First Place:

Eric Gottlieb (History)
“A Text Without Context: Situating the Manichaean Psalmbook Within the Religious, Political, and Socioeconomic Milieu of Fourth to Fifth Century Egypt”

Second Place:

Susannah Paine (Religious Studies)
“Faith, Gender, and Resistance: Women’s Responses to the Henrician Reformation”

Sally Hirschwerk (History)
“(Re)claiming Religion: An Exploration of the Development of Clinical Pastoral Education and its Impact on Religious Chaplaincy during the AIDS Pandemic”

Third Place:

Elijah O. Dahunsi (Religious Studies)
“In Spirit and Truth: Towards a Medical Epistemology of New Orleans’s Early 20th Black Spiritualist Healers”

Honorable Mentions:

Genevieve Baldwin (Religious Studies)
“Heretic, Rebel, a Thing to Flout: A Historical and Theo-Political Analysis of Unitarian Universalist Youth Tradition”

Merzia Jilani (Religious Studies)
“Between The Veils Of Green And Saffron: Unveiling the Hidden Layers of Ismaili Identity in the Subcontinent” 

First Place shared by:

Ariela Rosenzweig (Religious Studies)
“‘And Sara is one of the Egyptians’: The Holocaust-Jew in Bosnia, Auschwitz, and Palestine”

Matthew Granquist (Religious Studies)
“Surviving Hegemonic Collapse: Investigating the Sŏn Buddhist Response to Neo-Confucian Criticisms in Early Chosŏn through Kihwa’s Hyŏngjŏng Non”

Honorable Mentions:

Colin Wire (Archaeology and the Ancient World)
“Imperial Cult in Archaeological Borderlands: A New Approach from the Dakhla Oasis”

Isabel L. Simmons (Religious Studies)
“From Pews To Posts: An analysis of Madison Prewett Troutt and Evangelical Womanhood in the Digital Age”

John Lyons Michaud (Classics)
“Carmina, Prata, et Divinum: A Brief Survey of Ancient Christian Use of Virgil’s Pastoral Landscape”

First Place shared by:

Adelaide E. Ezersky (Religious Studies)
“Is Hip Hop Just A Euphemism for a New Religion?: Kanye West, Rap Music, and Religious Exploration”

Sean T. Fischer (Religious Studies)
“Calcified Sanctity: Belief and Affect in the Veneration of Early Medieval Relics”

Honorable Mentions:

Anna R. Brinkhuis (Religious Studies)
“The Supreme Court Shall Make No Law: The Right of Minorities to Religious Freedom”

John S. Coady (Religious Studies)
“All My Enemies Are Cultists: The Social Weaponization of Religious Categorization As Seen In Plymouth, Massachusetts”

First Place shared by:

Noah Baum (Religious Studies)
“Reparation at Origin: Hypermasculinity, Natality, and Intergenerational Trauma in John Steinbeck’s East of Eden”

Clara Epstein (History)
“‘By Means Of The Bible It All Began’: Liberation Theology in Salvadoran Popular Resistance and the Emergence of the Tucson Sanctuary Movement, 1980-1986”

Nesya Nelkin (History)
“‘On Curses and Issues in the Women’s Synagogue’: The Social and Religious Centrality of Women’s Synagogues in Ashkenaz, 1350-1500”

First Place shared by:

Aaron Cooper (Religious Studies)
 “Terrifying Potential: Toward A Cartography of White Being”
  Advisor: Andre Willis

Keiko Cooper-Hahn (Religious Studies)
 “A Servant of Two Masters? Tunisia’s Claim to Both Secularism and State Islam”
  Advisor: Andre Willis  

Chihye (Naomi) Kim (English)
 “'An Interesting Planet': The Ecotheology of Marilynne Robinson's Fiction”
  Advisor: James Kuzner

Honorable Mention:

Emily Pham (Religious Studies)
 “Hospital Spiritual Care in Rhode Island during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Interviews on the Chaplain Experience”
  Advisor: Jason Protass

First Place shared by:

Virginia Schilder (Religious Studies)
“Gender, Power, and Faithful Dissent: Women Challenging Clericalism in the Roman Catholic Church”

Shuangxia Wu (Religious Studies)
“Unfolding the Epitaphs: A Peek into the Lives of Muslim Women in Late Imperial China”

Isaac Leong (History)
“Rituals of Justice”

First Place shared by:

Hannah M. Santos (Religious Studies)
“Addressing Religious Literacy in Rhode Island Public School Textbooks”

Daniel Z. Satlow (Religious Studies)
“Materialism, Messianism and the Nation-State: The Influence of Rav Kook on the Zionist Project”

Arthur G. Schechter (Religious Studies)
“The Religious Origins and Function of Baconian Induction: A Study”

First Place:

 Sienna Lotenberg (History)
“‘Blessed is She Who in the Beginning Gave Birth’: An Intellectual History of the Brown Women's Minyan and the Student Pioneers of American Jewish Feminism.”

Second Place:

Samuel B. Hainbach (Religious Studies)
“Sacred, Patriotic, Public: The Zionism of Abba Hillel Silver”

Third Place:

 Katherine Chu (History)
“British Protestant Missionaries in Interwar Egypt: Uneven Encounters in Imperial Contexts”

Honorable Mention:

Clemencia Garcia-Kasimirowski (History of Art & Architecture)
“Reshaping the Refugee Camp: Makeshift Islamic Architecture in Ritsona, Greece”

First Place:

Joshua Kurtz (Religious Studies)
“Notes Toward an Attentivve Politics: Simone Weil and the Theory of Decreation”

Second Place shared by:

Melodi Hamiye Dincer (Religious Studies)
“I Sing the Body Electric: The Syntheist Movement and Creating God in the Internet Age”

Noah Williams Fitzgerel (Religious Studies)
“Whiteness, Colorblindness, and Common Experience: Resituating American Civil Religion”

First Place:

Rachel Leiken (Religious Studies)
“‘Have you got good religion?’: Positioning Religion in a Landscape of Racial Justice Work”

Second Place:

Darien Acero (Religious Studies)
“Nietzsche and Dōgen: A Conversation”

Third Place shared by:

Hannah Liu (Religious Studies)
“Processional Pathways: Public Assertion of Religious Identity in Late Antique Rome”

Josh Silver (Religious Studies)
“Blurring Boundaries, Clarifying Connections: World of Warcraft and the Creative Actions of its Users”

First Place shared by:

Rachel Himes (Religious Studies)
“Christ and Crisis: Sacral Rhetoric in Late Byzantine Imperial Representation”

Thaya Uthayophas (Philosophy, Politics, Economics)
“Law and Religion in Thailand”

Second Place:

Alexander Sogo (Religious Studies)
“A Study of Roman Amulets and Ancient Healing Practices”

Honorable Mentions:

Adison Marshall (Religious Studies)
“The Voice of the Pythia: Drugs and Agency at Delphi”

William Underwood (Religious Studies)
“Atrium Church and the Trouble with Christian Speech in a Secular, Postmodern Society”

First Place shared by:

Thomas Finley (History)
“'A Church Where Jesus is Real'" Race, Religiosity and the Legacies of Protest Activism in the Church of God in Christ, 1968-1989”

Joshua Schenkkan (Religious Studies)
“The Imaged Dead and the Ethics of Rupture: Thinking with George Bataille and Judith Butler”

Honorable Mentions:

Elizabeth Carroll (Religious Studies)
“Ida Robinson and the Mount Sinai Holy Church: Towards a Greater Understanding of Ida Robinson as Mother Assuming Authority in the Public Sphere”

Julia P. Elstrodt (Religious Studies)
“The Sacred Practice of Psychotherapy: An Argument for the Inclusiion of Spirituality in Psychology”

First Place: 

Lex Rofes (Judaic Studies)
“More than Words on a Page: An Exploration of the Jewish Kol Nidre Declaration”

Second Place: 

Eric Young (Religious Studies)
“Sacred Land, Sacred Community: The Interface of Catholicism and the Environmental Work of New Orleans and East Vietnamese Americans”

Third Place shared by:

Benjamin Marcus (Religious Studies)
“On Religious Literacy and Easy Definitions: A Survey-Based Look at the Complexity of Religious Identity Formation and Perception”

Michael Z. Mezera (Religious Studies)
“New Democrats: Two Contemporary Approaches to Religious Reasoning, Pluralism, and Organizing in the Public Sphere”

Honorable Mentions:

Hiroe Hu (Contemplative Psychology)
“The Concept of Self in Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy and Morita Therapy: The Similarities and Differences in the Therapeutic Mechanisms, Philosophies, and Methods”

Elizabeth Matthews (Religious Studies)
“Interpretations of Ahlquist v. City of Cranston: Inter-spherical Relationships and the Threat of Alienation in Public Discourse”

Matthew Peterson (Religious Studies)
“From Heaven to Earth: On the Religious and Aesthetic in Feuerbach, Wagner, and Nietzche”