On May 11, sixty-two graduates were honored at the GTU's 2017 Commencement Ceremony at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary's Chapel of the Cross in Berkeley, California. Graduates are listed below by degree and include their thesis title, area of study or school of affiliation, committee members, and thesis abstract; language specialization is noted for MABL graduates in lieu of thesis information.
On May 11, sixty-two graduates were honored at the GTU's 2017 Commencement Ceremony at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary's Chapel of the Cross in Berkeley, California. Graduates are listed below by degree and include their thesis title, area of study or school of affiliation, committee members, and thesis abstract; language specialization is noted for MABL graduates in lieu of thesis information.
Master of Arts
David Scott Anthony
The Jelling Stone and Our Lady of Guadalupe: Agents of Conversion in Denmark and Mexico
San Francisco Theological Seminary
Christopher Ocker, (Coordinator)
Eduardo C. Fernández, S.J.
Rossitza Schroeder
This thesis is a cross-cultural study of religious conversion in Scandinavia and Latin America. It focuses on mechanisms of conversion, such as mixed religion, personal or political conversion, and voluntary or forced conversion. Building on the concept of agency, Denmark’s Jelling Stone and Mexico’s Our Lady of Guadalupe are examined as cultural expressions and elements of religious conversion.
Mahjabeen Mohamedali Dhala
The Right to Choose Piety: Understanding Muslim Women’s God-centric Choice from a Shia Perspective
Center for Islamic Studies
WITH HONORS
Judith A. Berling
Changing times challenge existing norms. By highlighting gender-free realities from the Quran and presenting its central female figures, this thesis attempts to shatter cultural myths against women and offers a Shia theological perspective on Muslim women who argue their freedom and agency by choosing to practice piety and claiming their stake in the interpretation and application of sacred texts, while resisting Western constructs of the liberated woman.
Sandra Slemp Doley
The U.S. Lutheran-Roman Catholic Dialogue: An Examination of the Documents from 1965 to 2015
Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University
WITH HONORS
Alison Benders, (Coordinator)
Kyle Schiefelbein
William J. Dohar, Santa Clara University
This thesis explores the history of official Lutheran-Roman Catholic theological dialogue in the U.S. through a close examination of the official dialogue texts. The first three chapters summarize main themes and ideas. The final chapter explores why these conversations have yet to result in intercommunion and how to move forward.
Lora East
Who Is My Neighbor? Foundations for a Curriculum on the Interfaith Movement for Christians
San Francisco Theological Seminary
Christopher Ocker (Coordinator)
Carol R. Jacobson
This project is the foundation for a curriculum intended for a Christian audience that prepares them for interfaith encounters. It gives the history of the interfaith movement, Christian theological perspectives on the religious “other,” brings to light the privilege held by Christians in the U.S., and establishes the pedagogical foundation necessary to educate Christians on the interfaith movement.
Daigan Vincent Gaither
Healing in Oppression: Contributions from Buddhist Teachings and Communities
Institute of Buddhist Studies
Daijaku Judith Kinst (Coordinator)
Scott A. Mitchell
Drawing on the theories of healing developed by Dr. Paula Arai, this thesis investigates the capacity of community to contribute to healing practice in oppression. Using the history and structure of East Bay Meditation Center as an example for a healing community, the research extrapolates how chaplains and other caregivers can use this method to create healing practices in oppression.
Meg Doshin Gawler
Voices of Early Buddhist Nuns: A Dharmalogical Approach to the ‘Therīgāthā’
Institute of Buddhist Studies
Richard K. Payne (Coordinator)
Gil Fronsdal
Jan Nattier, University of California, Berkeley
The Therīgāthā is a celebration, with many different human faces, of women’s personal experiences of awakening. This thesis examines the Therīgāthā from a dharmalogical perspective, analyzing the Pāli text to investigate these early female voices transmitting the Buddha’s teachings. It explores a central message of the Therīgāthā that Nibbāna, complete release, is possible for sincere practitioners, whether gifted or not.
Zelig Golden
Earth Based Judaism: Early Origins, Polemics, and a New Vision
Center for Jewish Studies
Deena Aranoff (Coordinator)
Naomi Sheindel Seidman
Judaism is an ancient earth-based tradition. This work argues for a universal Jewish return to nature through an examination of Ancient Israel’s polytheism to establish Judaism’s earth-based origins. Biblical polemics against polytheism and rabbinic polemics through the prohibition against Avodah Zarah, ‘strange worship,’ are explored as forces disconnecting Judaism from its early folk roots. Finally, Jewish texts, Hebrew calendar, and Jewish practices provide evidence of earth-based Jewish traditions that can be reclaimed today.
Genevieve Greinetz
In Letters: Tracing Imagination in Gershom Scholem’s Mystical Letter Language
Center for Jewish Studies
Deena Aranoff, (Coordinator)
Naomi Sheindel Seidman
This thesis examines Gershom Scholem’s notion of the Hebrew language, particularly the dangerous potential of its Zionist revival. Through a close reading of his letter on the subject addressed to Franz Rosenzweig, this thesis contends that Scholem’s letter contains the seeds of the kabbalistic theory of language that he publishes forty-six years later.
Lea Heitfeld
How We Keep the Engagement Alive: Holocaust Education in Germany
Center for Jewish Studies
Naomi Sheindel Seidman (Coordinator)
Deena Aranoff
Drawing on the field of memory studies, this thesis analyzes different German history textbooks in order to identify how the Holocaust has been taught since World War II. Ultimately, it proposes that incorporating memory theory into German Holocaust education will encourage students to secure, shape, and monitor the ways the Holocaust is commemorated in Germany today.
Jamie Brett Kimmel
Buddhist Hospital Chaplaincy at the End of Life: U.S. Healthcare and the Challenge of Interdependence
Institute for Buddhist Studies
Daijaku Judith Kinst (Coordinator)
Scott A. Mitchell
Focusing on end-of-life care and decisions, this thesis argues that the interdependent nature of the U.S. healthcare system structures how persons and families face death. In order to provide meaningful spiritual care in relationship, a Buddhist chaplain must see interdependence and its consequences as facts that structure the clinical encounter itself.
May T. Kosba
From Ikhwanophobia to Islamophobia: Post-Colonial Cultural Nationalism in Post-Revolutionary Egypt
Center for Islamic Studies
Marianne Farina, C.S.C.
Since the January 25, 2011 revolution in Egypt, a fear of the Muslim Brotherhood (al-Ikhwan) has emerged. This fear has been generated by the government and its allies in the media and religious institutions, and has taken on Islamophobic language, policies and actions familiar to the West. This thesis examines narratives of Islamophobia in the form of a widespread Ikhwanophobia, which has replaced the spirit for democratic reform with a hegemonic cultural nationalism. This development occurs more deeply and vastly as post-colonial societies internalize Western Orientalism and Islamophobia.
Reem T. Kosba
Contemporary Christian-Muslim Relations in Egypt: Secularism, Violence, and the Challenges of Conflict Resolution
Center for Islamic Studies
Som Pourfarzaneh, (Coordinator)
Marianne Farina, C.S.C.
This thesis explores current Christian-Muslim relations in Egypt and the state’s apathy toward the rapid rise of sectarianism in the past decades and after the revolution of January 25, 2011. The state’s policies towards Christian-Muslim conflict are ultimately characterized as divisive and inflammatory. As this study suggests, Muslims worldwide and Egypt, in particular, can rely on the Qur’an and the Hadith for guidance in matters that pertain to human rights, religious equality, and freedom. This thesis proposes an Islamic religious peacemaking as a way to resolve conflicts at the grassroots level.
Jennifer Ayn Lehmann
Second Sons and Mamas’ Boys: Masculinity in the Jacob Story
Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology
Barbara Green, O.P. (Coordinator)
Naomi Sheindel Seidman
Katy Valentine
By comparing the portrayal of Jacob’s masculinity to that of his brother, his sons, and his God, this thesis examines the role that masculinity plays in the narrative of Jacob's life. It concludes that Jacob’s masculinity is consistently portrayed as subordinate, which serves to characterize Jacob as an underdog and to highlight God’s power.
Nicole M. MacArgel
The Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition: A Contemporary Organization for Transmitting the Dharma
Institute of Buddhist Studies
Richard K. Payne (Coordinator)
Scott A. Mitchell
This thesis explores the ways in which the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT) has developed into an international organization with 180 teachers supporting 120 affiliate centers and services. Each center shares the mission to transmit the Mahayana Buddhist Tradition as taught by the Tibetan master, Tsongkhapa (1357-1419), who is considered the founder of the Gelug School of Buddhism.
Rizwan Mawani
Tradition as Rupture: Caste, Community and the Colonial Courts – Forging Religious Identity in the 1866 Khoja Case
Center for Islamic Studies
Judith A. Berling
The Khojas were described by various 19th century commentators as Hindu, Muslim, Sunni and Shi’a. In 1866, a single court case, published serially in the English language newspapers of Bombay, imprinted upon them a singular identity. This thesis explores the ways in which their tradition was debated and contested under the watchful eye of the British Indian colonial court.
Joseph D. Merlino
The Pastoral Perspective in Business: A Practical Theological Approach to Executive, Business, and Organizational Development
Church Divinity School of the Pacific
Susanna Singer (Coordinator)
Herbert Anderson
This thesis is a practical theological resource for Christian business professionals who wish to integrate the religious and secular realms of their lives in ways that increase their understanding and practice of Christian discipleship in the workplace. It does so by exploring the shared perspectives and practices found in the pastoral theological perspective of shepherding and the secular model of servant-leadership, thereby creating a seamless model from which they can meet their commitments as religious and professional people.
Dawn Patricia Neal
Discord and its Alternatives in the Aṭṭhakavagga of the Pāli Canon
Institute for Buddhist Studies
Richard K. Payne (Coordinator)
Gil Fronsdal
Jan Nattier, University of California, Berkeley
This thesis examines the early Buddhist teachings on social conflict and its underlying causes. It compares some early scriptures, the Aṭṭhakavagga, with similar Buddhist discourses addressing conflict, and demonstrates contact between them. It also demonstrates that Buddhist teachings have applied to social and interpersonal concerns since ancient times, and posits that they can be usefully applied to such concerns today.
Kelsey Jacob Pratt Pacha
Beloved Communities: Spiritual and Religious Issues in LGBT Community Centers
Pacific School of Religion
Jay Emerson Johnson (Coordinator)
Justin E. Tanis
This project explores spiritual and religious engagement at lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community centers through reviewing literature on religion, spirituality, and LGBT mental health, a content analysis of 180 LGBT center websites, and a case study of an LGBT center with a built-in spirituality program. Best practices and a working definition of religious and spiritual competency for clinicians in this context are offered to support healing.
Ron Riekki
Gender, Place, and Race/Indigeneity in Upper Peninsula Film, Literature, and Culture
Graduate Theological Union
Arthur G. Holder (Coordinator)
Naomi Sheindel Seidman
Gordon Henry, Michigan State University
This thesis aims to redefine the Upper Peninsula (U.P.) so its actual history can be preserved in the face of the threat of indigenous extinction. The beginning of Michigan film, American documentary, and Native American literary writing all start in the U.P. This thesis explores critical aboriginal roots of seminal author Bamewawagezhikaquay and her intercontinental reindeer clan connection to the Saami.
Rachel Lopez Rosenberg
A Lighthouse in the Fog: Jewish Mourning and Poetic Inventions
Center for Jewish Studies
WITH HONORS
Naomi Sheindel Seidman (Coordinator)
Gina Hens-Piazza
The thesis investigates the wisdom behind the laws of mourning which create the basic structure of Jewish society. The social contributions of Jewish mourning reveal the importance of form, social belonging and public identity during times of grief. These contributions are applied to the literary and pastoral considerations of using poetry in a memorial setting such as the Yizkor service.
Carrie Ann Sealine
Making Maccabees into Jews, Making Jews into Maccabees: Reading Jewish Identity through Extra-Canonical Text
Center for Jewish Studies
Deena Aranoff, (Coordinator)
Naomi Sheindel Seidman
This thesis uncovers the use of 1 and 2 Maccabees in the creation of Jewish identity in Hellenistic, rabbinic, medieval, and modern periods. In spite of rejection from the Jewish canon and reception into the Christian Bible, many cultural constructs of 1 and 2 Maccabees endure in the production of European, Israeli, and American Jewish identities.
Rabail Rania Shah
Al-Ghazālī on Reason and Revelation: A Revival in the Heart of the Islamic Scholarly Tradition
Center for Islamic Studies
WITH HONORS
Marianne Farina, C.S.C.
A central debate contested in the Islamic scholarly tradition is the use of the two forms of knowledge available to humanity: reason and revelation. This debate became the intellectual and spiritual pursuit of Abu Hamid al-Ghazālī (1058-1111), one of Islam’s most celebrated scholars. This thesis examines al-Ghazālī’s mission to revive the religious sciences through an integration of reason and revelation.
Saad Shaukat
Shibli Nomani’s Contribution to Kalam
Center for Islamic Studies
Som Pourfarzaneh, (Coordinator)
Marianne Farina, C.S.C.
Asad Q. Ahmed, University of California, Berkeley
Shibli Nomani presents a novel historical narrative for the development of the kalam tradition, which creates space for the study of Greek philosophy along with kalam and supports a highly rational approach to the study of this discipline. He proposes kalam-e-jadeed, a new kalam, which utilizes this understanding of the history of kalam to formulate a rational response, without discarding the validity of tradition, to the challenges faced by Islam due to the onslaught of modern ideas.
Sterling Austin Spence
The Liberation Nonprofit
Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University
WITH HONORS
William O’Neill (Coordinator)
Eduardo C. Fernandez, S.J.
This thesis describes a Christian theological responsibility to address injustice, works with sociology to identify the faith-based nonprofit sphere as a powerful location of liberation, and finishes by building a definition of “liberation nonprofits ethics.” It is a hopeful search to discover how nonprofits can live up to the Christian vision of a more loving, just, and peaceful world.
Wan-Ting Tsai
Screenwriting Methods and Preaching: Toward a Taiwanese Christian Homiletic
Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary
Shauna K. Hannan (Coordinator)
Sangyil Sam Park
Harry Cronin, C.S.C.
This thesis demonstrates that the methods employed in screenwriting and film narration can contribute to the craft of preaching in the Taiwanese Christian context. The study of screenwriting uncovers the methods employed in film narration that can positively impact the craft of preaching.
Tipisone Siatufu'a Tuiolemotu, Jr.
Out of the Shadows of Empire: A Postcolonial Reading of Isaiah 55:1-5
Pacific School of Religion
Aaron Brody (Coordinator)
Julián A. González Holguín
Isaiah 55:1-5 is examined from a perspective that incorporates a postcolonial reading. By identifying the rhetoric and context within the text, this study highlights an anti-imperial perspective promoted by the author. Therefore arguing that Isaiah 55:1-5 is significant not solely as a call of hope, but also as an anti-imperial message for Israel to denounce foreign colonial powers.
Brandon James Vaca
Currents of Participation and Centralization in the U.S. Catholic Church and Schools: Teachers’ Unions, Lay Participation, and the 2015 Contract and Handbook Disputes in the Archdiocese of San Francisco
Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University
WITH HONORS
Jerome P. Baggett (Coordinator)
Lisa Fullam
Historical trends influence the birth and continuing experience of Catholic teachers’ unions in the U.S. Like post-Vatican II lay participation in the U.S. Catholic Church, the energetic beginnings of Catholic teachers’ unions yielded few institutionalized changes. The 2015 disputes demonstrate the interests of different parties, how unions accumulate power, and the lessons unions offer lay Catholics seeking greater forms of ecclesial participation.
Master of Arts with a Concentration in Biblical Languages
Ivana Rahel Müllner
Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University
Jean-François Racine (Coordinator)
Eugene Eung-Chun Park
Biblical Hebrew (Primary)
Biblical Greek (Secondary)
German (Modern Language)
Lucia Gabrielle Tosatto
Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University
John C. Endres, S.J. (Coordinator)
Barbara Green, O.P.
Biblical Hebrew (Primary)
Biblical Greek (Secondary)
Italian (Modern Language)
Doctor of Philosophy
Abdel Ali
The “Negro” in Afro-Arabian Muslim Consciousness
Cultural and Historical Studies of Religions
Judith A. Berling
Hatem Bazian, University of California, Berkeley
This dissertation offers an explanation of why indigenous black Africans were not alienated from Islam despite the existence of alleged prophetic traditions and legal teachings in the Maliki School of Law, which disparage and discriminate against black Africans. It asserts that while color-based prejudice is fairly recent in human history, black antipathy, on the other hand, is a perennial phenomenon.
Beth R. Anderson
Exploring Teaching and Learning in Christian Spirituality: Narratives from a Highlander-Inspired Course
Christian Spirituality
Arthur G. Holder (Coordinator)
Barbara Green, O.P.
Lisa E. Dahill, California Lutheran University
Seminary-level educators are called to prepare diverse student populations to lead evolving faith communities. This study draws on methodologies developed by the Highlander Research and Education Center to design a seminary course in Christian spirituality. Narrative inquiry guides the overall construction of the dissertation, which closes with a call for increased attention to the scholarship of teaching and learning.
Ali J. Ataie
Authenticating the Johannine Injil: Sunnite “Polemirenic” Interpretive Methodological Approaches to the Gospel of John
Cultural and Historical Studies of Religions
Marianne Farina, C.S.C.
Hatem Bazian, University of California, Berkeley
The primary method of this dissertation is a faith-based hermeneutic of the Gospel of John in which the entire text is authenticated as being the true Gospel of Jesus Christ mentioned in the Qur’an. The text of John is interpreted through the “theo-mystical” lens of Sunnite Muslim scholars such as al-Junayd, al-Ghazali, and Ibn Arabi.
Carl Frederic Bear
Funeral Practices in Late Fourth-Century Antioch
Liturgical Studies
Lizette Larson-Miller (Coordinator)
Paul Janowiak, S.J.
Jaclyn Maxwell, Ohio University
Ordinary Christians and church leaders in late fourth-century Antioch had different ideas about how to Christianize their funerals. In the case of mourning and other contested practices, ordinary Christians were caring for their dead in culturally prescribed ways. Church leaders condemned these practices as displaying lack of faith in the resurrection and desired funeral practices that were more distinctly Christian.
Nathan Wilson Bjorge
Liberation Theurgy: Towards a Critical Theory of Insurgent Hermeticism
Systematic and Philosophical Theology
Jay Emerson Johnson (Coordinator)
James Lawrence
Gordan Djurdjevic, University of British Columbia
Using Marxist critical theory, “Liberation Theurgy” hermeneutically revaluates the Western magical tradition through a reading of Iamblichus, Aleister Crowley, and related sources. By critiquing the Neoplatonic basis of ancient theurgy in favor of a modern pragmatic methodology of magical practice, an innovative dialectical materialist theory of Magick is advanced, situated in resistance to the cultural alienation of globalized capitalism.
Matthew A. Boswell
The Way to Love through Hope: A Virtue-Based Model of Spiritual Growth for Christian Spiritual Formation
Christian Spirituality
Arthur G. Holder (Coordinator)
Lisa Fullam
Judith A. Berling
Vicki Zakrzewski, University of California, Berkeley
This dissertation presents an improvement upon common American mainline and evangelical conceptions of Christian spiritual formation by using the resources of virtue ethics and positive psychology. The study constructs a model of Christian spiritual development whose goal of love is realized through the increasing presence in the individual Christian virtues of gratitude, self-care, justice, kindness, and hope.
Mary Wong Cheng
Communal Hymn-Singing in Early British Methodism: A Bio-psycho-social Query into its Transformative Effects
Christian Spirituality
William Short, O.F.M. (Coordinator)
Mary McGann, R.S.C.J.
Mark Graves, Fuller Theological Seminary
Randy Maddox, Duke University
This interdisciplinary project investigates how hymns and hymn-singing catalyzes and sustains spiritual transformation in eighteenth-century British Methodism. Methodists were a “singing people” while also a community within which many members experienced conversion. This correlation is not accidental. Using current emotion theories along with neuroscientific and psychological studies of empathy, memory and entrainment, this study illuminates why communal song has such transformative and vitalizing effects.
Luke Devine, O.S.B.
Fritz Eichenberg: A Case Study in the Relationship between Creativity and Spirituality
Christian Spirituality
Arthur G. Holder (Coordinator)
Eduardo C. Fernández, S.J.
Jane Piirto, Ashland University
As a study in the relationship between creativity and spirituality, this dissertation explores Fritz Eichenberg’s voluntary artistic contributions to The Catholic Worker. Eichenberg’s major incentive for working in this medium lies in how it provided a milieu wherein he could develop his artistic persona of the “artist on the witness stand,” i.e. an observer testifying against social injustices.
Christina M. Fetherolf
Lamenting Abuse: Reading Psalm 22 as a Response to Intimate Partner Abuse
Biblical Studies
John C. Endres, S.J. (Coordinator)
LeAnn Snow Flesher
Sharon G. Thornton, Andover Newton Theological School
Psalm 22 has the potential to facilitate healing from intimate partner abuse. Embedded within the biblical lament form is a process similar to the healing process outlined by trauma studies. The divine address is a means of establishing safety; complaint and petition tell the story and mourn what is lost; and the (vow to) praise illustrates the reintegration into society.
Robert Galoob
Post Hoc Propter Hoc: Revisiting Martyrdom’s Impact on the Development of Hasidut Ashkenaz
Cultural and Historical Studies of Religion
Deena Aranoff (Coordinator)
Naomi Sheindel Seidman
Daniel Joslyn-Siemiatkoski, Seminary of the Southwest
Joshua David Holo, Hebrew Union College
This dissertation reevaluates the impact that Jewish martyrdom in 1096 had on the development of German Pietism, which evolved in the last quarter of the twelfth century. Through a close reading of the Crusade Chronicles and Sefer Hasidim, it establishes that martyrdom and German Pietism are closely related phenomena, which should be viewed as integral parts of inchoate medieval Ashkenazic thought.
Veronica Revette Goines
Sacred Voice and Unholy Silence: African American Women, Voice and Preaching--Constructing a Womanist Homiletic--a Practical Theological Perspective
Interdisciplinary Studies
Jana L. Childers (Coordinator)
Herbert Anderson
Katie G. Cannon, Union Presbyterian Seminary
This study discloses how the ecclesiastical silencing of African American women has shaped the hermeneutical lens, theological content, and homiletic structure of African American women’s preaching. Besides naming the dominant and oppressive social and ecclesiastical structures and practices that adversely impact black women and the church, this study contributes to a model for an inclusive homiletic that has broader relevance.
Moatemsu Imchen
Tensions, Interactions and Power Negotiations between “Tribes” and “States” in Monarchic Israel: Toward a New Understanding Based on Case Studies from Middle Bronze Age Mari and Iron Age Moab
Biblical Studies
Aaron Brody (Coordinator)
John C. Endres, S.J.
Benjamin W. Porter, University of California, Berkeley
This dissertation analyzes the interactions and power negotiations between “Tribes” and “States” with the emergence of a more centralized political and social structure in Iron Age Southern Levant. It advances the argument that the emergence of a centralized state led to a diminished role for kinship under central political control and a concomitant greater complexity of social organization.
Dae Kyung Jung
Semantic Divine Action and the Origin of Life: The Emergence of Autonomy, the Space of Meaning, and Relationship
Systematic and Philosophical Theology
Gregory Anderson Love (Coordinator)
Ted F. Peters
Robert J. Russell
Kim Yooshin, Pusan National University
This project deals with a relevant understanding of divine action, which might have been effective in relation to the origin of life. The project not only proposes to engage the scientific theory in a dialogue with a theological understanding with regard to divine action in the world, but it also strives to reconstruct the theological doctrine in light of our contemporary scientific knowledge.
Amanda J. Kaminski
The Grammar of Christian Witness: Hermeneutics of Testimony in the Texts of Five Nineteenth-Century Evangelical Women
Christian Spirituality
Arthur G. Holder (Coordinator)
Sandra M. Schneiders
Julia D.E. Prinz
Tom Schwanda, Wheaton College
Bolstered by personal experiences with God in the context of nineteenth-century evangelicalism, Dorothy Ripley, Jarena Lee, Phoebe Palmer, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper carried out remarkable religious careers in the public sphere. Framing their storytelling, theological interpretations, and social action as faithful fulfillment of the Spirit’s leading, these women transgressed the conventions of “true womanhood” as taught by the cult of domesticity. Using the grammar of Christian witness, they constructed saving narratives in liminal literary space to prophetically irrupt into religious, cultural, and gender norms with a proclamation of faith that carried symbolic critical force.
Hyeokil Kwon
Poetic and Prophetic Life in a Time of the Hidden God: A Comparative Study of Thomas Merton’s and Yun Dong-Ju’s Spiritualities
Christian Spirituality
Arthur G. Holder (Coordinator)
Bruce H. Lescher
Eung-gyo Kim, Sook-myung Women’s University
An authentic Christian life in a time of the hidden God requires a poetic and prophetic spirituality that contemplates God and the self in one’s everyday reality and seeks a fundamental inner transformation of people and their society in the hope for a new epoch. This is a life radically devoted to discipleship in imitation of Christ.
Elekosi F. Lafitaga
Apocalyptic, Here and Now: The Book of Dreams (1En 83-90) and the Rhetoric of Apocalyptic Discourse in the Gospel of Matthew
Biblical Studies
Eugene Eung-Chun Park (Coordinator)
LeAnn Snow Flesher
Daniel Boyarin, University of California, Berkeley
This dissertation is a study on the Gospel of Matthew and “apocalyptic.” It integrates a nuanced definition of apocalyptic with conceptual metaphor theory and socio-rhetorical analysis of Early Christian texts to read Matthew’s apocalyptic discourses involving eschatological topoi of judgment. It focuses upon cultural and historical intertextures of metaphor and apocalyptic discourse.
Kyoung Hee Lee
2 Samuel 11-12, Luke 24, and Biblical Spirituality: The Role of Narrative in Challenging Sacrificial Substitution and A New Perspective of Rene Girard
Christian Spirituality
Barbara Green, O.P. (Coordinator)
Naomi Sheindel Seidma