Bethlehem is a place constituted by the innumerable movements of its inhabitants and their activities over millennia and, because these lines of movement, the connections produced by them, and the meanings associated with Bethlehem have recently undergone rapid and radical change, some of its inhabitants have experienced a “displacement in situ” indicated, not least, by their narratives. This thesis considers Syriac Orthodox Christians' “self-articulations” in the context of upheaval, “articulation” being suggestive of both connection and narration. Focussing on narrative reveals the dialogic contingency of self-articulation, especially in the situation of uncertainty and change. Out of these narratives emerges a sense of “being Syrian” that resembles participation in a Syrian “body” which persists despite the violence to which it has been subject. This “corporeal” or even “orthodox” logic of connection and belonging is arguably made more likely by active participation in the Syriac Orthodox Qurbono (Eucharist), which is best thought of as a particularly attentive encounter: with present and absent others, who comprise the Syrian body through time; and with the God who animates it. Therefore, for some, this sense of belonging to a Syrian body is refracted through Christological and ecclesiological lenses. A conflict situation reveals that not all Syrians share the same logic of articulating themselves in Bethlehem, however: alongside the corporeal logic suggested by the Qurbono is a more “detached” logic reflective of liberal conceptions of personhood and authority, and “modern” conceptions of society-for-itself. Finally, this thesis proposes that an anthropological focus on the ways in which Christians imagine belonging to “the church”, local and universal, is fruitful for those researchers seeking to incorporate Christian categories into their representations of Christian lives.

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Thesis (Ph.D.)--York University, 2008. Graduate Programme in Sociology. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 261-281). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:NR39050

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Notre Dame, 2003. / Thesis directed by Harold W. Attridge and Mary Rose D'Angelo for the Department of Theology. "December 2003." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 284-301).

This edition and translation of some of the mystical discourse of the eighth-century Nestorian monk John of Dalyatha is an attempt to fill part of the gap that exists in our knowledge of Syrian Christian mysticism.

European modernist architectural design and urban planning for suburbs have often been theorized as dystopic creation myths. These narratives focus on the unfulfilled promises of activist designers to deliver equality, overscaled and generic neighborhoods, and contemporary social exclusion. Södertälje offers another view. This dissertation combines history, ethnography, and formal analysis to examine how architects, urban planners, and immigrant residents conflict and collaborate in the production of the city. The Swedish town of Södertälje serves as a lens through which to view these processes: it is both a nexus of high modernist spatial and social planning and the ostensible capital of the diasporic Syriac Christians, who now comprise approximately 26% of the local population. Postwar Swedish designers sought to reduce class differences through home standardization and a blurred public-private divide; this happened just as the country received numerous refugees, including Syriacs, who had left difficult conditions in Turkey, Syria, and Lebanon and quickly concentrated in Södertälje. There, they became active designers of a new urban landscape, first claiming welfare state public spaces but then slightly altering their uses. This suggests that “generic” modernist urbanism was more successful at accommodating difference than has typically been argued. More recently, Syriacs have built a state-of-the-art soccer stadium and colossal churches that – while sited in industrial zones in Södertälje – function as monuments and pilgrimage sites for the diaspora. In new, Syriac-dominated neighborhoods of custom-designed, single-family houses, Syriac participation has exceeded the “voice” that planners typically allocate to immigrants; their architectural displays of difference and affluent forms of segregation generate anxieties for planners trained in the welfare state’s traditions, which have long linked spatial uniformity to social equality. In aggregate, the Syriacs’ discrete projects have changed the way that the city functions, both in space and in the practices of the town’s expert designers, a development that I label “urban design from below.” This justifies a call for new orientations toward modernism, segregation, and participation in space making and suggests future trends for other European peripheries, where immigrants are also using and reconstructing postwar housing projects.

Thesis (M. Div.)--St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, Crestwood, NY, 2007. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 47-48).

Thesis (M. Div.)--St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, Crestwood, N.Y., 2003. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 62-65).

Thesis (M. Div.)--St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, 1974. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 143-148).

Thesis (M. Div.)--St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, Crestwood, NY, 2007. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 47-48).