Rumi & Ibn Al-Arabi & Clement & Tertullian were in Lund

I don't think the abovementioned two early church fathers ever realised they would become the topic of an RRE master thesis and probably neither so did the two Sufis in the header. 
(They should feel honored, that's what I want to say.)

Anyways, last Thursday Leila Rezaee (5th cycle) presented her thesis on Jesus in Ibn Al-Arabis Fusus al-hisham and in Rumi's Mathnawi. Paula Dubbink (4th cycle) presented about veiling and dress in Clement's Paidagogos and in Tertullian's De Cultu Feminarum and De Virginibus Velandis. After the presentation, the other student asked questions regarding the thesis to the presenter and later also the audience could join in. This led to lively discussions, after which everyone was happy to get drinks&snacks and celebrate. :)

Congratulations, Leila and Paula! 

Discussion time

Professors (Samuel Rubenson, Jonas Otterbeck, Henrik Rydell and Andreas Westergren) and snacks  (cheese, bread, kex, pretzels, chips) afterwards. ;-)

(The careful reader might realise that the girl with the white blouse is me, so I am congratulating myself in this blog. Sorry. Anyways, who takes over this blog? Who? WHO?! Mail me if you're interested, 6th and 7th cycle students!)

/PD

Two MA theses on Augustine

As written before, we in Lund had the pleasure to attend the thesis defense of two 5th cycle students on Tuesday. Coincidentally both theses concerned the writings of Augustine! The two graduates are Kyraki Arvaniti with her thesis "From Nicomachean Ethics to City of God. A study on evolution from metriopatheia to passions and sins" and Annamaria Laviola with "Interchangeable Bodies. The Materialization of Bodies in Augustine’s thoughts on marriage and virginity."

I only could attend the presentation of Annamaria, but I have heard that both students did a very good job. Now they will have a week to revise their theses based on the comments that they received during the seminar and then they will be real RRE graduates. Congratulations, Annamaria and Kyriaki - great work! 

Annamaria during her presentation

Kyriaki giving comments

Pondering professors

The two students after the defense

/PD

PS. I'm sure that there must be more people who have finished just before summer, but I only know about Lund. Did you finish or do you know others? Send me some pictures and/or write a blog yourself and it will be uploaded! :-) DS.

Right now in room B353 of LUX in Lund...

two fifth cycle students defend their theses on Augustine! Stay on for more info...or drop by. Until 5.30, drinks on the 4th flour afterwards.

/PD

Is the RRE Blog still alive?

Yes, it is. It was just in a state of hibernation, which really isn't that strange if you think about Scandinavian winters. 

But we're back with great news: another student graduating from the program! 
About two weeks ago, Ivana from Serbia handed in her thesis. Me and Thomas visited her on her last full day in Copenhagen. In between catching up over a good cup of coffee and eating Asian food at Wagamama (we recommend), she showed us det Kongelige Bibliotek - Copenhagen's very new Royal Library, which is also known as the Black Diamond. 
It's a great building with fantastic architecture and a majestic atmosphere. We were highly impressed. Go to Copenhagen, ye prospective RREs. :-)

Ivana and her thesis in front of the room where she spent many hours writing 

Some images of the library, but they don't really do justice to the building. 

By Ivana's request, I had to include a picture with all of us on it. Allright then.

Ivana, congratulations!

/PD

Fin(n)ish(ed) - another graduation!

Is there only good news from Lund? Of course not - this message is somewhat delayed, but on June 16th, two students from Helsinki received their degrees! Their names are Zejian Zeng (from China) and Tanya Milova, who is from Russia. Big congratulations to both of you; you can be proud!  We wish you all luck with whatever future plans you have.

/PD

BREAKING NEWS - Theses being defended!

Is anything happening here in RRE? The blog might give the impression that there's not, but of course there is. Actually, we have BREAKING NEWS.

Right now, two students from Lund are defending their thesis. This morning we discussed the work of Avram Ginju with the title "Beyond the sacred text: the role of emotions in the Rabbinic and Patristic exegesis on Genesis 22". Right now we are to resume with Rasuole Baleisaite-Sabakoniene's thesis "Differences in the ascetic behaviour in the Sahih al-Bukhari and the Synoptic Gospels through the stories related to Muhammad and Jesus."

Very impressive and an inspiration to all of us who will also write our thesis in the coming months or year!

Fltr: Rasuole, professor Samuel Rubenson, and Avram. Introduction before the defense began.

Communal lunch during the break between the two defenses at Govindas.

/PD. Pictures: Ann Jeanette Søndbø Ekberg

Lund blog

Two blogs a month - wasn't that what I promised? I'll have to hurry up... *Badconscience*

As I am still living and studying in Lund, this blog unavoidably gets focused a lot on this little town that tries to belong to Sweden, while the rest of the country thinks that it's almost Danish. Sorry for that. ;-)

On Wednesday, we here in Lund had a thesis seminar, where we and our supervisors talked about the status quo of our dear master theses. Funnily enough it seems that our supervisors have more faith in our chances of finishing in time (i.e. beginning of June) than we have ourselves. Let's wait and see who will be right.

The afternoon was also an excellent opportunity to take some pictures with the entire fourth cycle in Lund. As one of us normally studies on distance, we don't get to gather too often in front of Theologicum with the four of us. We also took some pictures with the supervisors and with Avram, a student from a previous cycle who also finishes his thesis right now.

The day ended with a dinner at an Italian restaurant together with some 5th cycle students (also one from Copenhagen, hooray!) and with other people who for some inunderstandable reason know what the abbreviation RRE stands for. Härligt! As quite some people said: "we should do this more often."

/PD

Fourth cycle in Lund. Fltr: Anna, Thomas, Rasuole & Paula

we are currently busy studying....please leave a message after the beeping sound

 The road is loooong. Or my bibliography is, at least. Here are some of the books I am currently reading

RREprofessors are truly dedicated. I sent Antti Marjanen an email early in the week to ask about an article he had written, and five days later it was in my postbox:)

Since Annie is currently studying for her Latin exam, I added this picture, which is the list of  assignments for the Latin text course "Pagans and Christians-Dialogue and Polemics" I did last autumn. Good luck with your exam Annie :) And the same goes to the rest of the RRE`s, of course!

one of lifes big questions: what should you do for your master thesis?

As most Nordic students, we are on facebook, and my cycle has its own facebookgroup aswell, which is great for sharing ideas and asking questions. Often the questions would be something like this: "Did anyone understand what to do for this weeks assignment?" "When is the deadline for chosing free or fixed exam?" "How many assignments might we miss?" "Where are people planning to stay for the Oslo seminar?"
This semester most of us are writing our thesis, and the facebookgroup is not so actively used anymore. But about a month ago (or maybe more, my memory is bad) I asked people to tell me what their thesis project is about, cause I was thinking it might be of interest to other people then supervisors and your computers document folder.

Here are some projects (copypasted directly from facebookgroup) :

-  My thesis working title is at the moment "The Angel of the Lord as a destructive and menacing angel in the Hebrew Bible". The main point is to view the ambiguous figure of "malak Yahweh" as a distinctive being from God concentrating on the passages where this figure functions as a "angel of destruction"

-  working title: Islamophobia Online?Study Case of a YouTube Video
and the outline (copypaste from the TC): In this thesis paper I examine a contemporary YouTube video, which presents an anti-Islam stance. In my opinion, this video can be seen as a part of a phenomenon of an "intellectual" anti-Islamic notion. While criticism is an important part of modern society , this video and similar Online videos and texts can be seen as crossing a border line between legitimate criticism and promoting Islamophobia.

-the Image of Eve in Judaism, Christianity and Islam". I will look at texts from Hebrew Bible, Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, New Testament and Quran and analyze them with the regard of two main topics connected with Eve: her creation and the fall

-the title is "Saint Ephrem the Syrian on Eschatology in the Hymns on Paradise". i just focus on 15 poems of ST. Ephrem, and explore his thoughts of Eschatology. the Fall of Adam and Eve, the salvation of Christ, the finial judgement, Ephrem's ascetic thought, ect. would be considered.

-I'm focusing on Book 11 of Augustine's Confessions, where he expounds his theory of time, and I'll be looking at whether or not he can be said to be writing as a mystic there. I might take up parts of Book 9 as well where he has a famous mystical experience in Ostia.


In addition to this, I know that we have people working with Atonement in the Dead Sea Scrolls/ community, Eco-theology, The Attitude Towards Armed Warfare in the Early Christian Church,
how martyrdom and persecution influenced the Christian self-understanding, Christian theologians of Arab background, topics related to gender and religion...

well, you get the picture. people are working with a lot of different and cool stuff. If you are reading this blog, working at a Nordic or other university and thinking: this person sounds perfect for our newly planned project about..., then dont hesitate! Contact us and we will put you in contact with the person working with the project you are interested in (if the person agrees to of course). Or maybe you just think it interesting to read one or more of the thesis, again, please tell us.

religiousroots@gmail.com is where to find us :)


-Hilde