"Suicide in the forms of martyrdom, self-sacrifice, or self-immolation is perennially controversial: Should it rightly be termed suicide? Does religion sanction it? Should it be celebrated or anathematized? At least some idealization of such self-chosen deaths is found in every …
The essays in Martyrdom, Self-Sacrifice, and Self-Immolation address the delicate subject of those elective deaths which can be categorized as religiously sanctioned suicides. Broadly condemned as cowardice across the world's moral codes, suicide under certain circumstances-such…
Sanctified Aggression allies itself neither with the easy assumption that religions are by definition violent (and that only the secular/humanist/humane can offer a place of refuge from the ravages of religious authority) nor with the equally facile opposing view that religion e…
Early Christian martyr literature was composed in an ancient Mediterranean world in which a variety of literary and performance genres abounded across porous group boundaries. Noting this cultural vibrancy, a number of scholars have emphasized that martyr texts exhibit generic h…
The twentieth-century Chinese experience has been marked and marred by warfare, violent revolution, and death on an unimaginable scale. For many, how to come to terms with the ubiquity of death and how to find meaning in the century’s carnage and bloodshed were among the most ex…
This thesis examines the use of sacrificial language in the Martyrdom of Polycarp (Mart. Pol.). At several points in the text, the author of Mart. Pol. uses language that demonstrates that he interprets Polycarp’s martyrdom as a sacrifice. To support my argument, I analyze descr…
Martyrdoms by beheading are not uncommon in hagiographic narratives. In fact, it is one of the most common forms of martyrdom. In 8th century Francia, the beheading of Saint Denis became rose to national prestige. Saint Denis, the patron saint of Paris, engaged in a unique and o…
In this dissertation I examine the missionary experiences of Franciscan friars in the lands of Islam--including a number that resulted in martyrdom--and the ways that Franciscans remembered, elaborated and transformed these encounters through the construction of a martyrology de…
In this dissertation, I ask what happens to our understanding of transnational jihadism, and specifically the work of al-Qaeda if we enter into dialogue with jihadists on what they advance and elide in their use of martyrdom operations qua politics through the use of comparative…