Religion
Religious Studies helps you to understand the complex world of religion by introducing you to the diversity of religious beliefs and practices. It traces our established traditions from their ancient roots through to modern times. It also examines the various forms of 'spirituality' that feature so prominently in modern popular culture.
For further information go to Religious Studies.
Collections in Religion
-
Religion [25]
Recent Deposits
-
Life-Prolonging Medical Care and Religiosity at the End of Life.
Studies from around the world indicate that highly religious people request and receive more aggressive end-of-life medical care than their less religious counterparts. Research suggests that patients who express strong ... -
Contronymic secularism: The constitutional politics of religion in Fiji
In 2012, Fiji’s military regime declared secularism as an official policy for Fiji’s new constitution, and the key to securing inter-religious tolerance and an inclusive public space for Indigenous (iTaukei) Fijian Christians ... -
A translation of the sri-sri-ramakrisna-kathamrita with explanatory notes and critical introduction
This thesis contains the translation of the five volumes of the śri-śri-rȃmakrisna-kathȃmrita. It is preceded by a critical introduction which claims that in the teaching contained in the work Ramakrishna was attempting ... -
Mapping Hinduism: 'Hinduism' and the study of Indian religions. 1600-1776
The process by which Hinduism came to be constituted as an object of European study is often taken to be the most egregious example of the invention of a religion through the reification of disparate traditions of belief ... -
The Absent Vedas
The Vedas were first described by a European author in a text dating from the 1580s, which was subsequently copied by other authors and appeared in translation in most of the major European languages in the course of the ... -
The Dhammakāyānussati-kathā: A Trace of “Siam's Borān Buddhism” from the Reign of Rāmā I (1782-1809 CE.)
The Dhammakāya text genre appears in manuscripts, inscriptions, and printed texts found in Central Thailand, Northern Thailand, and Cambodia. Texts belonging to this genre share the same core Pāli verses, and date back ... -
Buddhist influences in Burmese political history
The primary question that this thesis looks at is to what extent and what manner of influence has Buddhism had on Burmese political history? Issues surrounding the difficulties and nuances of the relationship between ... -
The Bonds of Water: Strings of Connectedness in Bamar Buddhist Life
Yeseq, or the connections of kan (P. kamma) formed between people who pour water together as part of shared merit-making, is a fundamental part of Bamar inter-personal relations. Based upon ten months of immersive fieldwork ... -
Galileo and the Conflict between Religion and Science
For more than 30 years, historians have rejected what they call the ‘warfare thesis’ – the idea that there is an inevitable conflict between religion and science – insisting that scientists and believers can live in harmony. ... -
The Three Trials of Khruba Sriwichai
Scholars of contemporary Thailand refer to the Sangha reforms promulgated by the Cakri monarchs in the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as historical events that instantly created a new regime of Buddhism. ... -
Prophet or Magician? : the debate surrounding Joseph Smith Jr.
Many authors have seen elements of Joseph Smith Jr.'s life, and early Mormonism in general to be of a magical nature. D. Michael Quinn, John L. Brooke and Lance Owens in particular have written much on the subject. There ... -
Drifting Through Samsara: Tacit Conversion and Disengagement in Goenka’s Vipassana Movement in New Zealand
The field of religious conversion and disengagement is mostly composed of studies that focus on traditions with an explicit moment of conversion and, correspondingly, an explicit demarcated exit. As a result, movements ... -
The Cape of the Devil: Salvation in the Japanese Jesuit Mission Under Francisco Cabral (1570-1579)
This dissertation sheds new light on the missionary policies implemented by the Portuguese Jesuit Francisco Cabral (1533-1609) during his time as Superior of the Japanese mission (1570-79), by contextualising his actions ... -
"Let's Talk about Something Else": Religion and Governmentality in New Zealand's State Primary Schools
In 2012, the Churches Education Commission in New Zealand stated that around 40% of state primary schools provided voluntary religious instruction. A search for the word “religion” in the New Zealand Curriculum, at that ... -
Mediated Representations: Japanese New Religions and Social Media
Social Media significantly affect the way religion is presented and represented online, and allow a variety of religious actors to create a new type of charismatic authority for themselves, similar to that of celebrities. ... -
On the Devotion to the Buddha in Paramanuchit’s Mārabandha Episode of the Paṭhamasambodhi
The Paṭhamasambodhi is an important biography of the Buddha, a living story well-known all over mainland Southeast Asia, and an essential element for Southeast Asian art history. In addition, the Mārabandha episode of the ... -
Let the "Dirty" Women Speak: The Agency and Divergent Aspirations of Devadasis and Development Interventions in Karnataka, India
In this dissertation, I examine the relationships between development organisations and religious beneficiaries through an ethnographic exploration of devadasi women in rural North Karnataka, India. Contemporary devadasis ... -
Mission, Meditation and Miracles: An Shigao in Chinese Tradition
An Shigao is well known for the important role he played in the early transmission of Buddhism into China, and Chinese Buddhists have considered him to be a meditation master for centuries. However, recent scholarship on ... -
The Shifting Narratives and Circling Bodhisattvas of Baoguo Si: A Study of Lay Buddhist Ritual at an Historic Temple on Mt. Emei, Sichuan China.
China has an ancient tradition of sacred mountain pilgrimage. One of these sacred mountains is Emei Shan 峨嵋山, located in Sichuan province. For the past 1500 years Emei Shan has been associated with the Bodhisattva ... -
Word-pairs & continuity in translation in the ancient Near East
It has been recognised for more than two hundred years that the basic style of poetry in the Hebrew Bible is parallelism, and its system has been minutely studied. More recently ethnographers have noted the same style in ...