Thesis (doctoral)--Université de Paris. / Includes bibliographical references (p. vii-xv).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Universität Zürich. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 9-12).

"Thesis approved for the degree of doctor of philosophy, University of Calcutta." / "Bibliographical index": p. [433]-437.

Thesis (M.A.)--Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 1993. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 100-114).

The study of adolescents’ idols has an over 100-year tradition. The meta-analysis of Teigen, Normann, Bjorkheim and Helland (2000) showed that idols, which are commonly understood as role models, changed over the last century which is attributed to changes in the social context. The present paper argues that Social Identity Theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979, 1986) offers an appropriate theoretical framework to conceptualize social context by hypothesising a functional relationship between idols and identity management strategies moderated by the status position of the adolescent’s group s/he belongs to. The hypothesised functional relationship was tested in two studies with white and black adolescent South Africans. The results of the two studies supported our assumptions that the functional relationship between idols and identity management strategies is indeed moderated by status position. The results also indicate that Social Identity Theory seems to be an appropriate theoretical framework when social context is particularly conceptualised as social change.

Thesis--Universität Bonn, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 556-589) and index.

Thesis (M.A.)--Catholic Theological Union at Chicago, 1995. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 177-179).

This dissertation argues that the biblical imagery of Gustave Doré (1832-83) successfully conveyed various modern ways of encountering the Bible, in both sacred and secular contexts. Doré was one of the most popular artists in nineteenth-century Europe and America, and his images have continued to be widely reproduced (to date, his Bible illustrations have been incorporated into over 700 publications). Emerging at a time when the Bible was taking on cultural roles beyond the moral and theological, Doré's images negotiated the challenges facing biblical representation, and introduced generations around the world to a new and modern way of understanding Judeo-Christian scripture. From the emergence of the "Bible as literature," to Holy Land archaeology, to the spectacularization of biblical narratives, to modern religious pedagogy, the impact of Doré's biblical pictures was felt on a scale heretofore unknown. More broadly, this project deals with the intersection of art, religion, and modernity through the study of one influential artist. The history of Doré's images extends across temporal, geographical, and denominational boundaries, and is crucial for understanding how the Bible has maintained its sacred and secular functions through the present day. Despite his centrality to the nineteenth-century art world, Doré's work has maintained a relatively marginal place in standard art histories. Art historians and sociologists of religion are becoming increasingly interested in the importance of religious imagery in modernity and Doré's works are often invoked, but there has yet to be a sustained study of the forms, history, and persuasive power of his images. Redressing art history's meager attention to modern religious art, I hope not only to recuperate Doré for art history, but also, more generally, to demonstrate how religious art helped make us modern.

This thesis offers a multi-faceted exploration of image worship theology and practice within a Vaishnava Hindu theistic devotional tradition founded in the sixteenth century, flourishing today largely in north and northeast India and, since recently, spreading worldwide. The thesis serves two aims. First, it augments existing scholarship on Hindu temple image worship and Caitanya (Gaudīya) Vaishņavism by focusing on two contemporary temple communities one in the north Indian pilgrimage centre Vrindavan, the second near Watford, outside London. These represent, respectively, an "embodied community" and a "missionizing tradition," following Barbara Holdrege's typology in her studies of Hindu and Jewish traditions. By considering the practice of worship (mūrti-sevā) in terms of two persistent themes, namely rule-governed practice (vaidhī-sādhana) and emotion-driven practice (rāgānuga-sādhana), I show how the elements of "embodiment" and "missionizing" blend to produce variations on the overarching theme of Krsna bhakti, devotion to Kŗşna as the supreme divinity. Second, by focusing on the divine image in these two temples and the practice of worship, I offer one study of how "religious truth" is understood within these communities in terms of three dimensions of truth proposed by the Comparative Religious Ideas Project at Boston University (1995-1999; Robert C. Neville, et al., Religious Truth, State University of New York Press, 2001). At the same time I offer an attempt to extend the scope of that project by adding the dimensions of physical image and ritual practice to its existing dimension, religious ideas. I show how the central notion of devotion to Kŗşna as God (bhagavān) entails a complex web of discursive, ritual, and narrative expression to sustain image worship as a truth of embodiment/practice (the opposite of failure) which is also expressive truth (the opposite of deceit) that follows from propositional/epistemological truth (the opposite of error).

Thesis (Th. D.)--Grace Theological Seminary, 1988. / Abstract. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 235-264).