Religion: Student Projects

There are two paths to completing the capstone experience. One option is the RELG 401-402 sequence that is taken during the fall and spring semesters, respectively. This two-course sequence is designed for those who choose to research and write an extended research paper as a capstone experience.

The second option is RELG 405, Senior Readings Colloquium, which is only offered in the spring semester. This course is designed for students to have shared reflection about their academic work in the major through reading and writing reflections on common themes within the field of religion.

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Projects Spring 2020
RELG 402 Senior Capstone

Nalin Beckman
Contemporary Issues in Mithila Art

Mathew Bickett
Eschatology, Liturgy, and Ethics in David Lang’s the little match girl passion

Sophia Brewer-Thompson   
Diverging Values: An Argument for Comprehensive Sex Education in Modern Day Catholicism

Lucy Brown           
Finding the Bible in Contemporary Literature: Pullman’s Critical Rewrite of Genesis 3

Darlene Burker      
A Life Worth Living: Sanctity of Life Versus Quality of Life in Catholic Ethics

Rehaan Bux           
What Dreams May Come: Ethicality of Palliative Sedation in Catholic and Sunni Ethics

Joy Castro-Wehr    
The Radical Activism of Dorothy Day Finding the Common Good in Pacifism and Economic Justice

Hannah Cipinko     
Purity, Power, Restriction, and Rebellion: Niddah in the Lives of Jewish Women

William Cramer     
The Rise and Fall of Qigong

Johan Gelfand       
The Guru and the Rebbe: Relationality in the Devotional Practices of Neem Karoli Baba Maharaj-ji and Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson

NoaGordon-Guterman
God as a Woman: Trauma and Nation Formation in Second-Isaiah

Mae Hardman-Hill      
Windows to the Divine: Icons and the Sacred in Greek Orthodoxy

Noa Lewis             
Catholic Ethical Analysis of Assisted Reproductive Technologies, Cloning, and the Family

Hayley Segall         
1984: Trauma and the Evolution of the Punjabi Skih Identity

Olivia Summers     
Incarceration and Christianity: Prison Fellowship in the United States

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Projects Spring 2019
RELG 402 Senior Capstone

Katie Ryan-O'Flaherty
The Rural Urban Divide in Moroccan Walis

Shannon Silberhorn  
Mary Church Terrell: Public and Private Motherhood

Bryton Smith 
Nature of the Crescent: Humans and the Natural World in Genesis 1-11 and Mesopotamian Mythology

Sarah Williams         
Body and Blood: Divine Violence in the Mystical Writings of Medieval Women

Jackson Zinn-Rowthorn        
Authority, Abuse, and the Construction of Meaning in American Renzai Zen Communities         

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Projects Fall 2018
RELG 405 Senior Capstone

Sam Bailey    
Out of the Ground: An Ecofeminist Response to Lynn White Jr.'s The Histroical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis

Alex Broekhuijse       
Medea’s Madness: An Analysis of the Role of Religious Delusions in the Case of Andrea Yates

Evan Corey    
The Market as God: Market Fundamentalist Rhetoric in a Christian Deist Framework

Linnea Halsten          
The NoDAPL Resistance as a Practice of Sioux Religion

Emily Kelkar  
Feminism through Temporary Marriage in Shi'I Iran

Megan Kenney          
Becoming Change: Octavia Butler’s Earthseed and Green Religious Revitalization

Keifer Ludwig
Not Just Cunning: The Existential Importance of the Kitsune Within a Mytho-Religious Framework

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Projects Spring 2018
RELG 402 Senior Capstone

Ethan Aronson       
A Covenantal Theology of Protest: The Jewish Tradition of Moral Confrontation with God

Owen Ellerkamp      
Purifying the Sacred: How Hindu Nationalism Reshapes Environmentalism in Contemporary India

Claire Kotarski        
Gay Shamans and Gatekeepers: Radical Faeries and the Implications of “Playing Indian” in the New Age   

Rebecca Primoff       
“Muscle Judaism:” The German Origins of Modern Israeli Masculinity

Frances Purcell         
Rethinking the Purpose of Religion Education: Toward the Sociological Study of Religion in Public Schools

Daniel Thin   
Pluralism in Contemporary Burmese Buddhism

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Presentations Fall 2017
RELG 405 Senior Capstone Seminar in Religious Studies

Eitan Barkow
Marketing Mindfulness: Issues of Race and Religious Identity in American Convert Buddhism

Ryanne Berry
Reclaiming the Body: The Corporeal Spirituality, Physical Love, and Social Gain of Women Medieval Mystics

James Flemming
Islam on the Internet: The Great ‘Original’ Rebranding

Emily Isaacson
Faith-Based Community Organizations and their Contribution to Social Justice Movements: Building Diversity and Practicing Allyship and Solidarity in United States Cities

Abbie McCrea
Religion as a Positive Influence on Public Health: Faith Based Organizations Working to Eradicate Malarie

Lucas Nikkanen
Faith, Becoming and Doubt: Two Conversations with Paul Tillich

Jones Pitsker
Speeding Toward the End Eco-Apocalypse in Earth First! and MaddAddam

Noah Schiller
Gandhi’s Non-Violence as Spiritual Grounds for an Alternative Vision of Revolution

Michal Schorsch
Candomblé within Capoeira Religious Elements of the Afro-Brazilian Dance-Fight Form

Oliver Smith
Sounds of the Living Light: Understanding Hildegard of Bingen’s Mystical Impulse through Artistic Expression and Musical Composition

Olivia Tsang
A Sacred Biography Retold: Including Manga in Buddhist Scripture

Riley Walters
Does Virtue Take Two? Filling in St. Augustine’s conception of Christian Marriage with Mengzi’s Confucian Virtue Ethics