Past Honors Theses
| Year | Student Name | Thesis Title | Advisor(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Drew Whitley | Last Words Speeches in the Hebrew Bible and Early Jewish Literature | Professor Susan Ackerman |
| 2023 | Caris White | Constructing and Contesting Legacies: Religion and the Gendered History of Abstract Art | Professor Devin Singh |
| 2023 | Seth Weprin | By bumper stickers and T-shirts : A re-examination of American spiritual expression in the 'New Age' | Professor Shaul Magid |
| 2022 | Rachel T. Gambee | "Humanae Vitae Revisited": Contraception, Ecclesiastical Authority and the Church's Reckoning with the Modern World | Professor Timothy Baker |
| 2022 | Max A. Pumilia | Navigating Errancy: Ismaili Perspectives on Dhimmis from the Fatimid Revolution to the Fall of Alamut | Professor Christopher MacEvitt |
| 2022 | Evan B. Schafer | Woe to You, Jerusalem: The Transmission and Reinterpretation of the Fil Agap Prophecy | Profesor Christopher MacEvitt |
| 2020 | Tina Xinran Li | Religion and Spirituality in 21st Century America: A Social Economic Analysis of Shifting Affiliations | Professor Jeremy Sabella |
| 2018 | Kourtney Kawano | Creating Worlds and Shaping Hawaiian Identity in Early and Contemporary Makahiki Rituals | Professor A. Kevin Reinhart |
| 2017 | Eliza H. Rockefeller | Enlightenment in a Female Body: The Creation of the Togdenma Lineage of Tibetan Buddhist Yoginis | Professor Reiko Ohnuma |
|
2016 |
Olivia Morrison | "The substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen": The Challenge of Faith and Wrongful Conviction in Louisiana Penitentiaries | Professor Robert Baum |
| 2016 | Samantha N. Smith | Remaking the Cosmopolis in Zion: Early LDS Conceptions of God and Jacksonian Democracy | Professor Randall Balmer |
| 2014 | Isha Flores | Immanual Kant on theodicy : God, the Afterlife, and the Moral Life | Professor Ronald M. Green |
| 2014 | Charlotte Morris | Ritual, the Body, and the Brain: The Neural Correlates of the Catholic Rosary | Professor A. Kevin Reinhart |
| 2013 | Rochele Brown | Ongoing Evolution: Robert Bellah's Elements of Axial Religion in the Modern Secular United States | Professor Nancy Frankenberry |
| 2013 | Theresa Ramponi | Søren Kierkegaard's Psychology: Despair and Depression: The Dissolution of the Self in Modern Psychological Practice | Professor Ronald M. Green |
| 2012 | Timothy Koeth | Ethics and Morality in Kurt Vonnegut's Novels | Professor Ronald M. Green |
| 2012 | Isabel Starr Murray | Christian Love and the Pseudonymous Method: An Exploration of the Theological Import of Søren Kierkegaard's Authorship | Professor Ronald M. Green |
| 2012 | Kurt W. Prescott | "From Dan to Beersheba": Sacred Space in Ancient Israel | Professor Susan Ackerman |
| 2011 | Stephen Amrhein | Piety through Praxis: Muslim Women and Fundamentalism | Professors A. Kevin Reinhart and Ehud Benor |
| 2011 | Kyrollos Wanees | National Unity or Religious Persecution? The Coptic Question in Egyptian Politics | Professors M. Anne Sa'adah and A. Kevin Reinhart |
| 2011 | Sarah Veeck | God's Medicine: Healing and Conversion to the True Jesus Church | Professor Gil Raz |
| 2010 | William Roth | On Shari'ah: Virtue, Vice and the Law in Post-Colonial States | Professor A. Kevin Reinhart |
| 2010 | Alexander R. Lloyd | Religion in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit |
Professor Ronald M. Green |
| 2009 | Ray Padgett | Jesus Rocks My Soul: Contemporary Christian Music and the Evangelical Consumer | not listed |
| 2009 | Dierre D. Upshaw | Fleecing the Flock? A History of Religious Fundraising in the United States and the Tax Exemption Debate | Professor Ronald M. Green |
| 2009 | Georgina Hastings Emerson | St. James and the Integration of Spain into Latin Christendom | Professor Christopher MacEvitt |
| 2009 | Damaris Y. Walker | Meeting the Demands of Fair and Body: Black Gay Religious Identity in the United States | Profesor Clarence Hardy |
| 2009 | Peter Francis Kitlas | Greek Identity in Medieval Crete: A Discussion of the Religious and Cultural Exchange in the Countryside | Professor Christopher MacEvitt |
| 2009 | John A. Zaleski | Reconciling Poverty and Obedience in the 1320s: The Sanctoral Sermons of Bertrand de la Tour, O.F.M. | not listed |
| 2008 | Angela M. Libby | Progress and Tradition, Strength and Submission: Nineteenth-Century Evangelical Feminism | Professor Susan Ackerman |
| 2008 | Timothy M. Baker | Oshaya Began Thus: Wisdom, Logos, and Torah in Bereshit Rabbah 1.1 | Professor Ehud Benor |
| 2007 | Julia Frances Bernstein | Sacred Space in Secular Conflicts: Religion's Role in Modern Debates over Holy Sites | Professors Ehud Benor and Reiko Ohnuma |
| 2007 | Rebekah M. Junkermeier | Judas Iscariot: Worst Friend or Best Betrayer ? A Study of the Gospel of Judas | Professor Susan Ackerman |
| 2007 | Harry Huberty | The Life of the World to Come: Roman Catholic Church Doctrine and the Personal Heavens of America's Roman Catholics | Professors Susan Ackerman and J. Edward Wright |
| 2007 | Benjamin Selznick | There's Something Happening Here: Esalen and Secular Spirituality in America | Professor Clarence Hardy |
| 2007 | Vaughn A. Booker, Jr. | We're "Free at Last" to "Name it and Claim it"? Social Justice, Economic Empowerment, and the Prosperity Gospel in the Black Megachurch Phenomenon | Professor Clarence Hardy |
| 2007 | Benjamin D. Cox | Gathered to Their Fathers: Reconstructing the Folk Deathways of Iron Age Israel | Professor Susan Ackerman |
| 2006 | Willa Rose Forkner Johnson | Tawhid and its Challenge to Christianity: The Early Muslim-Christian Debate over Monotheism | Professors A. Kevin Reinhart and Christopher MacEvitt |
| 2006 | Charlotte Sadler | Catholic Teachings Revisited: A Casuist Study of the End-of-Life Care of Terri Schiavo and Pope John Paul II | Professor Mary Jo Iozzio |
| 2006 | Dale J. Correa | Women in Islamic Ritual: The Imamah Controversy | Professor A. Kevin Reinhart |
| 2005 | S. Luke Blair | Modernism and Protestant Fundamentalism: The Quest for "Authenticity" in a Chaotic World | Professor Ehud Benor |
| 2005 | Torivio A. Fodder | Faith and Culture: The Construction of Religious Identity among the Plains Native Americans of Oklahoma | Professor Clarence Hardy |
| 2005 | Emma W. Sloan | There's Something About Mary: Interpretations of Mary Magdelene in Modernity | Professor Susan Ackerman |
| 2005 | James R. Young, Jr. | Getting Caught Up in the Clouds: Exploring the Christian Doctrine of the Rapture | Professor Susan Ackerman |
| 2004 | Esther Mihindu | The Status of Women in the Ancient Israelite Monarchy | Professor Susan Ackerman |
| 2004 | Frederica Ghesquiere | Christian Responses to the Environmental Crisis: A Typology | Professor Ronald M. Green |
| 2004 | Rachel Bender | Hanukkah and the Maccabees: Historical Questions of Jewish Identity | Professors Susannah Heschel and Ehud Benor |
| 2003 | Lauren S. Foley | Christianity and Same-Sex Marriage: Exploring Theology and Ritual | Professor Ronald M. Green |
| 2003 | Jonathan H. Eisenman | The Evolution of a Debate: Opposition to Darwinism in the United States | Professor Ronald M. Green |
| 2003 | Mirte B. Mallory | Becoming Ferenc Berko: Modernism, Jewish Identity, and Photography | Professor Ronald M. Green |
| 2002 | Karen M. Hart | Building the New Israel: Childrearing in the Twelve Tribes | Professor Ronald M. Green |
| 2002 | Bejamin D. Herson | The Who's Who of the End of the World: The Roles of the Key Figures in Three First Century CE Eschatologies | Professor Susan Ackerman |
| 2001 | Lara Belkin | Re-thinking Divine Androgyne: The Use of Gender in Theosophic Kabbalah | Professor Ehud Benor |
| 2001 | Luke Gonzales | Arriving in America: Mind, Body, and the American Perceptual Disorder | Professor Darryl V. Caterine |
| 2001 | Chris Hummel | The Roman Catholic Church and Croatian Nationalism: The Life of Archbishop Stepinac | not listed |
| 2001 | Elizabeth McGarvey | Soren Kierkegaard: A Vision of the Christian Life and Community | Professor Ronald M. Green |
| 2001 | Alexandra Meise | The Myth of Yugoslavian Identity: How Imagined Identities Fuelled Nationalism in the Former Yugoslavia | Professor A. Kevin Reinhart |
| 2000 | Greg Baker | The Beginnings of the End: An Examination of Potential Foreign and Indigenous Influences on the Origins of Jewish Apocalypticism in the Hellenistic Period | Professor Susan Ackerman |
| 2000 | Byan Coyne | Apophatic Anthropology: Negative Theology and Human Subjectivity in Late Antiquity | Professor Amy Hollywood |
| 2000 | Leslie Cushner | Rethinking Turner's Communitas: A re-reading of Victor Turner in light of Sartre and Buber | Professor Ehud Benor |
| 2000 | Susi Kandel | This One Shall Be Called Woman: Representations of Female Sexuality in Genesis | Professor Susan Ackerman |
| 1999 | Gabriel J. Levy | Lubavitch: A Mystical Ethic Within its Religious Matrix | Professor Ehud Benor |
| 1999 | Ross M. Wilken | Double-Barreled Religious Experience: Jonathan Edwards, Willaim James, and Religious Affections | Professor Nancy Frankenberry |
| 1998 | Ben A. Cooperberg | Disputed Sacred Space: Conflict Over Jerusalem | Professors A. Kevin Reinhart and Ehud Benor |
| 1998 | Philip J. Glasser | The Meaning of Messiah: An Examination of Anointing in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East | not listed |
| 1998 | Molli J. Hamermesh | A Scapegoat for Secularization: Representations of the Jew as Parvenu in Early Twentieth-Century Literature | not listed |
| 1998 | Peter T. Lanfer | Traditions of Biblical Interpretation in Apocalyptic Judaism and Early Christianity | not listed |
| 1998 | Jennifer D. Molinar | A Faith in Someone Else's Faith: Justification and Belief in Contemporary Foundationalism, Pragmatism and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints | not listed |
| 1997 | Theresa M. Ellis | A Kiss Which Was Something More Than a Peck: Kierkegaard's Embrace of Romantic and Erotic Love in his Pseudonymous and Religious Writings | Professor Ronald M. Green |
| 1996 | Michelle Meyer | Can This Marriage Be Saved? - The Search for a Successful Union of Early and Later Ethical Themes in Jean-Paul Sartre's Existentialism | not listed |
| 1995 | Gretchen Ann Freeman | Facing Mount Kenya? - A Discussion of Changing Indigenous Religions of the Gikuyu and Tiriki Peoples | Professor Hans H. Penner |
| 1995 | Nicole Reboe | From Whence the Water Flows: An Analysis of the Initiation Ritual of the Sande Secret Society | Professor Ifi Amadiume |
| 1995 | Barbara L. Seniawski | Islam as Discourse - Capturing Diversity and Affirming Unity | |
| 1995 | Andrea Hill Useem | Sacred History at the Smithsonian: Veterans, Historians, and the Politics of Memory | |
| 1995 | Blake Wentworth | Religious Violence and the Quest for Meaning | Professor Hans H. Penner |
| 1994 | Kimberly Blanchard | With One Heart and One Mind - The Messianic Communities as a Case Study in New Religious Movements | Kimberly Blanchard |
| 1994 | Elizabeth Goldstein | Theological Constructions of the Jewish Woman:An Analysis of the Relationship Between Female Sexuality and the Laws of Family Purity | |
| 1994 | Derek C. West | Order Out of Chaos : The Cosmological Argument, Process Philosophy, and Chaos Theory | |
| 1993 | Betsy Barth | Breaking with Tradition - A New Look at Biblical Women | |
| 1993 | Kamran Pasha | Joseph as a Religious Hero - A Comparative Study of Jewish and Muslim Exegesis | |
| 1991 | William O. Brant | Dying the Great Death: Existential Analyses of Early Ch'an Buddhist Texts - An Examination of the Content and Function of 'The Platform Sutra of the sixth Patriarch' and the 'Mumonkan' through the lens of the Existentialism of Martin Heidegger and Rudolf Bultmann | |
| 1991 | Barry Hurwitz | Determinism and Indeterminism: Implications for Human Freedom and Responsibility | |
| 1991 | J. Kenneth Joung | The Modal Ontological Argument of Charles Hartshorne | |
| 1991 | Michael Lazar | The Process of Becoming an Authentic Self: A presentation and Discussion of Soren Kierkegaard's Stages of Human Existence and their Role in the Project of Christian Self-Becoming | |
| 1990 | Robin Farina | Maternal Responsibility and its Ethical and Legal Ramifications | |
| 1990 | Diane Fisk Bray | Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary... An Examination of the Historical Development of Mariology | Diane Fisk Bray |
| 1990 | Mario Fantini-Cepedes | Monsignor Jose María Escrivá and the Opus Dei,"The Work of God" | |
| 1990 | Andrew Harris | Zen Buddhism as a Technology of the Self - An Investigation of the Relations Between Language, Belief, and Experience | |
| 1990 | David Klaus | Moralistic Legislation in a Morally Pluralistic Society: The Problem of Sodomy Laws in the United States | |
| 1989 | A. Michael Gildersleeve | Apparently Irrational Beliefs and Their Interpretations | A. Michael Gildersleeve |
| 1989 | Sharyl Hirsh | The Closed Mythological System of the Ancient Near East: A Structuralist Interpretation of the Mesopotamian and Biblical Primeval Histories | |
| 1989 | Kara Kelly | A Comparative Study of Death Rituals and Mourning Customs in Contemporary Greece and China | |
| 1989 | Robin MacDonald | Apparently Irrational Beliefs and their Interpretations | Professor Hans H. Penner |
| 1988 | Jevin Seth Eagle | Jewish Students at Dartmouth College: A Study of Third and Fourth Generation American Jews | Jevin Seth Eagle |
| 1988 | Deborah Lynn Hanney | Other Sheep: Non-Christians in Christian Theology | |
| 1988 | Joon P. Hong | Religious Developments in the Hellenistic World:The Encounter Between Egyptian and Greek Religious Systems | |
| 1987 | Lindsay Bridges | As Verily as God is Our Father as Verily is God our Mother: Two Case Studies of Feminine Naming for God in Christianity | |
| 1986 | Mary Beckman | The Search for the Historical Jesus: The Relationship of History and Theology | |
| 1986 | Laurence Chang | Religion in Politics: An Essay at Conceptualizing Religion's Role in the Political Sphere | |
| 1986 | Elizabeth Crawford | Brevard Childs and the Servant of the Lord: An Analysis of Canonical Criticism | |
| 1986 | Jennifer Kerns | Julius Wellhausen and the Development of the Documentary Hypothesis | |
| 1986 | David C. Linehan | God, Omnipotence and the Defective Newborn:Using Theodicy in Ethical Analysis | |
| 1986 | M. Ian Smith | Christian Creation in a Darwinian Age: An Examination of the Creation Theologies of John Cobb and Langdon Gilkey | |
| 1985 | Michael J. Ferris | Protestant Liberalism and Catholic Modernism:The Nineteenth Century Defense of Faith and Culture | |
| 1985 | Adam Seessel | Radical Disquiet: A Dialectical Inquiry into Soren Kierkegaard's and Walker Percy's Insights into the Hyper-Rationality of Western Man | |
| 1984 | Stephen Cho | From Being to Ereignis the Path of Eigentlichkeit | |
| 1984 | Erin Foley | The Ethical Implications of Advancing Neonatal Technology: Spina-Bifida - A Case Study | |
| 1984 | Sarah LaBudde | Quaestiones Disputatae: Revelation, Kerygma, and Dogma In the Thought of Karl Barth and Karl Rahner | |
| 1984 | Deborah Schupack | Albert Camus and Existentialism | |
| 1984 | Sarah Strauss | Navajo Religion: The Mythological Basis for Medicine and Morality | |
| 1984 | Brad Weiss | Social Structures and Religious Systems | |
| 1983 | Gary Apfel | Moses as Folk Hero | |
| 1983 | Amy Bloch | The Problem of Abortion | |
| 1983 | Joel Hubbard | The Theology of Christian Perfection as Expressed by the Reverend John Wesley | |
| 1983 | Kennth Lehman | On Meaning and Symbolism | |
| 1983 | Raymond Patterson | The Marian Implications of the Protevangelium of James | |
| 1982 | Steven Levitan | A Study of the Sephardic Community in New York City | |
| 1982 | Carol Mason | Scientific and Ethical Implications of in vitro Fertilization | Carol G. Mason |
| 1981 | W. Thomas Booher | The Founding of the Disciples of Christ | |
| 1981 | Joan Danziger | Dostoevsky and the Meaning of Life - A Study in The Brothers Karamazov | |
| 1981 | Lynn Peterson | The Oneida Community | |
| 1980 | Dennis Biggie | The Theology of George Berkeley | |
| 1980 | Theodore Blaisdell | Schleiermacher on Protestantism and Kant | |
| 1980 | Leilani Crane | The Figure of Krishna in Hinduism | |
| 1980 | John Dolan | Just War, Just Occupation, and the Case of Israel: A Moral Theory with an Illustrative Application | John Vincent Dolan |
| 1980 | Joel Getzendanner | The Historical Jesus in the Work of Dietrich Bonhoeffer | |
| 1980 | Peter Hutchins | Predestination in the Thought of Augustine and Aquinas | |
| 1980 | Edith Marie Keating | The Problem of Abortion | |
| 1980 | Eric Ziolkowski | Max Weber's Conception of the Transformation of Religious Ideas into Secular Action | |
| 1979 | Judith Copeland | Structural Analysis and the Ugaritic Myths | Judith Copeland |
| 1979 | Alistair Jessiman | The Framework of Meaning: Synchrony and Diachrony in the Structural Anthropology of Claude Levi-Strauss | |
| 1977 | John Harrington | The Virgin Mary in Mexican Culture | |
| 1977 | Stephen Rappaport | An Analysis of Freud's View of Religion Considering his Conception of Reason as the Prefecting Characteristic in Man | |
| 1976 | Mark P. Muth | Whitehead's Theory of Mind | |
| 1975 | Donald L. Drakeman | The Theology of the Jesus Movement |