April 2024
2024 RELIGION DEPARTMENT AWARD RECIPIENTS:
Paul B. Courtright Prize for Overall Excellence among Majors in the Department:
- 1st Place: Hunter Collins
- 2nd Place: Chase G. Wolfsohn
John Fenton Prize in the Comparative Study of Religion, Undergraduate:
- Shreyas Rajagopal
John Fenton Prize in the Comparative Study of Religion, Graduate Division
- Yildirim Riza
Eugene Bianchi Prize in Religion:
- Marwah B. Ismail
Congratulations to the 2023-2024 Honors Students:
- Morgan Lindsey Ames for completing Honors with Highest Honors. Thesis: “Chosen Nations: Appearances of Civil Religion in US-Israel Cold War Policy
- Kitty Wells Graham for completing Honors with High Honors. Thesis: “Reflective Architecture: How Sacred Architecture Facilitates Ethical Reflection”
- Mari B. Ismail for completing Honors with Highest Honors. Thesis: “Shaping Somali Society: The Impact of the Somali Civil War Religious Adherence and Identity
- Noa Mishell for completing Honors with Highest Honors. Thesis: “‘But Not Too Jewish:’ An Evaluation of Jewish Holidays in Television Comedies from 2000-2023”
- Shreyas Rajagopal for completing Honors with High Honors. Thesis: “Journeys to the Transcendent: Finding Mount Kallasa in Texts, Topography, and Temples”
We are happy to announce this year’s Beardslee Prize in Religious Literature Recipients:
- 1st Place: Yijin Li, for their paper: “Carlos Cosmin Man as an Image of Worship”
- 2nd Place: Paige Scanlon, for their paper: “A Freudian, Malinowskian, and LaMothian Interpretation of Wim Hof’s Method”
- Honorable Mention: LiLi Sundberg, for their paper: “Nature, Sacred Final Project”
The Department of Religion thanks every student that submitted papers for our Annual William A. Beardslee Literature submission.
We would also like to congratulate the 2024 Theta Alpha Kappa (TAK), The National Honor Society for Religious Studies and Theology Inductees:
- Hunter Collins
- Yijin Li
- Sophie Ravina
- Paige Scanlon
- Sherlyn Shao