PhD Dissertations

For more details, including abstracts and PDFs, please see our institutional repository, Digital Georgetown.

Mohamed Lamallam, Society, Religion and Political Power: The Theory of ulfa jāmi’a (Social Harmony) in the Socio-Political Works of al-Māwardī (d.450/1058). Advisor: Paul Heck.

Arunjana Das, A Hindu-Christian Approach Towards Peace-Making: How do Theological Discourse and Agency Emerge in Religious Systems? Advisor: Ariel Glucklich.

James Shelton Nalley, Towards a Holy Friendship: Reflecting on Interreligious Friendship with Thomas Aquinas and Ibn al-ʿArabī. Advisor: Stephen Fields.

Susan O’Neill Hayward, Enduring War and Enduring Peace: Religion, Resilience, and Resistance. Advisor: Jose Casanova.

Jordan Denari Duffner, Muḥammad’s Character as “Fruit of the Spirit”: Toward a Catholic Pneumatology of the Prophet of Islam. Advisor: Leo Lefebure.

Nan Kathy Lin, Religious Change as Seen Through Buddhist Environmentalism; 2023. Advisor: Francisca Cho.

Halla Attallah, Gender and (In)fertility in the Qur’ān’s Annunciation Type-Scenes; 2023. Advisor: Julia Watts Belser.

Danielle Lynn Clausnitzer, The Roots of Rootwork: Addressing Contemporary Concerns of Hoodoo Practitioners; 2023. Advisor: Joseph Murphy.

Kirsty Jones, Barren, Blind, Berserk: (Un)Assuming Disability and Madness in Judges 13-16; 2023. Advisor: Julia Watts Belser.

Nathan Chapman Lean, Journey to the One: Jazz as an Expression of Islam, 1940-1970; 2023. Advisor: Dan Madigan.

Ray Kim, Halal in Korea: The Social Constructions of a Contested Category in a Globalized World; 2022. Advisor: Jose Casanova.

Teng Kuan Ng, Wisdom Cinema: Buddhism and Film in Contemporary China; 2022. Advisor: Francisca Cho.

Theodore Dedon, Conciliarity, Nationalism, and the Roman Social Imaginary: A History of Political and Ecclesiastical Ideas on the Separation and Integration of Powers; 2022. Advisor: Drew Christiansen.

Tasi B. Perkins, The Thirst, And The Sun, And The Bleeding”: Husayn As A Passible Liminal Figure in Pro-ʿAlid Hagiography; 2022. Advisor: William Werpehowski.

Steven Matthew Gertz, Inter-Religious Relations in a Sectarian Milieu: Fatimid Rulers in Relationship to Their Melkite Christian Subjects in Palestine and Egypt; 2020. Advisor: Dan Madigan.

Easten G. Law, Discerning a Lived Chinese Protestant Theology: Everyday Life and Encounters with the Other in Contemporary China; 2020. Advisor: Peter Phan.

Joel David Daniels, Does the Wind Bend or Break the Grass? A Comparative Study of Pentecostal Spirituality and Chinese Religious Thought; 2020. Advisor: Erin Cline.

Michael David Friedman, Our Problems and Our Future: Jews and America; 2019. Advisor: Jonathan Ray.

Joshua Clark Mugler, A Martyr with Too Many Causes: Christopher of Antioch (d. 967) and Local Collective Memory; 2019. Advisor: Paul Heck.

Peter Charles Herman, Overcoming Whiteness: A Critical Comparison of James Cone’s Black Liberation Theology and Shinran’s Jōdo Shinshū Buddhism; 2019. Advisor: Peter Phan.

Stephanie Marie Wong, From Subjects to Citizens of the State and of God’s People: Frédéric-Vincent Lebbe (1877-1940) and the Project to Indigenize the Chinese Catholic Church in Republican China; 2018. Advisor: Peter Phan.

Matthew Mitchell Anderson, Prohibited Speech and the Sacred: Critically and Constructively Engaging Taqī al-Dīn al-Subkī’s (d.756/1355) al-Sayf al-maslūl ‘alā man sabba al-rasūl; 2018. Advisor: Paul Heck.

Joshua Canzona, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Muhammad Iqbal on Human Consciousness and Sociality: A Critical Comparison; 2018. Advisor: Leo Lefebure.

Nicholas John Boylston, Writing the Kaleidoscope of Reality: The Significance of Diversity in the 6th/12th Century Persian Metaphysical Literature of Sanā’ī, ‘Ayn al-Quḍāt and ‘Aṭṭār; 2017. Advisor: Paul Heck.

Rahel Fischbach, Politics of Scripture. Discussions of the Historical-Critical Approach to the Qur’an; 2017. Advisor: Dan Madigan.

Matthew D. Taylor, Commonsense Scripturalism: The Textual Identities of Salafi Muslims and Evangelical Christians in America; 2017. Advisor: Paul Heck.

Taraneh Rosanna Wilkinson, Dialectics Not Dualities: Contemporary Turkish Muslim Thought in Dialogue; 2017. Advisor: Dan Madigan.

Jason Welle, Clarifying Companionship: Al-Sulamī’s (D. 412/1021) Kitāb Ādāb Al-Ṣuḥba; 2016. Advisor: Paul Heck.

Pietro Lorenzo Maggioni, Comparative Theology: Toward a Semiotic Theological Foundation; 2016. Advisor: Dan Madigan.

Gurbet Sayilgan, The Ur-Migrants: The Qur’anic Narratives of Adam and Eve and Their Contribution to a Constructive Islamic Theology of Migration; 2015. Advisor: Dan Madigan.

Fuad S. Naeem, Interreligious Debates, Rational Theology, and the ʿUlamaʾ in the Public Sphere: Muḥammad Qāsim Nānautvī and the Making of Modern Islam in South Asia; 2015. Advisor: Dan Madigan.

George Archer, A Place Between Two Places: The Qur’an’s Intermediate State and the Early History of the Barzakh; 2015. Advisor: Dan Madigan.

Sara Singha, Dalit Christians and Caste Consciousness in Pakistan; 2015. Advisor: Ariel Glucklich.

Jason M. VonWachenfeldt, Knowing the Known Unknown: Comparing the Religious Epistemologies of Edward Schillebeeckx and Gendun Chopel in Response to Modernity; 2014. Advisor: Leo Lefebure.

Laura Tomes, Reforming Religion: Sabbath Schools and the Negotiation of Modern American Jewish Education, 1873-1923; 2014. Advisor: Jonathan Ray.

Melanie Elizabeth Trexler, Evangelizing Arabs: Baptists and Muslims in Lebanon, 1895-2011; 2014. Advisor: Yvonne Haddad.

Diego Sarrio Cucarella, The Mirror of the Other: Shihab al-Din al-Qarafi’s Splendid Replies; 2013. Advisor: Paul Heck.

Peter Leo Manseau, Untying the Holy Tongue: the Transformation of Sacred Language in American Yiddish Literature; 2013. Advisor: Tod Linafelt.

Jerusha Tanner Lamptey, Toward a Muslima Theology of Religious Pluralism: the Qur’an, Feminist Theology and Religious Diversity; 2011. Advisor: Dan Madigan.

Erika B. Seamon, The Shifting Boundaries of Religious Pluralism in America Through the Lens of Interfaith Marriage; 2011. Advisor: Chester Gillis.

Maureen L. Walsh, ‘Because they are no more’: Memorializing Pregnancy Loss in Japanese Buddhism and American Catholicism; Advisor: Vincent J. Miller.