Open Buddha

So, I finally got access to the online library at my program. This allows me to connect to California State University, Dominguez Hills’ online access. This, in turn, gave me access to UMI.

I’m going through a list, in reverse chronological order, of all of the MA theses approved in the program in the last few years. There are a few interesting ones but I’m looking for ones relevant to my interests in order to help me find an advisor.

This one popped out. I’m not sure whether to be impressed or just perplexed.

Title: ‘The Sandman’: Comics, myth and intertextuality (Neil Gaiman)
Author: Lewis, Dylan
School: CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, DOMINGUEZ HILLS
Date: 2004
Subject: LITERATURE, COMPARATIVE (0295); LITERATURE, ENGLISH (0593)
Abstract:
In my thesis, I examine the comic book series The Sandman by Neil Gaiman, in the context of modern myth building. I give a brief history of super hero comics and show the social dynamics that shape the genre. I illustrate the ways The Sandman uses past super heroes, historical and mythological figures in an intertextual interchange to create a mythological framework that accommodates and brings into accord earlier divergent mythic traditions. Through his narrative, Gaiman addresses traditionally marginalized people to demonstrate how people should treat each other. I also show how Gaiman’s work reinterprets and reinscribes traditional mythology into a new post modern context, thereby bridging differing tradition into a new mythic paradigm that serves modern spiritual needs.

Compare that one with the one entitled “Drawing God into man: The influence of Eric Voegelin’s theory of modern gnosticism on Walker Percy’s novelistic vision”.

Hmm…

Update: I’m looking at a selection from this one now. A little more up my alley:

Title: A refutation of dualism in the Christian gnostic tradition
Author: Williamson, Neil
School: CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, DOMINGUEZ HILLS
Date: 2004
Subject: RELIGION, PHILOSOPHY OF (0322); THEOLOGY (0469); RELIGION, HISTORY OF (0320)
Abstract:
This paper refutes the notion of Gnostic dualism and supports the notion of Gnostic monism, i.e., the Gnostic ethos concerned with the deliverance from error, not sin, through psycho-spiritual integration via epinoic/metanoic awareness. The Gnostics of the Nag Hammadi Library did not consider themselves heretics. However, the Church Fathers of the 1 st through 3rd centuries C.E. fought to eradicate the Gnostic notion of experienced religion, promulgating an authorized system of belief in its stead: extra ecclesiam nulla salvus. The potential of at-one-ness fragmented by Papal authority, the epinoic/metanoic function, inherent but latent in all human beings as an integrating, ground-of-being intelligence, was banished in favor of a rigidly hierarchal belief system. Had Valentinus, the most renowned of Gnostic thinkers, proved as politically adept as Clement I, Bishop of Rome, then Christianity perhaps would not have devolved into what Nietzsche contemptuously dismissed as a religion of slaves.