Department of Religious Studies

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Browsing Department of Religious Studies by Author "Ramey, Steven Wesley"

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    Their throats were constricted: nationalism, history, and memorials in Nana Rao Park
    (University of Alabama Libraries, 2018) Griswold, Sarah; Altman, Michael J.; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
    In the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, Nana Rao Park in Kanpur is a microcosm for the history of India since 1857. The park exists as a space to be used for recreation, but it also houses a group of memorials that work to reinforce certain narratives. Today, the memorials tell the story of the 1857 Rebellion through the lens of Indian nationalism. Before Indian Independence in 1947, however, the park operated as a space to ideologically reinforce British imperialism. Each iteration of this park both reflects and perpetuates the dominant narrative at any given time. This thesis examines Nana Rao Park through those memorials and contemporaneous scholarship to show that narratives and the material output of those narratives are always politically driven. Whether to establish empire or fight for a national identity, Nana Rao Park is a space where these ideologies and narratives collide.
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    Theorizing origins: an analysis of descriptions of hybridity in Marian devotional cultures
    (University of Alabama Libraries, 2019) Lawson, Sierra Lynn; McCutcheon, Russell T.; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
    Scholars have long been interested in groups whose members describe themselves as devotees of Mary. Yet, in relaying the descriptions of such devotional communities, scholars too often merely repeat the history put forward by the devotees themselves. Scholars’ repetition of the tale of devotional origins provided by their informants—examined here in three separate case studies, each deriving from different periods and geographic regions—problematically reifies our understanding of the past and a group’s development, portraying it as an authentic account of that history. Instead, using recent scholarship on Marian devotional groups as the example, this thesis maintains that scholars should remain critical of the origins accounts provided by the groups they study and remain wary of recreating those narratives in their own descriptions of the groups.