Dissertation Abstracts

Contents

Institution	Title	Page
Baylor University	Authoritarianism and the Catholic Church in Latin America .......................................................94
Boston University	Sacramental Materialism: Don DeLillo, Catholicism, and Community ............94
Florida Atlantic	University Beyond Culture Wars: The Role of Christian Religiosity in the Public Support for Social Safety Net Policies in Contemporary America ........95
Fordham University	Private Catholic Elementary Schools Established by Religious Congregations in the United States: Emerging Governance Models ........96
State University of New York at Buffalo	Relatives, Refugees, and Reform: Italian Americans and Italian Immigration during the Cold War, 1945-1965 ..........................................97
State University of New York at Stony Brook	Leading Together: A Grounded Theory Study of Women Religious, the Power of Collaborative Leadership and the Development of an Extensive Social Services Network ...........................................98
University of Toledo	"Come into the habits of civilized life": Nineteenth Century Catholic and Protestant Missionaries in Upper Michigan ..............................99

We include here selected dissertation abstracts in the fields of U.S. Catholic history, sociology, theology, architecture, art, cinema, music, popular movements, and related areas that we believe our readers will find to be of particular interest. Those interested in submitting an abstract for possible publication in the dissertation section of American Catholic Studies should do so electronically to americancatholicstudies@villanova.edu in Microsoft Word format.

Baylor University

Edmonds, A. "Authoritarianism and the Catholic Church in Latin America," Ph.D. diss., Baylor University, 2010. In Dissertations & Theses: Full Text [database on-line]; available from http://www.proquest.com (publication number AAT 3407780; accessed January 25, 2011).

This research examines the relationship between the Catholic Church and the military regimes in Latin America in the latter half of the twentieth century. Although prevailing theories explain church behavior regarding authoritarianism in reference to Protestant competition, I argue that church opposition is best explained by institutional arrangements in two ways. First, whether the church opposes authoritarianism is contingent on the degree of institutional autonomy the church possesses. Secondly, the strength of the opposition depends upon the presence of structural carriers, which are institutions connecting the church to society. The cases of Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay are examined through a historical institutionalist lens to test these hypotheses. Findings from these historical case studies indicate that both institutional autonomy and structural carriers are necessary for opposition. Ultimately, this study sheds light on the question of why religious institutions operate in varying ways in similar political contexts. It is also a contribution to the "path dependent model," which posits that the history of institutional arrangements serves as a strong influence on contemporary institutional behavior.

Boston University

Hart, S. "Sacramental materialism: Don DeLillo, Catholicism, and community," Ph.D. diss., Boston University, In Dissertations & Theses: Full Text [database on-line]; available from http://www.proquest.com (publication number AAT 3430398; accessed January 25, 2011).

This dissertation examines how the language and moral commitments of Roman Catholicism weave through the work of contemporary American novelist Don DeLillo. Influenced by and in reaction to his Catholic tradition, DeLillo depicts religiously unaffiliated characters who approach their ostensibly secular environment in search of religious meaning, a search unconsciously revelatory of DeLillo's conflictive engagement with American Catholic theology and social practice. Although DeLillo's authorial voice is not aligned with doctrinal surety or liturgical orthodoxy, his novels express Catholic themes, promoting a relational consciousness characterized by an interconnected sense of community and a sacramental approach to the material of the Earth.

This project begins by reviewing the historical foundations of the American Catholic context of DeLillo's work, focusing on the individual's relationship to the community and on sacramental approaches to the contemporary material environment. Subsequent chapters attend to four novels in terms of these issues: Americana (1971) is read as an early effort to pose questions that persist throughout DeLillo's career—questions of death, community, and the individual's relationship to material. White Noise (1985) and Mao II (1991) are then read as confronting questions of consumer goods and visual media, respectively. In Underworld (1997), DeLillo turns his attention to consumer waste, suggesting that a community-oriented and sacramentally infused approach to contemporary life can counter the communal and environmental violence generated by an isolated consumer stance toward the...