Academic writing on religion and related subjects

Below are links to some of my academic papers, available to read online or download on scribd.





Multiculturalism, Religion, and Accommodation:
The Hmong in the United States, and Susan Moller Okin on
Women in American Constitutional Theory

written for
Politics and Religion
Prof. Jean L. Cohen
Columbia University
Fall 2013

read this paper on scribd

 Thomas Edison's Apparatus for Talking with the Dead:

Imagining Spiritual Technologies in America

written for
Secular and Spiritual America
Prof. Courtney Bender
Columbia University
Fall 2013

read this paper on scribd

Ida Craddock:
Outrider in the Borderlands of Body and Spirit

written for
Religion and the Sexual Body
Prof. Katherine Ewing
Columbia University
Fall 2013

read this paper on scribd

The Beloved in the Mirror:
The Seer and the Seen in Sufi Poetry

written for
Honors Seminar in Religion
Prof. Barbara Sproul
Hunter College, CUNY
Spring 2010

read this paper on scribd

Religious Ideas in Naguib Mahfouz’s
Fountain and Tomb

Written for

Thomas Hunter Honors Colloquium

Topics in Arabic Culture and Literature

Profs. Jonathan Shannon and Christopher Stone

Hunter College, CUNY

Spring 2007

read this paper on scribd

Suffering, Theodicy, and the Devil
in Job, Anthony, and Luther

Written for
History of the Devil
Prof. Sarah Covington
Queens College, CUNY
Spring 2009

read this paper on scribd

paint palette world
a poem with commentary

Presented in
Emerson & Thoreau
Prof. Nicholas Birns
Eugene Lang The New School
Fall 2011

read this poem on scribd
read the commentary on scribd
view the slide show on picasa

For the Emerson & Thoreau class, I kept a
blog of various items related to our readings
and discussions on Transcendentalism:

Emerson & Thoreau class blog

Following up on my previous post announcing the exhibit at the Morgan Library, Treasures of Islamic Manuscript Painting from the Morgan. It is on view until January 29th, 2012.

I visited this exhibit a couple of weeks ago and it is superb.
There are a variety of styles of painting and of calligraphy, beautifully exhibited and well explained. The artwork is breathtaking.

Some of the highlights are:

• A series illustrating the story of Lailā va Majnūn, a story of a star-crossed historical couple of the seventh century C.E.

• the Read and Mughal albums, acquired by the Morgan in 1911.

• as mentioned in my previous post on this, an album depicting the life of Rumi, never before exhibited.

• several pieces depicting composite animals, including Peri Riding a composite Lion. A detail from this:

I enthusiastically recommend seeing this.

If you cannot make it to the Morgan to see it up-close and personal while the exhibit is up, you can see it online by clicking here.