Department of Religious Studies (MU)
The subject matter of religious studies provides information relevant to understanding the development of human cultures and the causes, meaning and implications of current events. Knowledge and appreciation of the human adventure require familiarity with the religious dimension of human existence as evidenced in various cultural traditions and in contemporary experience.Majoring in religious studies, or taking religious studies courses, not only provides valuable appreciation for careers in business, counseling, education, government, journalism, law, ministry, medicine, and social work, but also contributes to individual and social enrichment through expanding an appreciative awareness of one's own religious tradition and those of others.
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Have "right", be "right" a study of the religion of consumerism
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2019)[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] American society has evolved to equate the cost of a product with the status of a product. The current populace direct their attention to price as a ... -
Fantastic religion : fandom as religious practice
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2019)[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] This project seeks to understand both the theoretical and tangible implications of fandom as a meaningful category within the field of Religious Studies ... -
The racialization of Islam in Germany
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2018)The discussion surrounding Islam's place in Germany is far from new; Islam is the third largest religious tradition in Europe, trailing Protestantism and Catholicism. Germany and France have the highest population percentage ... -
Spiritual tourism as the new colonialism : the maintenance of colonial hierarchy in Cusco, Peru
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2017)In this paper, I examine the continuing coloniality that exists in Cusco, Peru. Through examining the tourism industry, specifically looking at the subcategory of spiritual tourism, it is evident that colonial structures, ... -
Craft Christianity : Christianity and craft beer America
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2017)The recent advent of American Christian communities incorporating craft beer into their lives stands in curious defiance to the ways in which religion and drinking have often interacted in American culture. In this thesis, ... -
The banality of racism : the spirit of capitalism and mass incarceration
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2016)[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] I question how does a country that claims to be post-racial, post-colonial, and modern incarcerate such a disproportional amount of African Americans? ... -
Revolutionizing the 'modern' environmental discourse: religion, revolution, and mountaintop removal
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2015)This thesis engages the academic study of religion as a discourse for exploring a revolutionary approach to dealing with adverse environmental issues. Employing Buddhism as a heuristic tool, I present a unique approach for ... -
Specters of otherness : essays on the intersection of religious studies, feminist theory, and alterity
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2015)[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] The following essays are explorations of otherness as identity, as discursive force, and as feeling across three different North American socio-cultural ... -
Beneath and above the worlds of the spirit are alive : religion, place, and Ohlone cultural revival
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2015)[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] This thesis explores the meaning of landscapes in the revival of traditional religious traditions by the Indigenous peoples of the San Francisco and ... -
Paul and how many others : a discourse on alterity in 2 Corinthians
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2015)Paul's use of the term super apostles has generated much debate about who Paul references. Scholars provide several specific historic groups for possible identification; Jewish Christians at the church at Jerusalem or ... -
Dynamics of discourse : power and culture in Precolonial Rwanda
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2014)Rwandan scholarship tends to look at the history of the country in terms of the well-known conflict between "Hutu" and "Tutsi" groups, sometimes re-categorizing the conflict to fit with different paradigms. This study looks ... -
The Daevas in Zoroastrian scripture
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2014) -
Kolosalno! There Is Something Here...Power, Energy, The Future! Haunting, Steel, Progress, And The Urban Religious Landscape
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2013) -
Set and setting: interrelated determinants for psychointegrator and religious experiences
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2013)[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] This research looks at why different psychointegrators, in different geographic locations, in different cultures, are often all considered to be ... -
The Buddha said that Buddha said so: a translation and analysis of "Purvayogaparivarta" from the Ratnaketu dharani sutra
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2013)The present work is a translation and analysis of a particular variant of the second chapter of the Ratnaketu Dhāraṇī Sūtra, entitled "Pūrvayogaparivarta,” the provenance of which can be traced to Vikramādityanandi, the ... -
The role of witchcraft accusations as an alternative form of self-expression
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2012)[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] Witchcraft has been extensively dismissed or simplified in popular thought, media and scholarship as a negative force that aggravates social hostilities ... -
Religious literacy in the social work profession
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2012)Multiculturalism and diversity are terms we hear about often in the United States. For many years now, the discourse about embracing multiculturalism and racial diversity has been a fact of life in the United States. The ... -
Inequality in the rhetoric of Buddhist-kami relations
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2012)Buddhism has long been praised and viewed as religion that embraces other faiths without compromising itself or the other religion. In history, Buddhism has been thought to meld with the indigenous traditions it encountered ... -
"Until God shall visit the Earth" : the role of covenant theology in the Qumran movement
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2012)Since their discovery, the Qumran community and the texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls have often been viewed through the lens of contemporary and later religious groups, such as the Pharisees, Sadducees, or Christians. In this ... -
Re-deliniating Paul's boundaries of porneia in the early church via the sexually available bodies of first-century slaves
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2012)This work attempts to re-delineate Paul's theological boundaries of sexual immorality, porneia, in the early church by way of the sexually available bodies of first-century slaves. While most scholars of Paul's ideas of ...