The book examines the roles Protestant affective norms played the commercial development of the American country music industry. From the 1925 birth of the Grand Ole Opry and Ralph Peer's 1927 "discovery" of Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family in Bristol, country music emerged from the "hillbilly" culture of the Cumberland Gap and gained nationwide credibility through efforts by promoters to combat concerns of emotive and sonic disorder and recklessness. They presented their performers, programs, and songs as utterly congruous with what they imagined to be a cultural standard of inoffensive religious feeling, sourced from and complicit in Protestant values. In Rodgers and the Carters, subsequent industry players embraced an affective discourse centered on the mortal threats of sin and the positive feelings associated transcendence. The mastery of this discourse contributed directly to the industrial standardization of country music's norms. Throughout the Depression and Postwar eras, producers and songwriters adopted a language of "good-naturedness," shorthand for a religious predisposition toward depression and its cessation, in a bid to sell records and increase exposure. This emergent para-Protestant affective-industrial complex contributed directly to country music's habitation in Nashville, now known worldwide both for Protestant governance and country music culture. It framed the successes of crossover stars like Roy Acuff and Claude Ely while complicating the careers of legends like Hank Williams. The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum demonstrates the ways this affective discourse continues to influence the memory and business of American country music. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester, 2014. / July 25, 2014. / American Religion, Religion & Media / Includes bibliographical references. / John Corrigan, Professor Directing Dissertation; David Kirby, University Representative; Amanda Porterfield, Committee Member; Michael McVicar, Committee Member.

In this dissertation, I draw on feminist moral philosophy to bolster the pragmatist argument that ethics is ultimately the study of communities and the moral norms implicit in their social practices. In doing so, I offer a response to contemporary critics of the study of religious ethics by suggesting that this approach is a way of doing ethics that avoids the tendencies toward universalism and abstraction to which these critics object. In addition to constructing a new approach for the study of ethics, I apply this approach in a study of just war tradition generally as well as the ongoing war in Afghanistan in particular. The understanding of morality as historically situated leads to an understanding of the just war tradition as a diverse, contested discourse that cannot be captured in a single theory or set of principles. It also leads to a focus on human practice as the proper object of ethical study. A focus on practice has significant implications for just war reasoning. First, justice is understood as a virtue--as something human beings do in relation to other human beings. Second, what happens in war is the result of human decisions for which agents must take responsibility (not the result of necessity). Third, intention is properly understood not as a purely internal state but as a practical expression of commitments that can be inferred from agents' actions. Fourth, doing justice requires taking responsibility to repair harms caused by one's actions, even when those harms were unintended and unforeseen. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2013. / March 5, 2013. / feminist ethics, just war, pragmatism, religious ethics / Includes bibliographical references. / John Kelsay, Professor Directing Dissertation; David McNaughton, University Representative; Aline Kalbian, Committee Member; Martin Kavka, Committee Member; Sumner B. Twiss, Committee Member.

The heresiography portion found in the Kitb̄ al-shajara by the fourth/tenth century Ismā'īlī dā'ī Abū Tammām presents an interesting opportunity for scholars of religion. Not just an unique heresiographical work written from a non-Fatimid Ismā'īlī position, the Shajara also presents a complex Neo-Platonic conception of Ismā'īlī thought, from cosmology to soteriology and epistemology. Above all, the Shajara is an attempt to consciously create an orthodoxy for the Ismā'īlīs of Greater Khurasan, particularly one that is outside both the Sunni dominated region and the rising Fatimid Ismā'īlī state. The Shajara also reveals that Abū Tammām made use of the vibrant scholastic milieu in the area of Greater Khurasan, drawing from a wide variety of sources that mostly happened to be non-Ismā'īlī in origin. From this foundation, however, Abū Tammām creates his own distinctly eastern, Neo-Platonic portrayal of the sects wherein the ordering of the sects themselves in the heresiography reflects the larger structure of the universe; more specifically, the unfolding of knowledge within the sects as they move towards the end of the heresiography (and thus closer to the views of the Ismā'īlīs as the "saving sect") echoes the series of emanations that created the cosmos as well as the necessary steps by which humankind can return to God. The Kitāb al-shajara, then, is a project to define a regional, Neo-Platonic Ismā'īlī orthodoxy. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. / Spring Semester, 2014. / March 3, 2014. / Cosmology, Greater Khurasan, Heresiography, Isma'ili, Isma'ilism, Neo-Platonism / Includes bibliographical references. / Adam Gaiser, Professor Directing Thesis; Joseph Hellweg, Committee Member; Peter Garretson, Committee Member.

This study focuses on the practice of Spiritualism among a group of Afro-creole men from 1858 until 1877 in New Orleans. It contends that Spiritualism was the process in which these Afro-creoles envisioned the proper social, political, and religious ordering of the material world. Communicating with the world of the wise spirits offered the Cercle Harmonique a forum for airing their political grievances and for imagining a more egalitarian world. Many of their messages focused on what the spirits called "the Idea," a concept which meant humanitarian progress, equality, egalitarianism, brotherhood, and harmony. Championing the Idea, Spiritualism mediated the social and political changes experienced by Afro-creoles in the late antebellum and post-Civil War world. The messages the Cercle Harmonique received from the spirit world--and the spirits who sent them--mediated the changes to the New Orleans social, political, religious, and cultural climate. From a close reading of their séance records and noting the spiritual network into which they placed themselves, this study maps the Afro-creoles' social, political, racial, and religious goals. Concurrently, the project also illuminates how the Cercle Harmonique understood New Orleanian and American society and politics and the hierarchical Catholic institution to be limiting humanity's progress. Tyrannical leaders, corrupt power, and white supremacy worked against the Idea. However, through their séances the Cercle Harmonique connected with an idealized society, and while that idealized society existed apart from the Spiritualists, their communication provided the Afro-creoles with republican ideology to combat politically destructive forces on earth. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2014. / March 26, 2014. / African American religion, American religious history, New Orleans, Spiritualism / Includes bibliographical references. / John Corrigan, Professor Directing Dissertation; David Kirby, University Representative; Amanda Porterfield, Committee Member; Martin Kavka, Committee Member; Michael McVicar, Committee Member.

This project is an examination of the War against al-Qaeda from the field of religious ethics. In response to September Eleventh, the United States has spent the last decade fighting a war against a diffuse and elusive network of militant Islamists. These events have not been neglected by the scholarly community, and a range of material on al-Qaeda and the War on Terror have been produced. However, I argue that the majority of available research does not take sufficient account of the theological foundation that serves to give al-Qaeda meaning, legitimacy, and direction in its war against the West. As a work of religious ethics, this project begins from inquiries that seek to understand how individuals and groups are motivated, and action is legitimated, by way of religious and moral commitments. I argue that such inquiries carry particular relevance in the War against al-Qaeda, as it stands by way of clear observation that al-Qaeda is a religious, and hence, theologically driven organization. Understanding al-Qaeda's "grand strategy" – a key component in any effort to "disrupt, dismantle, and defeat" the al-Qaeda network – requires an investigation into its theological underpinnings. In order to perceive the full spectrum of al-Qaeda's aims, as well as the manner in which these aims have affected its particular tactical model of war, it is necessary to examine the religious narratives and symbols that lend them both meaning and consequence. Through such an approach, this dissertation demonstrates that al-Qaeda has intentionally put forward a strategic and tactical model that is diffuse in geographical reach, decentralized in authority, and virtually indiscriminate in its application of force. Understanding Al-Qaeda's war model carries important implications for an American military response. From the inception of hostilities, major military and policy decision makers determined that this was a "different kind of war"; one necessitating a decisive shift from a focus on conventional combat to the realm of irregular warfare As a consequence the relevant decision makers have made a concerted effort to categorize al-Qaeda's structure and strategy. As discussed above, two conceptual and military models have been put forward in the attempt to both understand, and to combat, the al-Qaeda network: "counterinsurgency" and "counterterrorism." The former construes al-Qaeda as a world-wide militant Islamist insurgency that has penetrated into Iraq and Afghanistan. Relying on the classic principles of military counterinsurgency, policy and military decision makers have determined that both "fronts" must be "secured" to ensure an overall al-Qaeda defeat. The latter, and in many ways much less dominant stream, understands al-Qaeda as a network of terrorists violating both domestic and international law. An al-Qaeda defeat, under this second line of thinking, requires apprehending, detaining, or killing high-level leaders, in the hope that their absence will lead to an overall infrastructure collapse. However, once al-Qaeda's diffuse and decentralized model is illustrated, I argue that a reevaluation of both models is in order. The highly irregular nature of the al-Qaeda network requires that both military frameworks are assessed as they apply specifically to al-Qaeda. Through the application of the moral and ethical guidelines of the just war tradition, I argue that neither framework is able to provide an application of military force that is effectual and proportionate - in other words, that is just. Furthermore, noting the importance of the interpretive narratives that drive al-Qaeda, I argue that in addition to the use of military force, the Long War must take note of the theological alternatives that are presented by a variety of figures within the Muslim community. As this entity is organized and motivated by a set of theological interpretive narratives encompassing the historical and textual tradition of Islam, combating al-Qaeda requires the presence, and perhaps the engagement, of an alternative set of narratives. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2011. / June 3, 2011. / Islam, Jihad, Al-Qaeda, Just War, Religious Ethics / Includes bibliographical references. / John Kelsay, Professor Directing Dissertation; Lois Hawkes, University Representative; Adam Gaiser, Committee Member; Aline Kalbian, Committee Member; Sumner B. Twiss, Committee Member.

This thesis argues that the institutionalization of literary studies in post-War American universities began as a constructive theological response to a religious crisis centered in the southeastern United States. Starting with a brief sketch of the distinct academic, literary, and religious scenes in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the essay explores the formation and propagation of the New Criticism through an attention to key figures' previously ignored religious motivations. Dissatisfied with the literary and religious scenes within the region, a close-knit group of Nashville aesthetes set about constructing an alternative to the narrow-minded historicism with which one was forced to study both sacred and secular texts. Following failed engagements of fundamentalism and politics, the leaders of John Crowe Ransom's "Criticism, Inc." created an academic field that transformed formalist aesthetics into a workable prosthesis for a Protestant hermeneutic rendered obsolete by the previous century's historicism. In this movement the religious and political concerns of Ransom, Allen Tate, Donald Davidson, and Cleanth Brooks were not so much abandoned as transferred. By turns explicit and concealed, Ransom's claim that "art is the only true religion and no other is needed" comes to bear upon the institutional roles of literary criticism and university English departments, as well as the curious interplay of religion and aesthetics in American cultural history. Emerging from this study is a reflection on the ambiguous secularity of aesthetic criticism in the United States. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. / Spring Semester, 2010. / November 30, 2009. / New Criticism, Literary Theory, Southern History, Secularism, American Religious History / Includes bibliographical references. / John Corrigan, Professor Directing Thesis; Amanda Porterfield, Committee Member; Matthew Day, Committee Member.

This dissertation examines literary manifestations of spirituality and theology in women’s writings that appeared throughout the various Reformation movements in France and Italy during the sixteenth century, with particular focus on the oeuvre of Marguerite de Navarre (1492-1549). The intersection of female spirituality and theology, as expressed during an epoch replete with various ecclesiastical and confessional crises, guides the direction of literary analysis of spiritual texts, written by Marguerite de Navarre, as well as her contemporaries, Vittoria Colonna (1490-1547), Marie Dentière (1495-1561), and Olympia Morata (1526-1555). In particular, I claim that reform movements in France and Italy inspire female authors to confront and articulate spiritual and theological thought in a peculiar form of female literary discourse. Moreover, I discuss how female authors appropriate genres not generally used for purposes of theological expression by male authors, such as poetic dialogue and familiar epistolary exchange. As a result of their exploitation of these genres and literary discourses, as well as their epistolary correspondence with one another, a reformed community of women emerges, based on the shared desire to explore, express, and defend theological ideas and spirituality of the nascent Protestant faith. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester 2018. / April 9, 2018. / Includes bibliographical references. / Reinier Leushuis, Professor Directing Dissertation; François Dupuigrenet-Desroussilles, University Representative; Lori J. Walters, Committee Member; Irene Zanini-Cordi, Committee Member; Martin Munro, Committee Member.

Although studies of nineteenth-century evangelicalism emphasize the importance of sentimentality, scholars of modern evangelicalism usually overlook it. Instead scholars have tended to focus on the importance of belief or doctrine and have defined evangelicals in terms of a certain set of beliefs that characterize evangelicals as distinct from other Christians. They have also overlooked the prominence of minister and best-selling author Max Lucado. Lucado has written over seventy books and continues to produce works in a variety of media for a variety of audiences. By examining evangelical sentimentality through the writings of Max Lucado, scholars can see how pervasive sentimentality is, particularly in evangelical practice. This dual investigation of Max Lucado and evangelical sentimentality reveals important aspects of modern evangelicalism. Building on a framework of analysis that incorporates the observations of scholars of eighteenth and nineteenth century sentimentality, it becomes apparent that sentimentality is a powerful force in evangelicalism. Evangelicals who deploy sentimental rhetoric rely on it to do a monumental amount of concealing work. Although on the surface sentimental rhetoric appeals to a familial relationship with God, beneath the surface sentimentality relies on grief over the political situation in the United States. It also takes the place of intellectually encountering the world and the challenges evangelicalism faces, particularly from science and critical examinations of the Bible. The selling of sentiment further obscures the constructedness of evangelical authors and how dependent on the market they have become. The political, intellectual, and economic history of evangelicalism has helped create a situation where sentimentality is widespread in evangelical thought and practice, and scholars should be mindful of this aspect of evangelicalism as they continue to write their stories of this religious movement. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester, 2009. / September 11, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references. / Amanda Porterfield, Professor Directing Dissertation; Kristie Fleckenstein, University Representative; John Corrigan, Committee Member; Amy Koehlinger, Committee Member.

Despite her popularity within certain sects of Tibetan Buddhism, little focuses work has been done on the dharma protectress Achi Chökyi Drölma. Venerated as the guardian of the Drikung Kagyü tradition, as the maternal great-grandmother of its founder, Jikten Sumgön (1143-1217), and as a human embodiment of the fully-enlightened female Buddha Vajrayoginī, this little-researched but influential deity maintains numerous diverse roles within her community of lay and monastic devotees. Drawing on primary and secondary sources, this thesis examines Achi's uncommon characterizations beyond the typical mundane Buddhist dharma protector, which I categorize into three separate but at times overlapping personas: 1) Hagiographic Achi, as seen in her portrayal as a Tibetan Buddhist saint 2) Ritualized Achi, as portrayed in her roles of fierce protecttress and boon-granting goddess, and; 3) Historical Achi, or rather, the possible viability of the existence of such female teacher in the history of Jikten Sumgön's genealogy. This is done first with an exploration of Achi's iconography and ritual associations, which have roots in Indian tantric traditions, followed by the history of the domain over which she is sovereign, The Drikung valley region. I then provide a full translation of one of her more recent hagiographies and examine its meanings and implications in relation to the genre of Tibetan religious biography, an end with a look at the impact the roles of women and issues of gender in Buddhist narrative and Tibetan culture have had on the portrayal of Achi as a mother, ritual consort, an teacher. This single case study, therefore, sheds light not only on the construction of religious figures and divine entities within a given cultural sphere, but at the influence gender and normative social values play on the perception of such constructions. In conclusion, I argue these two points: First, that Achi, and other semi-wrathful deities like her, as able to assume different and seemingly contrary roles because they embody a specifically Tibetan Buddhist cultural repertoire grounded in indigenous beliefs and imported religious and social constructs, and second, that while the deity's voluntary assumption of a female body specifically to give birth to a lineage may appear to exemplify the presence of an androcentric gaze in Buddhist narrative, reducing her to a mere reproductive function and an association with a male authority figure, such activities actually stem from a legacy of both religious male and female figures who have used the activities of the house-holder life as skillful mean in spreading the Buddha's teachings. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. / Spring Semester, 2011. / March 18, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references. / Bryan Cuevas, Professor Directing Thesis; Kathleen Erndl, Committee Member; Jimmy Yu, Committee Member.

The ethnic and national melange that characterized the Pacific Northwest in the first half of the nineteenth century (Native Americans, Metis, Hawaiians, British, Americans, and French-Canadians all called it home) facilitated a wide range of local and trans-regional religious exchanges largely visible within the networks, resources, and methods of the area's foremost economy: the fur trade. I argue that this trans-continental commercialism, sustained in part by the trafficking of furs in the colonial Northwest, integrated into its system of operations a hemispheric religious economy, whereby fur trade and religious transactions manifested as conflated economic performances within the larger scope of imperial expansion. I explore a variety of religious encounters from the early stages of the trade to its collapse in the mid-century. After establishing a historiographical and interpretative framework in chapter one, I highlight, in chapter two, the interplay between indigenous prophecy and fur trade imports from eastern North America and Europe, which included not only durable goods, but also theologies and moralities. In chapter three, I underscore the role played by Hawaiian employees of fur trading companies in shaping a religious economy which linked the Northwest to a wider Pacific World exchange. In chapter four, I dissect the region's leading trade organization, the London-based Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), and their exploitation of religion as a means of preserving a monopolizing control over all commercial activity in the area. Lastly, in chapters five and six, I scrutinize the Protestant and Catholic mission economies, and their comparable yet contrasting forms of dependence on the capital of fur trading giants such as the HBC. In the end, I suggest that the diffusion of religion into the "secular" - into the "commercial" and "ecological" - during the early nineteenth century set a precedent for the contemporary Northwest as the "None Zone." / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2014. / May 28, 2014. / Commerce, Commodity, Exchange, Market, Reciprocity, Religion / Includes bibliographical references. / John Corrigan, Professor Directing Dissertation; Andrew Frank, University Representative; Amanda Porterfield, Committee Member; Michael McVicar, Committee Member.