Dissertation Abstracts

CONTENTS

Institution	Title	Page
Ball State University	Music in the California missions: A critical look at the “Misa de Cataluna” ................	86
The Catholic University of America	Jacques Maritain and Alasdair MacIntyre on Human Rights .....................................................	86
The George Washington University	Erin’s inheritance: Irish-American children, ethnic identity, and the meaning of being Irish, 1845–1890 .............	87
Northwestern University	Reagan’s Gun-Toting Nuns: Catholicism and U.S.-Central America Relations .......................	87
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (New Brunswick)	Black nuns and the struggle to desegregate Catholic America after World War I ........................	88
Saybrook Graduate School And Research Center	African Catholic missionary nuns: Acculturative stress while serving in the United States of America .........................................	89
University of Illinois (Chicago)	The Universal Church in the Segregated City: Doing Catholic Interracialism in Chicago, 1915–1963 ..............................................	89
University of Notre Dame	Ritual in the age of authenticity: An ethnography of Latin Mass Catholics ................	90
University of Pennsylvania	“With a pure intention of pleasing and honouring God:” How the Philadelphia laity created American Catholicism, 1785–1850 ...........................	91

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.

BALL STATE UNIVERSITY

Murphy, Harmony. Music in the California missions: A critical look at the “Misa de Cataluna”. Ball State University, ProQuest, UMI Dissertations Publishing, 2013. 3590423.

Spanish Priests of the Franciscan order built 21 missions along El Camino Real between 1769 and 1835 before the mission system collapsed. El Camino Real, now generally referred to as “The King’s Highway” or “Mission Road,” runs 600 miles in California between Mission San Diego de Alcalá in modern-day San Diego to Mission San Francisco Solano in modern-day Sonoma. The missions served as communities with Catholicism and music, specifically music for services, at the heart of the culture. The music reflected the culture of these missions by presenting a hybrid of European and Native American styles.

The Misa de Cataluña appears in nine of the extant mission manuscripts making it one of the most frequently transcribed surviving works in the California Mission System. Often the work appears in a position of honor within the intentional ordering of the choirbooks. Frs. Durán and Tapís, noted for their musical contributions to the California Mission System, both included this work in their choirbooks. Since the mission period, there have been at least two known arrangements of the work. As such, this work holds a respected place in California’s musical history.

In this project, I seek to honor and explore this notable work by creating a critical edition of the Misa de Cataluña from the nine surviving manuscript sources to enable performance by modern choirs. Additionally, I discuss various challenges of performing the work with modern choirs and provide solutions to potential difficulties.

THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA

Stibora, Carrie Rose. Jacques Maritain and Alasdair MacIntyre on Human Rights. The Catholic University of America, ProQuest, UMI Dissertations Publishing, 2013. 3601542.

This dissertation is an examination of the two divergent positions on human rights taken by prominent Catholic and Thomist philosophers Jacques Maritain and Alasdair MacIntyre. Maritain and MacIntyre, although having traveled similar paths, which included atheism, Marxism, anti-liberalism, seemingly have diametrically opposed position on the use of human rights.

Maritain’s work, including engagement with the drafting of the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights (1948), redefined human rights as an extension of the natural law tradition rooted in the work of Thomas Aquinas. Maritain’s unique definition of rights included such notions as personalism, the common good, justice and had a basis in classical metaphysics.

MacIntyre, on the other hand, rejects human rights because of their liberal provenance, maintaining that rights language is a necessary band-aid to motivate individuals to help those less fortunate in society where community, the common good and family have been significantly weakened because of liberalism.

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