularity three decades ago, after the Islamic revolution in Iran. The new constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran was based on Velayat-e Fagih, proposed by the Imam Khomeini many consider him as the leader of the Islamic Revolution and the founder of the Iranian Islamic Republic. What is Velayat-e Faqih? Who can be the Vali Faqih? Why wasn't this idea proposed before Islamic Revolution in 1979? Did all the Shi’ite religious scholars endorse this idea or the Vali Faqih himself? All of these questions ultimately lead us to ask whether this concept has been drawn from Shi’ite Islamic discourses or it may perhaps be considered a novelty: a secularization of religion. These questions are increasingly discussed in academia and in the large public arena. Moreover, this discourse has divided Shi’ite Muslims into three groups: supporters of the Velayat-e Faqih, its opponents, and the silent group. It is important to analyze the position of all those groups including the silent group who did not publicly endorse or reject the theory. The theory of Velayat-e Faqih has emerged from the Imamate doctrine, which constitutes a cornerstone of Shi'ite sect of Islam. It is necessary to understand this political doctrine in relation to the context within which this concept of leadership had emerged. In order to overcome the ambiguities surrounding the relationship between Velayat-e Faqih and the position of Islamic jurist as a source of guidance and imitation (Marje Taqleed), it is necessary to discuss the various dimension of guardianship in the absence of the infallible Imam. Furthermore, the focus of this research is to review whether the concept of Velayat-e Faqih was innovated after the Islamic Revolution of Iran or existed within the Shi’ite tradition.
ContributorsRezai, Ali Siyar (Author) / Gallab, Abdullahi (Thesis advisor) / Talebi, Shahla (Committee member) / Gereboff, Joel (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
In the current context of fiscal austerity as well as neo-colonial criticisms, the discipline of religious studies has been challenged to critically assess its teaching methods as well as articulate its relevance in the modern university setting. Responding to these needs, this dissertation explores the educational outcomes on undergraduate students as a result of religious studies curriculum. This research employs a robust quantitative methodology designed to assess the impact of the courses while controlling for a number of covariates. Based on data collected from pre- and post-course surveys of a combined 1,116 students enrolled at Arizona State University (ASU) and two area community colleges, the research examines student change across five outcomes: attributional complexity, multi-religious awareness, commitment to social justice, individual religiosity, and the first to be developed, neo-colonial measures. The sample was taken in the Fall of 2009 from courses including Religions of the World, introductory Islamic studies courses, and a control group consisting of engineering and political science students. The findings were mixed. From the "virtues of the humanities" standpoint, select within group changes showed a statistically significant positive shift, but when compared across groups and the control group, there were no statistically significant findings after controlling for key variables. The students' pre-course survey score was the best predictor of their post-course survey score. In response to the neo-colonial critiques, the non-findings suggest the critiques have been overstated in terms of their impact pedagogically or in the classroom.
ContributorsLewis, Bret (Author) / Gereboff, Joel (Thesis advisor) / Foard, James (Committee member) / Levy, Roy (Committee member) / Woodward, Mark (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
James Baldwin (1924-1987) was one of the most well-known African American fiction and nonfiction writers of the twentieth century. Throughout his life and career, he earned a worldwide reputation as a respected novelist, memoirist, and essayist who contributed to a wide array of artistic movements and intellectual discourses. Many scholars have noted the particular African American religious and cultural influences upon Baldwin’s work. More recently, scholars have additionally noted the importance of Baldwin’s globally-engaged thought and internationalist life. Throughout all of his work, Baldwin wrote extensively on the subject of religion. This dissertation posits the topics of religion, violence, and marginalization as integral to his nonfiction writings and speeches, particularly after 1967. As such, it argues that Baldwin in his early career established four distinct discourses on morality, evil, scapegoatism, and purity that he came to connect in his later writings on the intersection of religion, violence, and marginalization. Within these writings, Baldwin also displayed a rigorous engagement with multicultural and multireligious artistic and literary canons, along with the evolving academic study of religion. Therefore, not only should the intersection of religion, violence, and marginalization be a central consideration for Baldwin scholarship, but scholars of religion and violence in particular would benefit from engaging Baldwin’s addressment of this intersection.
ContributorsBroyles, Michael Anthony Louis (Author) / Moore, Moses N (Thesis advisor) / Fessenden, Tracy (Committee member) / Gereboff, Joel (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
The traditional site of Rachel's Tomb is located just south of Jerusalem on the border of Bethlehem. In recent years, Rachel's Tomb architectural appearance and cultural significance have shifted dramatically in the last two decades and the Biblical figure of Rachel has evolved in the Jewish imagination as a figure "emplaced" there as well. The original stories that have drawn visitors to the site have developed from Biblical and Rabbinic texts, yet contemporary visitors to the site have their own perspectives and stories to tell, grounded in religious tradition, nostalgia, and current political and social realities. At the traditional site of her tomb, Rachel has served for at least the last century as something like a "patron saint" for Jewish women's domestic issues, but her intercessory abilities have recently been expanded. Her special relationship to Zionism through her connections to the Biblical notions of Jewish "return" and end-times "redemption" have been recast to fit contemporary political viewpoints and contestations. In addition, she has developed into a kind of national "mater dolorosa," representing the collective grief for deaths through acts of political violence, particularly women's deaths. This project traces the ways in which current narrative and praxis at the traditional site of Rachel's Tomb have developed as well as the ways in which current perceptions of the site-and Rachel as the cultural figure associated with the space-draw upon temporally-situated interpretations of her textual tradition, as well as affective discourse and collective cultural memory.
ContributorsAnderson, Carli (Author) / Gereboff, Joel (Thesis advisor) / Mirguet, Francoise (Committee member) / Talebi, Shahla (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this thesis is to identify the key determinants of changes in the public’s perception and the historical and legal context for the current laws that govern the Right to Die in America. At its essence, the Right to Die Movement can be summarized in six selected narratives that were performed, told, debated, or reported for the public throughout history. Each of these six stories was presented with the most effective communication technologies available to the narrators in their respective eras.
The thesis includes an original research study assessing the impact of a social media phenomenon on the Right to Die Movement. While the Brittany Maynard Farewell video may not have been solely responsible for the surge of public support for MAID, it certainly captured the sense of autonomy and individual rights Americans believe they have in 2014 and continuing at least through 2019. This belief in autonomy and individual rights influenced the American sense of who owns their bodies and who can control their deaths after they are given terminal diagnoses. The first key narrative introduced Natural Law and the Natural Rights that proceed from this universal law. The second opened up communication about death. The next three demonstrated to Americans what legal rights they had and which were withheld by tradition and law. The last narrative captured and embodied the American sense of autonomy and individual rights that a majority of Americans now feel they possess. The laws and policies that have resulted from the Right to Die Movement both define the boundaries of autonomy and construct an evolving understanding of human freedom.
The purpose of this thesis is to identify the key determinants of changes in the public’s perception and the historical and legal context for the current laws that govern the Right to Die in America. At its essence, the Right to Die Movement can be summarized in six selected narratives that were performed, told, debated, or reported for the public throughout history. Each of these six stories was presented with the most effective communication technologies available to the narrators in their respective eras.
The thesis includes an original research study assessing the impact of a social media phenomenon on the Right to Die Movement. While the Brittany Maynard Farewell video may not have been solely responsible for the surge of public support for MAID, it certainly captured the sense of autonomy and individual rights Americans believe they have in 2014 and continuing at least through 2019. This belief in autonomy and individual rights influenced the American sense of who owns their bodies and who can control their deaths after they are given terminal diagnoses. The first key narrative introduced Natural Law and the Natural Rights that proceed from this universal law. The second opened up communication about death. The next three demonstrated to Americans what legal rights they had and which were withheld by tradition and law. The last narrative captured and embodied the American sense of autonomy and individual rights that a majority of Americans now feel they possess. The laws and policies that have resulted from the Right to Die Movement both define the boundaries of autonomy and construct an evolving understanding of human freedom.
ContributorsGrossman, Jennifer Elizabeth (Author) / Gereboff, Joel (Thesis advisor) / Ross, Heather M. (Committee member) / Bennett, Gaymon (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020