Senior Projects
Complete versions of Interdisciplinary Study of Religions Senior Projects available at the library’s Digital Commons linked below.
Recent Senior Projects
Senior Projects 2022
HONGMIN AHN
Hanam-si, South Korea
Interdisciplinary Study of Religions: “God, Guns, and the Golden Fishery: Entanglements between Religious Institutions and Military in the South Korean Military Chaplaincy”
Project Adviser: Dominique Townsend
MATTHEW DAVID ALVARADO
Darien, Connecticut
Interdisciplinary Study of Religions: “For the Birds: The Mystery of God’s Grace through Attar’s The Conference of the Birds”
Project Adviser: Nora Jacobsen Ben Hammed
ZOE ELIZABETH ORO-HAHN
Jersey City, New Jersey
Interdisciplinary Study of Religions: “Eleguá Exits, Laughing: Revolution, Play, and Trickster Worship”
Project Adviser: Nora Jacobsen Ben Hammed
DIYANG ZHOU
Guiyang, China
Interdisciplinary Study of Religions: “A Myth of Two Cultures and Three Religions—A Study of the Green Dragon Cave Temple Complex in Zhenyuan”
Project Adviser: Bruce Chilton ’71
Senior Projects 2021
FRANKIE SITLER-ELBEL
Dallas, Texas
Interdisciplinary Study of Religions: “From Swiffers to Swastikas: How the #tradwife Movement of Conventional Gender Roles Became Synonymous with White Supremacy”
Project Adviser: Nora Jacobsen Ben Hammed
Senior Projects 2020
DILLON JAMES DAINE
Riverside, Connecticut
Religion: “How Religious Influence Has Developed Sports into a Faith of Its Own”
Project Adviser: Bruce Chilton ’71
SYDNEY DOBLIN
Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania
Religion: “Religion, Myths, and Knowledge among the Hopi Tribe”
Concentration: Jewish Studies
Project Adviser: Susan Aberth
DARCY ISOBEL CYR GROVES
Brooklyn, New York
Religion: “There’s an App for That: Headspace, Meditation, and the Shifting Religious Landscape of a Digital World”
Project Adviser: Bruce Chilton ’71
NATHANIAL CONSTANTINE SHELLEY
New Market, Maryland
Religion: “Tracing Relationships: Various Actors Involved in the ‘Creation’ of Buddhism”
Project Adviser: Richard H. Davis
TYLER RADCLIFFE WILLIAMS
Baltimore, Maryland
Religion: “Opus Ergo Mutationi: Cum Iuvenis Eram, and Religious Atheist”
Concentration: Theology
Project Adviser: Bruce Chilton ’71
Senior Projects 2019
EMILY C. FOX
Brunswick, Maine
Religion: “Religion’s Role in American Politics: Abortion”
Project Adviser: Bruce Chilton ’71
AUSTIN JAMES GENT
San Diego, California
Literature: “‘Do It for the Fat Lady’: Love, Prayer, and Asceticism in J. D. Salinger’s Franny and Zoey”
Project Adviser: Karen Sullivan
Religion: “Securing Nature’s Blessing: God’s Eternal Role in American Constitutional Law”
Project Adviser: Bruce Chilton ’71
NIKKI RACHAEL SWAY
Florida, New York
Religion: “Religious Rights of Parents and Children in the U.S. Foster Care System”
Project Adviser: David Nelson
OBADIAH DIAZ WRIGHT
San Jose, California
Religion: “Yes, No, or Maybe: A Look into the Denotations of Chinese Fu Talismans”
Project Adviser: Tehseen Thaver
Composition (BMus): Obadiah Wright: “Godfather Death” (opera), “Dreams of God”; Tavares: “Ladainha”; Jiping: “Summer in the High Grassland”; Zheng: “Seven Tunes Heard in China,” third and fourth movements
Principal Teachers: Joan Tower and George Tsontakis
Senior Projects 2018
SARAH MICHELLE COHEN
Religion: “In the Mirror of Eve: Feminist Psychoanalysis, Mystical Philology, and Cosmologies of the Self in the Word of Ibn al-‘Arabi”
Concentration: Middle Eastern Studies
Project Adviser: Dominique Townsend
Senior Projects 2017
BRIGID NELL BOLL
Religion: “Image of Yoga: Instagram, Identity, and Western Imagination”
Project Advisers: Richard H. Davis and Laura Kunreuther
Theater and Performance: “Procedure to Exit an Enclosed Space: A Story in Six Parts”
Project Adviser: Jean Wagner
NICOLE B. CARROLL
Religion: “‘What Is to Be Done?’ Contesting Modernity in Sayyid Qutb and Ali Shariati’s Islamic Revival”
Project Adviser: Tehseen Thaver
RAJDEEP SINGH DOSANJH
Religion: “Guru Nanak: Life, Lessons, and Relevancy”
Project Adviser: Bruce Chilton
ELLA KIT VANDERGAW SCOTT
Religion: “The Holy Ghoul and Lalla: Bhakti and Medieval Poetics”
Project Adviser: Dominique Townsend
Written Arts: “Landscapes which are actually words”
Project Adviser: Robert Kelly