MA, Kent State University, 2017, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Philosophy

I explore certain acute and timely tensions between contemporary, postmodern philosophy and the popular status of religious tradition. Such tensions appear to draw much of their strength from two prominent sources: Nietzsche's announcement of the death of the transcendent God, and Heidegger's rejection of absolutist metaphysics. The problem is that if the transcendent God has become superfluous to thought, and the treatment of the absolute metaphysical nature of things has become taboo, then the special status of religious claims as revealed, absolute truths of a transcendent Being, and of the natures of the world and humanity, has been seriously called into question. I will show that a consideration of two particular religious thinkers – Martin Buber and Ralph Waldo Emerson – will equip us with a sophisticated response in the current philosophical environment of postmodernity, and provide us with the resources to construct a nuanced religious narrative of creation, sin, and salvation within the broader contexts of metaphysical immanence, epistemological intertwining, and ethical instrumentalization that has followed in the de-absolutizing path laid by, among others, Nietzsche and Heidegger. Through an examination of the dialogical relations between persons described by Buber, and the relations of discipline between persons and the world described by Emerson, we will be able to resurrect a sense of immanent, non-absolute religious practice in the era of postmodernity, after the death of the transcendent God and the end of absolutist metaphysics.

Committee: Frank Ryan (Advisor) Subjects: Philosophy

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2004, Theatre

This thesis exists in two parts, practical and written. The practical element was the direction of Ron Elisha's play TWO. The second part is this written thesis, which focuses on developing a critical framework for this play and others of its kind. Included in the written thesis will be an establishment of this critical framework, a structural analysis of Two, and an application of the aforementioned critical framework to the text of Two. Finally, a study of the application of this critical theory from a directorial standpoint will be undertaken, with special attention paid to the use of dramatic action as an expression of the changing nature of religious belief.

Committee: William Doan (Advisor) Subjects: Theater