Research Interests

I most recently finished a MA in Anthropology at the University of California, San Diego. My research dealt with the Anthropology of Christianity. In the most broad sense, my interests were in what I call indigenous Christianities—Christianities that are rooted in non-Western locales and were not brought by Western missionaries (e.g., Armenian, Chaldean, Coptic). I conducted field research among the Tigrinya speaking Christians of highland Eritrea in summer 2005. I am particularly interested in and devoted much of my field research to investigating the liturgical usage of the Eritrean Orthodox (Tewahdo) Church, which utilizes the understudied ancient Ethiopic (Ge'ez) liturgical rite. I pursued two avenues as a means of exploring the wider cultural processes involved in such societies: 1) a study of traditional healers in Eritrea (debtera) and 2) an analysis of the processes of inculturation used by the Eritrean Catholic Church. Such studies are interesting in their own right, but more importantly they each provide a crucial lens through which we may be able to better understand alternative ways in which Christianity functions a cultural system and how it can develop apart from particular Western patterns of behavior and thought often assumed to be synonymous with Christianity.

Below are papers and presentations that I have written, in Adobe PDF, broken down by academic discipline.  You will need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader to view these files.

Anthropology (PhD)  |  Theology (MTS)
Anthropology (BA)   |  Philosophy  |  History

Anthropology (PhD)

For general information about the graduate program in Anthropology, see the program website.

Psychoanalysis and the Anthropological Study of Religion:
   Mel Spiro (UCSD)
   Keith McNeal (UCSD)

• "Moses and the Dogs: Applying Freud's Myth (2005)

Sociology of Religion:
   Richard Madsen (UCSD)

• "The New Faithful: Secularism, Nostalgia, and Conservative Catholicism" (2005)
• Presentation: Genealogies of Religion by Talal Asad (2005)

Core Seminar in Social Anthropology:
   Donald Tuzin (UCSD)

• "Society as a Natural System: The Foundational Years of Social Anthropology" (2004)
• "Society as a Dynamic System: The Unintended Consequences of Individual Behavior" (2004)
• "Society as Moral System: Bridging Emotion and Hierarchical Values in an Impermanent Cosmos" (2004)

Core Seminar in Cultural Anthropology:
   Nancy Postero (UCSD)

• "Marx and Durkheim: Two Models of Social Change" (2003)
• "Discipline and Penance" An Analysis of Penance from a Foucaultian Perspective (2003)
• "Making History: Pukapukan and Anthropological Constructions of Knowledge" A Synopsis of Borofsky's Ethnography (2003)
• "Introducing Bourdieu to Borofsky" Interpreting an Ethnographic Account with Practice Theory (2003)

Core Seminar in Psychological Anthropology:
   Keith McNeal (UCSD)

• "Objectifying Hair and Subjectifying Possession: An Analysis of Obeyesekere's Medusa's Hair" (2004)
• "The Epistemological Significance of Psychiatric Anthropology: Kleinman and Scheper-Hughes" (2004)
• "The Epistemology of Person-Centered Ethnography: Wikan's Managing Turbulent Hearts" (2004)
• "The Anthropologist as Discontent: Parish's Hierarchy and Its Discontents" (2004)

Core Seminar in Archaeological Anthropology:
   Geoffrey Braswell (UCSD)

• "The Archaeology of Cult and Religion: A Literature Review" (2003)

Ethnographies of Modern Society:
   Suzanne Brenner (UCSD)

• "The Politics of Modern Memory" (2004)
• Presentation on Danilyn Rutherford's Raiding the Land of the Foreigners: The Limits of the Nation on an Indonesian Frontier (2004)
• Presentation on Michael Meeker's A Nation of Empire: The Ottoman Legacy of Turkish Modernity (2004)
• Presentation on Marilyn Ivy's Discourses of the Vanishing: Modernity, Phantasm, Japan (2004)

Anthropology of Language and Discourse:
   Kathryn Woolard (UCSD)

• "The Universal Logic of Politeness" (2004)
• "Religious Language and Linguistic Capital: Bourdieu's Account of Language Ideology" (2004)
• "Therapeutic Language and the Confessional" (2004)

African Oral Literature:
   Robert Cancel (UCSD)

• "Psychoanalytic Analysis of The Goat Well" (2005)
• "It's All About the Judges" (2005)

Linguistic Human Rights of the African Child:
  Ghirmai Negash (Ohio University)

• "Mother Tongue Education in Eritrea: Right or Resource?" (2004)

Arabic 1:
   Sonia Ghattas-Soliman (UCSD)

• اليمن: A Presentation of Yemen (2003)

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Theology (MTS)

I completed my Master of Theological Studies in Liturgical Studies at the University of Notre Dame in 2003.  For information about the MTS, see the program website.
Here are papers and presentations that I have written or given, in Adobe PDF.  You will need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader to view these files.

Liturgical Theology:
   J. Michael Joncas (ND)

• "The Explanation of the Pasch: The Liturgical Theology of Cyrus of Edessa" (2003)
• "The Liturgical Theology of Patriarch Išo'yabh IV in Nestorian Questions on the Administration of the Eucharist" (2003)
• "Christian Sacraments in a Postmodern World: An Account of the Sacramental Theology of Kenan Osborne" (2003)

Myth and Story:
   John Dunne, CSC (ND)

• "What sort of story are we in?" as seen by Sigrid Undset's Kristin Lavransdatter (2003)
• "Constant Conversion: The Myth of Transfiguration" in Louise Erdrich's The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse and in my life. (2003)

Eastern Liturgies:
   John Klentos (ND, Graduate Theological Union)

• Presentation:"East Syrian Liturgical Tradition" (2003)
• "The Little Hours: An Analysis and Evaluation of the Restored Byzantine Rite According to the Tradition of the New Skete Monastic Community" (2003)
• "The Chaldean Catholic Mass: Liturgical Mediation of Heaven and Earth, Negotiation of Chaldean Traditions and Contemporary American Society"  A study of the East Syrian Qurbana as Practiced by St. Joseph Chaldean Catholic Church of Troy, Michigan (2003)

Foundations of Moral Theology:
   Paulinus Odozor, CSSp (ND)

• "Pragmatism and Moral Hope: An Account of Conversations between Pragmatists and Moral Theologians" (2003)
• Presentation: "Critique of Jean Porter's Natural and Divine Law: Reclaiming the Tradition for Christian Ethics" (2003)
• Collection of "Reflection Papers" turned in at every class session (2003)

Introduction to the Hebrew Bible:
   Eugene Ulrich (ND)

• "Penitential Prayer in Nehemiah: An Analysis of Nehemiah 9:5b-37 using Textual, Source, Form, Historical, Tradition-History, Redaction, and Theological Critical Methods" (2002)
• Paper presented at the Masters of Theological Studies Colloquium on 2. October 2002. (2002)

Exegesis: Matthew:
   Jerome Neyrey, SJ (ND)

• "Mangiamo: A Social Science Analysis of the Meal at the Home of a Leading Pharisee in Luke 14:1-24." (2002)

Missionary Encounters:
   Paul Kollman, CSC (ND)

• "Crossing the Threshold: Liminality in Missions" (2002)
• "An Analysis of Missionary Encounters on Axiological, Praxeological, and Epistemic Axes" (2002)
• "Manufacturing Identity: The Creation of Identity in the Missionary Encounter" (2002)
• Presentation: "The Problem of the Native Clergy in the Portuguese and Spanish Empires from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Centuries" by C.R. Boxer (2002)
• Presentation: "Missionaries, Migrants and the Manyika: The Invention of Ethnicity in Zimbabwe" by Terence Ranger (2002)

Ritual Studies:
   John Melloh, SM (ND)

• "Eat Drink Man Woman: a reflection on the film" (2002)
• "Divine Communication: Developing a Sense of the Liturgical" (2002)

Medieval Liturgies:
   Michael Driscoll (ND)

• "From Viking to Saint: How the Liturgy of St. Olav Created the Patron Saint and Eternal King of Norway" (2002)
• "The Architectural Context of Roman Stational Liturgy" (2002)
• "Antiphonaries: From the Eighth to Twelfth Centuries" (2002)
• "Sacerdotal Apologiae" (2002)
• "The Use of York: Usum Insignis Ecclesiae Eboracensis" (2002)

Studies in Medieval Liturgical Musical Sources:
   Calvin Bower (ND)

• "Sabbato in XII Lectionibus ad Sanctum Petrum: the thematic development of Mass Propers for the Saturday Liturgy of the Lenten Embertide" (2002)

Ecclesiology:
   Richard P. McBrien (ND)

• "An Account of the History, Justification and Implications of the Theological Concept of Reception" (2002)
• "Liberate, so that All in the Church may be Hand in Hand: a reflection paper on Francis Sullivan's The Church We Believe In" (2002)

The Eucharist:
   Michael Driscoll (ND)

• "The Opening Prayer of the Feast of Saint Polycarp: A Structural, Functional, and Contextual Analysis of the Collect" (2001)
• "An Historical Analysis of the Entrance Rites with Suggestions for Liturgical and Symbolic Celebration of the Rites" (2001)

Liturgical History:
   Maxwell Johnson (ND)

• "Sacramentarium Veronense: Presentation of the Verona (Leonine) Sacramentary" (2001)
• "The Apostolic Tradition and the Liturgical Renewal" and "The Liturgy of Justin Martyr" (2001)
• "An Outline of the Missale Romanum" (2001)

Reformation Theology:
   Randall Zachman (ND)

• "Edwards and Zinzendorf: What Draws One to Christ?" (2001)
• "Erasmus and Zwingli: To Fight or to Flee, that is the Question" (2001)
• "Luther and Erasmus on the Necessity of Certainty" (2001)
• "Christ in Spinoza and Reimarus: Prophet, Philosopher, or Rogue?" (2001)
• "Descartes and Kant: Error, Evil, and Freedom" (2001)

Theologians of Grace:
   Thomas O'Meara, OP (ND)

• "El Greco's The Baptism of Christ" (2001)

Anthropology (BA)

I earned my Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology at the University of California, San Diego.  While an undergraduate, I completed one year of my anthropological education at Københavns Universitetet.
For many classes, although not all, I wrote papers, available here in Adobe PDF.  You will need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader to view these files.

Bodies and Boundaries:
   Suzanne Brenner (UCSD)

• "Ordo Initiationis Christianae Adultorum: The Transformation to Catholicism: An Analysis of the Rituals, Symbols, and Tension Accompanying the Renewal of a Catholic Community" (2000)

The Rise and Fall of Ancient Israel:
   Ezra Marcus (UCSD, University of Haifa)

• "Class, Religion and Environment: A Study of the Influence of Environmental and Social Demands on the Religious Practices of Canaanite Seafarers in the Bronze Age and Beyond" (2001)

Literature, Writing, and Anthropology:
   Nigel Rapport (University of Copenhagen, University of St. Andrew's)

• "Clifford Geertz goes Subjective? A Review and Critique of Geertz's Contribution to Anthropology as a Form of Literature" (2000)

Medical Anthropology:
  Lola Romanuci-Ross (UCSD)

• "A Culture of Control: The Cultural Aspects of the Population Control Crisis And Western Values Embodied in Overpopulation" (1999)

Individuality, Community, and Morality:
   Nigel Rapport (University of Copenhagen, University of St. Andrew's)

• "Individuality, Anthropology, and Morality: An Existential Approach" (2000)

The Anthropology of Food:
   Michael Whyte (University of Copenhagen)

• "Ideology and Reform in the Swedish Kitchen" (1999)

Sociolinguistics:
   Sharon Rose (UCSD)

• "Language Attitudes"(2001)
• "Features of a non-standard Dialect: A Brazilian Case" (2001)

Ethnography of Christianity:
   David K. Jordan (UCSD)

• "The malleability of the Roman Catholic symbol system in accommodating the needs of individual Filipino and Polish immigrant communities in Copenhagen, Denmark" (2001)

Scandinavia Through an Anthropological Prism:
   Kirsten Hastrup (University of Copenhagen)

• "Peasant Values and Home-Centeredness as the Core of the Danish Nation-State" (1999)

Human Rights and Anthropology:
   Inger Sjørslev (University of Copenhagen)

• "Rights and the Power of States" (2000)

Psychological Anthropology:
   Tanya Luhrman (UCSD, University of Chicago)

• Midterm Exam (1999)
• Final Exam (1999)

The Sport of Anthropology:
   Sally Anderson (University of Copenhagen)

• "The Psycho-Spiritual Dimension of Aikido in Denmark" (1999)

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Philosophy

I have recently become interested in an area of philosophy known as pragmatism and the work of the early American pragmatists William James and John Dewey, as well as their modern advocates Richard Rorty, Hilary Putnam, and Louis Menand.  I am also interested in the thought of the nineteenth-century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard.  Over the past couple of years I have been exploring the essays of a sixteenth-century French literary genius who is apparently in vogue with postmodern scholars, Michel-Eyquen de Montaigne.

I completed a minor in Philosophy as an undergraduate at the University of California, San Diego.
Below are papers I wrote for my undergraduate philosophy courses, as well as a graduate philosophy course taken at the University of Notre Dame.  You will need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader to view these files.

Pragmatism:
   Niels Delaney (ND)

• "James's Theory of Truth and Pragmatic Doctrine of Reception" (2002)

Introduction to Hegel:
   Michael Hardimon (UCSD)

• "An Account of how Hegel's Conception of the Phenomenology of Spirit is Meant to Address the Concerns Raised in the Opening of the Introduction to the Phenomenology of Spirit" (2000)
• "Hegel and Cognition" (2000)

Contemporary Political Philosophy:
   Richard Arneson (UCSD)

• "Dworkin and Anderson: Competing Versions of What is Just in Society: Luck Egalitarianism or Democratic Equality?" (2001)

Introduction to Søren Kierkegaard:
   Brian Söderquist (University of Copenhagen)

• "Subjectivity and Truth in Søren Kierkegaard's Concluding Unscientific Postscript to 'Philosophical Fragments'" (2000)

Metaphysics:
   Gideon Yaffe (UCSD)

• "Interference, Counterfactuals, and Causation" (1999)
• "Do I Have to Know Who I Am in Order to Survive?" (1999)
• "An Examination of the Adequacy of the Agent-Causation Account of Free Will" (1999)

The Philosophy of Race:
   Michael Hardimon (UCSD)

• "Appiah's Account of the Racialist Concept of Race: Falseness and False Consciousness" (2001)

Ethics and Society:
   Ellen Comisso (UCSD)

• "On Personhood" (1998)
• "Business and War" (1998)

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History

Here are several papers that I wrote for other classes during my undergraduate education, which for lack of a better place to organize them, I have placed under the heading "History."  Most are historical papers of some sort, although several were written for my first-year Warren Scholars' Seminar.  You will need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader to view these PDFs.

Special Topics in Medieval History:
   Luce Giard (UCSD, CNRS)

• "The Venerable Bede and Alcuin of York's Influence on Medieval Education" (2001)
• "The Ecclesiastical History of the English People: Book One, Chapter Twenty-Five through Book Two, Chapter Two" (2001)

Reformation Europe:
   John Marino (UCSD)

• "The Appeal and Spread of Europe's 16th Century Reformations" (2001)
• "Person, Time and Conduct in a Seventeenth Century Puritan Artisan in London" (2001)
• "Final Exam: Compare and contrast the various Reformation movements. Calvin's Reply to Sadoleto. On Carlo Ginzburg's The Cheese and the Worms" (2001)

Danish Culture Course:
   Various Lecturers (University of Copenhagen)

• "Nationalism and Danish Identity in Epic History" (2000)

Warren Scholars Seminar:
   David K. Jordan (UCSD)

• "In His Image" (1997)
• "The Celtic Languages" (1997)
• "The Language of Eugenics" (1997)
• "The Cost of Technology" (1997)
• "An Historical Survey of the Influence on Western Society of the Roman Catholic Church's Position on Sexuality" (1998)
• "The Sexual State of Human Nature" (1998)

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