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Department of the Study of Religions

PhD Students

More information on the department’s PhD programme.

Recently Awarded PhDs

2011
  • Gregory Deacon The socio-economic role of Pentecostal Churches in Kibera, Nairobi (Prof  Gifford)
  • Lewis Doney Transforming Tibetan Kingship: The portrayal of Khri Srong lde brtsan in the early Buddhist Histories (Dr Ulrich Pagel)
  • Gwendolyn Heaner Destroying the Destroyer of Your Destiny: the Role(s) of Pentecostalism in Post-War Liberia (Prof  Gifford)
  • Satomi Horiuchi Expressing Emotions: Practices of Caring for the Dead in Contemporary Japanese Christianity (Dr L Dolce)
  • Fumi Ouchi The Somatic Nature of Enlightenment: Vocal Arts in the Japanese Tendai Tradition (Dr L Dolce)
  • Benedetta Lomi The Precious Steed of the Buddhist Pantheon: Ritual, Faith and Images of Bato Kannon in Japan (Dr L Dolce)
  • Ligeia Lugli The Conception of Language in Early Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism - With Special Reference to the Laṅkāvatārasūtra (Dr U Pagel)
  • Masaaki Okada Nature in the Healing and Farming Practices of Okada Mokichi of Sekai Kyusei Kyo (Dr L Dolce)
  • Rupinder Kaur Pamme The Pilgrimage To Takht Hazur Sahib and its Place in the Sikh Tradition (Prof  Shackle)
  • Emily Welty Faith-based NGOs, Peacebuilding and Development: the Mennonite Central Committee's work in East Africa (Prof  Gifford)
2010
  • William Henry Taylor Narratives of Identity: the Syrian Orthodox Church and the Church of England 1895-1914. (Dr  Hunter)
  • David Edward Azzopardi Religious Belief and Practice Among Sri Lankan Buddhists in the Uk (Dr K Crosby)
  • Kuan Guang Wutai Shan During the Ming Dynasty (Prof  Barrett)
  • Stefania Travagnin The Madhyamika Dimensions of Yin Shun: A Restatement of the School of Nagarjuna in 20Th Century Chinese Buddhism (Prof  Bocking)
  • Robert William James Wilfred Cantwell Smith's theory of Scripture Related To the Use of the Bible in African Anglicanism (Prof  Gifford)
  • Christine Bodewes Civil Society in Africa: the Role of A Catholic Parish in A Kenyan Slum (Prof  Gifford)
  • Christopher Allen Daily From Gosport To Canton: A New Approach To Robert Morrison and the Beginnings of Protestant Missions in China. (Prof  Barrett)
2009
  • Karel Peter Leonard Gerard Kersten Occupants of the Third Space: New Muslim intellectuals and the Study of Islam (Hasan Hanafi, Mohammed Arkoun, Murchilish Madjid). (Prof  Shackle)
  • Uranchimeg Borjigin Ujeed Indigenous Efforts and Dimensions of Mongolian Buddhism - Exemplified By the Mergen Tradition (Dr T Skorupski)
  • Hasan Ali Khan Shia-Ismaili Motifs in the Sufi Architecture of the indus Valley 1200 - 1500 (Prof  Shackle)
  • James Alexander Kapalo Text, Context, Performance: the Lay institutions of Gagauz Orthodoxy (Prof Gifford)
2008
  • Catherine Sarah Newell Monks, Meditation and Missing Links: Continuity, "Orthodoxy" and the Vijja Dhammakaya in Thai Buddhism. (Dr K Crosby)
  • Katherine Louise Wharton Philosophy As A Practice of Freedom in Ancient india and Ancient Greece (Dr T Proferes)
  • Adil Hussain Khan Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and the Construction of the Ahmadiyya Identity. (Prof  Shackle)
2007
  • Joanna Elizabeth Marie Sadgrove The Condom Culture Is Not the Kingdom Culture': Dissonant Discourses & Secret Sex Amongst Born-Again University Students in Uganda (Prof  Gifford)
  • Gianpaolo Vetturini The Bka' Gdams Pa School of Tibetan Buddhism (Dr T Skorupski)
  • Sian Melvill Hawthorne Origins, Genealogies and the Politics of Mythmaking: Towards A Feminist Philosophy of Myth (Prof  Gifford)
  • Eamon Francis Adams Towards the Reform of Korean Buddhism During the Japanese Colonial Period, 1910-1935 (Prof  Bocking)
2006
  • Hugh James Osgood African Neo-Pentecostal Churches and British Evangelicalism 1985-2005; Balancing Principles and Practicalities (Prof  Gifford)
  • Ho Young Lee Dai Zhen's Philosophy of  Ethical Human Being (Prof  Barrett)
  • Ornella Corazza Consciousness and Place': the Phenomenology of the Near-Death Experience (Nde) and Similar States induced By Dissociative Anaesthesia (Dr C Zene)
  • Annette Benaim Judeo-Spanish Testimonies in 16th-Century Responsa (Dr  Stern)
  • Felix Jere Phiri Local Muslim Associations As A Contemporary Way of Isla,Mization in Zambia (Prof  Gifford)
  • Jane Elizabeth Clifford Gender, Social Change and Spiritual Power: A Study of Charismatic Christianity in Accra, Ghana (Prof  Gifford)
  • Sharmina Mawani The Construction of Identities Amongst Young Adult Nizari Ismailis in Toronto and Mumbai (Prof  Shackle)
  • Oliver Paul Scharbrodt Reconciling Religious Dissidence in Early Baha'Ism and in the Salafiyya: A Comparative Study of 'Abdul-Baha  'Abbas (1844-1921) and Muhammad 'Abduh (1849-1905) (Prof Shackle)
  • Abdollah Guivian Religion, Television and Culture in Post-Revolutionary Iran (Dr C Zene)
2005
  • Vena Radha Ramphal A Word On Movement: Thinking Approaches To the Dancing  Body (Dr C Zene)
  • Matthew Muriuki Karangi The Sacred Mugumo Tree: Revisiting the Roots of Gikuyu Cosmology and Worship. A Case Study of the Gicugu Gikuyu of Kirinyaga District in Kenya (Dr C Zene)
  • Chengzhong Pu Kindness Towards Animals in Early Chinese Buddhism (Prof  Barrett)
  • Anastasia Karaflogka Religious Discourse and Cyberspace (Prof  Bocking)
  • Chi Ho Ivan Hon Chinese intellectuals' Reconstruction of Confucianism in the Late 19th and Early 20th Century China (Prof  Bocking)
  • Senevi Aturupana Saddha: An Analytical Study of its Role in  theravada Buddhism (Dr T Skorupski)
  • Jonah Avriel Cohen Religious Appreciation and the Mundane-Sacred: A Neglected Area of Philosophy (Dr C Zene)
  • Elena Moreddu Sacred Places in Sardinia - Cumbessias Villages, Sacredness, and the Dialectic of the Work of Art (Dr C Zene)
  • Ci Yuan The Bodhisativa Ideal in Selected Buddhist Scriptures (its theoretical and Practical Evolution) (Dr T Skorupski)
  • Fang-Long Shih Dead Maidens in Taiwan: Breaking Down Chinese Religious Tradition (Dr C Zene)
  • Susan Elizabeth Prill The Sant Tradition and Community formation in the Works of Guru Nanak and Dadu Dayal (Prof  Shackle)
Thomas Alberts
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Indigenous Modernity: Shamanism, Discourse and the Study of Religions

Husam Almallak
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Post-Secular Islamic Religiosity: A Nietzschean Reading of Ibn ‘Arabi’s Hermeneutics of Transvaluation


Barakatullo Ashurov
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Tarsākyā: an analysis of Sogdian Christianity based on Archaeological, Numismatic, Epigraphic and Textual Sources.

Alexandra Buhler
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Historical analysis of the role which Zoroastrians played during the institutional revolution in Iran (1905-11).


Hannah Bartos
Hannah Bartos (née Jenkin)

Organizing Transnational Yoga in the UK & India: Institutionalization, Globalization & Complexity.


Afework Beyene
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Jews and Jerusalem in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church: A Reassessment.

Serena Biondo
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The life and Teachings of the 10th-century Tibetan Master A ro Ye shes ‘Byung gnas"

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Jessica Bloom
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Naming in the Hebrew Bible.


Graham Burns
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Philosophical study on ways in which Vedic Upanishads present reality.


David Cohen
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Abrabanel’s Commentary on the Biblical Book of Genesis: Selected Translation and Stylistic Analysis.

Aristotle Dy
Aristotle Dy

Marginal Buddhists: Religion, Social Work, and Cultural Identity of the Chinese in the Philippines


Ahmet Riza Emiroglu
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The Exploration of the Idea of Emanation through the Comparison between the Islamic and Indian Philosophies with Special Reference to Ibn Sīnā and Abhinavagupta.

Nazneen Engineer
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Intermarriage and Conversion in Zoroastrianism.


Federico Filippi
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The Ontological Positions of the Buddha in the discourses of the Pali Nikayas.

Richard Godwin
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Late Sassanian Persia, the Culture of the Church of the East and Tang Imperial Patronage.


Jennifer Griggs
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Language of spiritual love in Sufism and Eastern Christianity.

Eleanor Tiplady Higgs
Eleanor Tiplady Higgs

Christianity and transnational feminism in the Kenyan women's movement (working title)

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Satomi Horiuchi
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Contemporary Japanese Christianity: Ancestors, rites and graves

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Prabhjap Singh Jutla
Prabhjap Singh Jutla

Hindutva and the Construction of Sikh Identity: A Political and Intellectual History, c. 1877-2004.


Heewon Kim
Kim Heewon

The UPA, Communalism and Post-Conflict Responses (2004-2009).


James Kimball
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The soteriological role of the ṛṣi Kapila in the Yuktidīpikā: the production and transmission of liberating knowledge in classical Sāṃkhya.

Man Shik Kong
Man Shik Kong

A Study of Attitude to Food in Canonical and Commentarial Texts of Theravada Buddhism.


Pyi Kyaw
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A Living Tradition of Paṭṭhāna: A Study of the Roles of The Conditional Relations (Paṭṭhāna) in the context of Contemporary Burmese Buddhism.


Jennifer Langer
Jennifer Langer

Exile from Exile: The Representation of Cultural Memory in Literary Texts by Contemporary Exiled Iranian Jewish Women Writers.

Samantha Langsdale
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Damaged Bodies: Gendering Identity in Religious Discourse.


Ralph Lee
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Symbolic Interpretations in Ethiopic and Ephremic Literature

Kigensan Licha
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The Esoterization of Soto Zen in Medieval Japan

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Karen Liljenberg
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A Critical Study of the "Thirteen Later Translations" of the Dzogchen Mind Series

Hung-Chih Lo
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Chinese Religious Dress, 5th-9th Centuries CE


Jennifer Loh
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Exploring the construction of 'political identity' among Kinnars in Madhya Pradesh, India.

Yaara Morris
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The Cult of Tenkawa Benzaiten – her rituals, texts, and mandalas.


Shinya Mano
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Yôsai and the development of Zen-Esoteric Buddhism.

Farah Mihlar
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Fundamentalisms amongst the Muslims of Sri Lanka.


Bhikkhu Nagasena
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The significance of the Sima (Buddhist Monastic Boundary) in Burmese Theravada: Authority and Practice


Janine Nicol
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Daoxuan and the Shijia fangzhi: The Creation of a Buddhist Sacred Geography of China.

Steven O'Donnell
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Sovereignty and apocalypticism in US and Muslim rhetoric.


Masaaki Okada
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Nature in the Healing and Farming Practices of Okada Mokichi of Sekai Kyusei Kyo

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Sayam Patthranuprawat
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Literary analysis of the narrative methods of stories in the Maharbatha.


Samani Pratibha Pragya
Samani Pragya

Prekṣā Dhyāna: History and Practice


Zara Ramsay
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Religion, Gender and Development: Women’s Empowerment in South India


Niranjan Saha
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Philosophy of Advaita as Presented in the Gitagudharthadipika of Madhusudana Sarsavti

Shamaila Sarwar
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The life and works of the twentieth century Pakistani Islamic mystic, Sufi Abu Anees Barkat Ali (d. 1997), and the origins and development of the khānaqah of Dār Ul Ehsān


Shi Longdu
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Buddhism and the State in Medieval China: A Case Study of Three Persecutions of Buddhism in Chinese History, 446-845


Kazumi Taguchi
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Beyond Tokugawa Confucianism: Soseki and Neo-Edo taste in the Meiji Bun'jin Community


George Warner
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Representations of Precedent in Early Shi'i Literature.


Arash Zeini
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The Pahlavi Version of the Yasna Haptahāiti.