Religious Studies
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.
Recent Deposits
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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 ... -
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 ... -
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. ... -
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 ... -
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 ... -
The gift of the other: Levinas, Derrida, and a theology of hospitality
Despite the celebration of 'difference' and the rhetoric of 'connectedness', the so-called 'global village' of the early twenty-first century is far from a peaceful and harmonious reality. Powerful ideological discourses ... -
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 ... -
A hierarchy of symbols : Samoan religious symbolism in New Zealand
This dissertation seeks to understand the religious experience of Samoans in New Zealand. The research uses the framework and themes of phenomenology of religion to observe, describe and interpret the expressions of Samoan ... -
Quran and Reform: Rahman, Arkoun, Abu Zayd
This thesis engages with three Modern Muslims accounts of the nature of the Quran and its interpretation as basis for reform schemes. I investigate how the three Muslim intellectuals Fazlur Rahman (d. 1988), Muhammad Arkoun ... -
The Significance of Khruba Sriwichai's Role in Northern Thai Buddhism: His Sacred Biography, Meditation Practice and Influence
Khruba Sriwichai (1878-1938) was a well-known monk in Thailand and especially in the Lanna regions in the northern part of the country. His local fame spread throughout the country among a diverse group of followers. Many ... -
Exploring Spirituality in a New Zealand Oncology Unit
Spirituality, as presented in this paper, is characterized as an individual’s inherent need to find meaning and purpose in life, and as being the fabric that makes each person whole, (encompassing beliefs, values, attitudes, ... -
Haunted, religious modernity and reenchantment
The academic study of religion has for too long laboured under a flawed understanding of the relationship between modernity and religion. Any narrative of the displacement of religion by a universal and secularising modernity ...