This study contemplates the limitations of traditional conceptions of Latin American Pentecostalism to account for and understand the phenomenon as it developed in the lives of individuals during charged moments like the Chilean dictatorship where meanings and significance – religious and otherwise – were challenged, disrupted, and altered. Its goal is to explore how Pentecostals lived with and against the changing religious expressions and practices that were available to them under authoritarian rule. I argue that Pentecostal religion and practice were infused with new meaning and reimagined through shifting conceptions of community, society, and faith that flowed into and nourished one another. The boundaries of Pentecostal identity and belief were ultimately less rigid and more porous than the traditional historiography suggests, as people sought to find meaning in the face of mounting oppression and insecurity. In doing so, normative definitions of terms like Pentecostal, religion, religiosity, and religious practice as they have been used as categorical frameworks for historical study are also reconsidered. This investigation examines how transformations in religious thought and practice developed and how they found meaning within the everyday experiences of the church’s members as they confronted the harrowing events that engulfed Chile between 1973 and 1990. Key to this work is the concept of ‘lived religion’. The term, often used to collapse the distinction between the personal religious experiences and the prescribed religion of institutions, is used here to approach religion within the realm of la vida cotidiana (everyday life). Based on church documents and oral histories collected from members of the Misión Iglesia Pentecostal (Pentecostal Mission Church – MIP), I use a broad historical framework to map the embodied and discursive space between leaders and lay followers, the points of contact, disjuncture, and resonance across the ideas, experiences, and sensations of their shared lives during the dictatorship.

abstract: This project explores the histories of the Dutch Republic and the United States during the Age of Revolutions, using as a lens the life of Francis Adrian van der Kemp. Connections between the Netherlands and the United States have been understudied in histories of the Revolutionary Atlantic. Yet the nations' political and religious histories are entwined both thematically and practically. Van der Kemp's life makes it possible to examine republicanism and liberal religion anew, as they developed and changed during the era of Atlantic revolutions. The project draws on numerous archival collections that house van der Kemp's voluminous correspondence, political and religious writings, his autobiography, and the unpublished records of the Reformed Christian Church, now the Unitarian Church of Barneveld. With his activity in both countries, van der Kemp offers a unique perspective into the continued role of the Dutch in the development of the United States. The dissertation argues that the political divisions and incomplete religious freedom that frustrated van der Kemp in the Dutch Republic similarly manifested in America. Politically, the partisanship that became the hallmark of the early American republic echoed the experiences van der Kemp had during the Patriot Revolt. While parties would eventually stabilize radical politics, the collapse of the Dutch Republic in the Atlantic world and the divisiveness of American politics in those early decades, led van der Kemp to blunt his once radically democratic opinions. Heavily influenced by John Adams, he adopted a more conservative politics of balance that guaranteed religious and civil liberty regardless of governmental structure. In the realm of religion, van der Kemp discovered that American religious freedom reflected the same begrudging acceptance that constituted Dutch religious tolerance. Van der Kemp found that even in one of the most pluralistic states, New York, his belief in the unlimited liberty of conscience remained a dissenting opinion. The democracy and individualism celebrated in early American politics were controversial in religion, given the growing authority of denominations and hierarchical church institutions. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. History 2014

This thesis explores the cult and mythos of the goddess Kali both in her Eastern and Western contexts, comparing and contrasting them in order to gain a better understanding of the Western appropriations of Kali within feminist goddess spirituality. Utilizing a variety of methods, including ethnographic research conducted at Kali temples in California, this research is aimed at providing an entry into the lived contemporary tradition of the Western Kali within goddess spirituality circles, focusing on embodied experience, devotion, ritual, and syncretic practices. Kali, a fierce Indian goddess, is often seen in the Hindu context as a central manifestation of the all encompassing Mother Goddess (Mahadevi, Devi, Shakti, etc), and therefore is a particularly engaging example of contemporary Western appropriation of religious and cultural symbols and narratives. This thesis contributes to understanding Kali in her new North American domain, as well as serving as a case study of the shifting religious landscape in the West.

This thesis explores the cult and mythos of the goddess Kali both in her Eastern and Western contexts, comparing and contrasting them in order to gain a better understanding of the Western appropriations of Kali within feminist goddess spirituality. Utilizing a variety of methods, including ethnographic research conducted at Kali temples in California, this research is aimed at providing an entry into the lived contemporary tradition of the Western Kali within goddess spirituality circles, focusing on embodied experience, devotion, ritual, and syncretic practices. Kali, a fierce Indian goddess, is often seen in the Hindu context as a central manifestation of the all encompassing Mother Goddess (Mahadevi, Devi, Shakti, etc), and therefore is a particularly engaging example of contemporary Western appropriation of religious and cultural symbols and narratives. This thesis contributes to understanding Kali in her new North American domain, as well as serving as a case study of the shifting religious landscape in the West.

This thesis explores the cult and mythos of the goddess Kali both in her Eastern and Western contexts, comparing and contrasting them in order to gain a better understanding of the Western appropriations of Kali within feminist goddess spirituality. Utilizing a variety of methods, including ethnographic research conducted at Kali temples in California, this research is aimed at providing an entry into the lived contemporary tradition of the Western Kali within goddess spirituality circles, focusing on embodied experience, devotion, ritual, and syncretic practices. Kali, a fierce Indian goddess, is often seen in the Hindu context as a central manifestation of the all encompassing Mother Goddess (Mahadevi, Devi, Shakti, etc), and therefore is a particularly engaging example of contemporary Western appropriation of religious and cultural symbols and narratives. This thesis contributes to understanding Kali in her new North American domain, as well as serving as a case study of the shifting religious landscape in the West.

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