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Resources for Graduate Students

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Irem Koca

Why did Turks join ISIS? Identifying the motivations of Turkish jihadists

The purpose of this study is to analyse the profiles of Turkish foreign fighters affiliated with ISIS in order to inspire and lay the groundwork for further research specific to Turkish cases. Data is derived from open sources such as news articles in Turkish and English, interviews with individuals with Turkish jihadists and their family members, statements compiled from police records, Turkish government officialsā€™ remarks, and scholarly sources. This study contributes to existing research focusing on the political, sociological and psychological motivations of the Turkish FTFs, but distinguishes itself by emphasising the impact of religiosity, as well as the nexus between religion and politics in Turkey as a motivating factor in religious radicalisation.

Arjun Arulampalam

GOD IN GOD OUT: PANENTHEISM IN ATHANASIUS OF ALEXANDRIA'S "ON THE INCARNATION" 

A well-known figure in Church history is the fourth century Alexandrian bishop whose name has been associated with the Nicene Creed and the set standard of orthodox teaching in Christianity. His well-known defense of the creed and his support for Trinitarian Christianity is well documented both in his own writings and in modern scholarship. The purpose of this paper is to identify the ways that Panentheism can be found in the description of the Word of God/Logos in his early writing, ā€œOn the Incarnationā€ (De Incarnatione). By understanding the context of Alexandria, the historical Athanasius, and the ideas developed in regard to the Logos, this paper will attempt to expound on the history of panentheistic ideas that influenced De Incarnatione.

 

Tarryn Andrews

Greek Tholoi of the Classical and Hellenistic Periods: An Examination

This research will examine commonalities and contrasts between ancient Greek, Roman and early Christian traditions. This examination will focus on the practices of water rites as well as feasting and fasting as a means of determining affinity or influence based on principles laid out by J. Z. Smith. A position for either side of the argument is not the focus of this research, rather it is the goal to elucidate these potential occurrences and why they may be considered instances of influence or affinity. This analysis will further highlight examples of previous scholarship to demonstrate where current and past scholarship, on the topic of the Greco-Roman impact on early Christianity, has succeeded or fallen short.

Muhammad Ashraf Thachara Padikkal

Mobile Islam in the Arab-South Asian regions of Western Indian Ocean: diaspora, commerce, and transregional religious circulations

This MRE studies the role of trade and economic imperatives in the formation and continuation of Islamic religious circulation in the Arab-South Asian regions of the western Indian Ocean world. In doing so, this study has explored the long-standing Indian Ocean interconnections ranging from the medieval maritime trade of Arabs to the modern-day labor migration of South Asians to the Gulf. Scholars have already noted that the trade as well as its economic imperatives co-produced the medieval religious networks. This study further suggests that the new economic migration or labour migration (from South Asia to the Gulf) now largely sustains and further extends the scope of earlier religious networks and its religious circulations such as that of Hadrami Arab diaspora into the South Asian shores. Thus, the essay presents earlier religious circulations as part, and an extension, of a broader religious circularity fueled by economic imperatives, which further shapes the changing contours of Islamic tradition as it adapts, negotiates, contests and resists in differing occasions. Furthermore, this essay views religious circulations as a historical agent in shaping and reshaping Islamic tradition.

Laura Rosada Bevilacqua

The Notion of utilitas in Roman Religion

In this research, I analyze the notion of utilitas in Roman culture. The primary question is about whether it is possible to attribute a religious nuance to the term utilitas. I suggest that that the concept of utilitas seems to establish determined social and religious expectations. Although this paper only represents the starting point to develop further research, I conclude that utilitas does not indicate an emotional state or a belief, but a category of the Roman public thought, which helps in knowing what would the right thing to do to the benefit of the state. The term utilitas does not only convey the idea of advantage but also indicates appropriateness.

Hasan Doagoo

Post-Reformation Protestant perception of Islam and Muslim sects: A study of Oratio Persica De Differentia Religions Turcicae & Persicae in context.

The ways in which the West understood Islam and Muslims play an important role in terms of analyzing the history of encounters between the East and the West generally, as well as Muslims and Christians specifically. While a large body of scholarship has been produced on the perception of Islam and Muslims in the Modern and Pre-Reformation periods, there are relatively fewer works written on the same topic about the Reformation and Post-Reformation eras.
Therefore, this work aims to make its contribution considering its limited scope by analyzing the ways in which Post-Reformation Protestant theologians understood Islam and Muslim sects. In doing so, Oratio Persica De Differentia Religionis Turcicae & Persicae, an unstudied Latin/Persian work by the German Protestant theologian Sebastian Kirchmaier (1641 1700), would be the focus of study. While Oratio Persica explains the roots of the Sunni (represented by Turks) and Shiā€™a (represented by Perians) divided from Kirchmaierā€™s perspective, it also colorfully manifests his perception of Islam, Muslims, and their beliefs and practices. In addition to Oratio Persica, several other Post-Reformation primary sources are examined as well in order to provide the reader with a clearer and more inclusive picture of the perception of Islam in the Post-Reformation period. Adding an early Reformation work to this project also paved the way for investigating the ways in which the Post-Reformation image of Islam differs from its early Reformation origins.
All in all, this study argues that, although with some differences, the Pre-Reformation Christian bias in terms of understanding Islam continued to form Westā€™s perception of Islam during both the Reformation and Post-Reformation periods. It also demonstrates that the treatment of Islam or Muslims in Post-Reformation scholarship was through a Christian lens and primarily, in many cases, for the internal usage of the Western Protestant community. For instance, bolding Sunni-Shiā€™s divide to downplay the internal conflict among Christian denominations, or refuting Catholicism by likening it to Islam as a confirmed heresy.

Kacey Dool

Painting You, Painting Me: Viewing the ā€˜Otherā€™ through gendered-violence against Indigenous women and girls in Kent Monkmanā€™s ā€œShame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilienceā€

This paper presents a critical analysis of the ā€˜Otherā€™ as a mechanism of hegemonic Eurocentric colonialism. ā€˜Otheringā€™ as a methodological lens allows for consideration of the complexities of identity politics, in an interdisciplinary manner. Through this interdisciplinary approach, a re-telling and re-consideration of the position of Indigenous Peoples in Canada is possible, engaging in a process of decolonization through ā€˜resurgent recognitionā€™. The disproportionate gendered-violence perpetrated against Indigenous women and girls in the Canadian context acts as an example of the extent to which the prescription of the ā€˜Othernessā€™ distorts power relations: not only does the ā€˜colonial imaginationā€™ situate the West and European settlement as ā€˜civilizedā€™, and the Indigenous as ā€˜savageā€™, but it also inscribes a heteropatriarichal hierarchy. Through the representational art of Kent Monkman, ā€˜resurgent recognitionā€™ provides public audiences, Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike, with the opportunity to reflect and reconsider the past 150 years of colonialism in Canada.

Emma Funnell-Kononuk

Secular Spirituality: The Relationship Between Emerging Adultsā€™ Positive Development and Connection, Community, and Contribution

Emerging adults, generally taken to be 18-29 year olds, are no longer adolescents but not entirely adults (Arnett 2015). This age group spends more of their leisure time alone in comparison to any other age group under 40 (Arnett 2000, 474) and as a result are at greater risk than other groups for loneliness and the problems that come alongside it. Millennial emerging adults are also the cohort most likely to identify as religious ā€œnonesā€ or ā€œspiritual but not religiousā€ (Thiessen and Wilkins-Laflamme 2017; Beaman and Beyer 2013, 129). This paper explores these two phenomena in the Western world ā€“ emerging adultsā€™ increasing loneliness and decreasing religiosity ā€“ and establishes a connection between the two. It then synthesizes theories of spirituality and youth development from the fields of education as well as health sciences, reconciling these with theories of spirituality from the field of religious studies to further develop the term ā€œsecular spirituality.ā€ It concludes by reflecting on how feelings of connection and community associated with secular spiritual experiences might buffer against loneliness, and calling for empirical studies to test this hypothesized health-protective effect.

Emma Lockhart

Right Click or Ritual?: The Role and Function of Snapchat in the Lives of Canadian Adolescents.

Summary of Area of Investigation

My MRE will be an investigation of primary data gathered last spring by a research team led by Dr. Valerie Michaelson and Dr. Valerie Steeves. I am planning to use a specific segment of this data relating to Snapchat and Snapchat streaks. I will investigate how young people are using Snapchat and what kind of role it plays in their lives. Is there a religious or spiritual component to social media as a whole? Are communication apps like Snapchat filling a role that religion sometimes plays in a young personā€™s life, such as addressing our need for connection and meaning? Is the act of keeping Snapchat streaks a way of making meaning? My research will seek to understand if, and if so, how, Snapchat use can function as a ritual in the lives of adolescents.
I will also seek the guidance of Dr. Sharday Mosurinjohn and examine Snapchat as a potential New Religious Movement. Dr. Mosurinjohn has done work on the organization ME to WE as a ā€œnew secular spiritual movementā€ (Mosurinjohn & Funnell-Kononuk, 2017). I will explore whether or not Snapchat maps onto the framework of a new way of expressing religion.

 Kevin Oā€™Rourke McColl

THE DESTINATION OF ROMANS 16: A NETWORK PERSPECTIVE

The intended location of Romans 16 has long been contentious due to varying extant manuscripts that do not contain this chapter, and because in spite of never having visited Rome, Paul is very familiar with Christ-followers assumed to be located there. Rome and Ephesus are the main locations that have been suggested, with proponents of Ephesus arguing that this chapter was part of another letter. This paper examines the problem of the intended location of Romans using a social network theory approach. Using the names found in Romans 16, several network models are created to represent Paulā€™s potential connections to the individuals mentioned in this chapter. These network models, along with textual and historical evidence, indicate that Romans 16 was more likely intended for Christ-followers in Ephesus, and suggests this chapter was a later insertion to the text of Romans.
Keywords: Paul, Romans 16, Ephesus, social network theory, networks

Casey Stiemer

The (Dis)Enchantment of Death

Historically, religious traditions have played a major role in shaping the way we conceptualize the meaning of death. Against the backdrop of loss and meaninglessness that death often entails, religion acts as a beacon of hope that is often characterized in the West as a belief in the afterlife or some mysterious form of spiritual redemption. But what becomes of these religious conceptualizations of death in the age of secularization? Is it still possible to maintain an authentic desire to transcend death, to find spiritual meaning in material loss, when faced with the modern pressures of secularity and disenchantment? By drawing on Charles Taylorā€™s understanding of secularity, in conjunction with the findings of existential philosophy and psychoanalytic theory, I suggest that traditionally defined secular mechanisms, such as science and medicine, can be interpreted as ā€œreligious agents,ā€ that act to mitigate the fear of death. Most significantly, I argue that the modern preference to rely on these secular mechanisms highlights the fact that as much as we ā€œmodernsā€ like to perceive ourselves as removed from our religious past, our responses to death remain rooted in a religious rhetoric that has been strategically repackaged in secular terms.

Lauren Strumos

Indigenous Sacred Sites and Religious Freedom in Canadian Law:  An Analysis of the Ktunaxa Nation Case

This paper analyzes the majority decision of the Supreme Court of Canada case, Ktunaxa Nation v. British Columbia, in which the Ktunaxa, an Indigenous nation, sought protection of their sacred site from permanent development using s. 2(a) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Ktunaxa claimed that the construction of a proposed ski resort on their sacred site, a valley named Qatā€™muk, would infringe upon their freedom of religion. Specifically, it would sever a connection between Qatā€™muk and the Grizzly Bear Spirit, whose presence at Qatā€™muk is essential for Ktunaxa beliefs and practices. The majority opinion in the Supreme Court case concluded that the ski resort would not prevent the Ktunaxa from believing in the Grizzly Bear Spirit nor manifesting this belief. As a result, its development would not infringe upon the Ktunaxaā€™s religious freedom.
I argue that this decision developed from a narrow interpretation of religious freedom on behalf of the majority opinion, which valued a conception of religious freedom that is grounded in individual belief over Indigenous attachments to land. A precedent was consequently set that makes it unlikely Indigenous peoples will obtain protection of their sacred sites using s. 2(a) of the Charter in the future. To construct this two-fold argument, I first examine sacred sites in Indigenous spirituality, followed by a presentation of belief-based understandings of religious freedom in Canadian law. I then analyze the decision-making of the Justices in regard to the Ktunaxaā€™s religious freedom claim. To conclude, I explain the significance of the case for Canada in the context of reconciliation between Indigenous peoples and the state, as well as the Courtā€™s upholding of freedom and democracy as enshrined in the Charter.