College of Arts & Humanities

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The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations.

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Subject: search.filters.subject.History, Church

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Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    "Their object is to strengthen the Moslem and repress the Christian": Henry Jessup and the Presbyterian Mission to Syria under Abdul Hamid II
    (2008-08-19) Hays, Evan Lattea Rogers; Wien, Peter; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Henry Jessup and the American Presbyterian Mission to Syria faced a new challenge in 1885 when the Ottoman authorities closed various American schools there. Jessup, the Secretary of the American mission, responded with a rhetorical campaign against the Ottoman impositions that portrayed the policies of Abdul Hamid II's administration as new, pro-Muslim, anti-Christian, and designed to replace American missionary institutions in Syria with Muslim institutions backed by Ottoman force. While some of Jessup's writing while in Syria from 1856 to 1910 was polemical, his writing surrounding the school controversy in the 1880s rather reflected the historical context of local and foreign educational competition in Syria that now included Ottoman initiatives against foreign institutions who presented a threat to Ottoman-Islamic imperial discipline. This thesis seeks to contextualize Jessup's writing to portray 1885 as a watershed in the history of a mission whose evangelistic efforts were then successfully limited by Ottoman reforms.
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    Performing Christian Female Identity in Roman Alexandria
    (2008-05-05) Juliussen-Stevenson, Heather Ann; Holum, Kenneth; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The Christian women of Roman Alexandria are something of a mystery, but they were integral to the transformation of religion. They Christianized the space they occupied, their bodies becoming houses for sanctity. While it is difficult to verify the accuracy of male representations of female subjects, discourse exposes the underlying assumptions upon which gender was understood. Reformed prostitutes, women who traveled to the shrine at Menouthis, collectors of pilgrim flasks from Abu Menas who sat in front of the Virgin Mary fresco at Kom el-Dikka, and virgins who shut themselves away--none of these women may have thought of themselves as men suggested. Yet when men referenced the feminine, they introduced alterity, indicating resistance to a master discourse or even competition among rival discourses. This negotiation, combined with a daily expression of agency through the use of space, reveals how women must have asserted their rights to salvation.
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    American Initiative in the Modern Catechetical Movement: From the Release of the Baltimore Catechism in 1885 to the Publication of the General Catechetical Directory in 1971
    (2006-12-11) Ingold, Matt D; Gilbert, James; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The twentieth century has been a dynamic era for Catholic catechesis in the United States. Since the Protestant Reformation, catechesis had revolved around the Catechism as the primary text and memorization as the fundamental method for imparting Christian doctrine. In the late nineteenth century, progressive American catechists, both lay and religious, endeavored to introduce modern pedagogical standards to the realm of Catholic religious education. Traditional historiography credits this transition to European initiatives. Assessing the evolution of American catechesis through modern catechetical programs and textbooks developed between 1885 and 1971, however, demonstrates that American initiative in modernizing catechesis was ongoing during the twentieth century in the United States. Pedagogical advances in religious education were taking place mainly at the classroom level by the ingenuity of progressive catechists. This thesis endeavors to illustrate the American contribution to the modernization of Catholic religious education in the United States.
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    Baptized by Fire: Collected Memories of Little Zion Baptist Church
    (2003-11-25) O'Foran, Shelly Ann; Pearson, Barry; Flieger, Verlyn; Logan, Shirley; Parks, Sheri; English Language and Literature
    This dissertation explores oral narratives collected at Little Zion Baptist Church after the small, rural African American church's destruction by probable arson in 1996, and its subsequent rebuilding. As a construction volunteer, I realized the church could not be contained by its building. Rather, Little Zion lives in its people's inherited traditions, which they practice and teach to their children today to ensure the church's continued vitality tomorrow. I conceived of this folklore studies project to trace the outlines of a structure that exists beyond the building, built solid of another kind of material vulnerable perhaps to the passage of time and process of forgetting, but not to fire. This dissertation also examines Little Zion's place in a pattern of African American church burnings in the late 1990s, and documents efforts to make sense of the violence. But the focus moves immediately inward, constructing a history of more than a century of activity at Little Zion told primarily through the voices of church members. As a white outsider, I examine my own biases and subordinate my opinions to those of church members throughout the project. Finally, this dissertation joins a debate among folklife scholars about the politics of collection and uses a self-reflexive method of presentation that allows an outsider such as me to move toward an insider's view of the Little Zion culture. Chapter II considers memories of the church's role in Greene County, Alabama, from the Depression, through the Civil Rights Movement, to a largely segregated present. Chapter IV looks at church practices and events such as services, weddings and funerals. Chapter V documents personal religious beliefs and experiences, from conversion to baptism to the call to preach. Chapters III and VI present uninterrupted narratives by two church members, attempting to remove as much as possible the filter of my perspective. The Little Zion community generously embraced this project, and I conducted fieldwork from 1996-2003 to record the approximately 75 hours of interviews and church events that shape this dissertation.