Under the library catalog, I typed keywords: “Martin Luther King Religion,” but  many academic journals came up. Thus, I tried to limit different sources by selecting “books,” and the first book that came up was called “Never to leave us along: the prayer life of Martin Luther King, Jr.” written by Lewis V. Baldwin. I chose this topic, because first Martin Luther King is really famous as an American activist and a leader in the African-American civil rights movement, and second, I am curious about how he made such a success based on his Christian beliefs or how his religion beliefs led to his success. For example, his famous speech “I have a Dream” had a huge impact in the history and how it was related to Christianity. In addition, Martin Luther King as a Nobel Peace Prize winner for combating racial inequality through nonviolence, and how Christianity helped him to achieve that.

The book “Never to leave us along: the prayer life of Martin Luther King, Jr.” written by Lewis V. Baldwin gives answers to all those questions. In tracing the evolution of King’s prayer life, the book explains how and why King became ‘the most authentic spiritual genius in this land.’ He also defined prayer as the human “response to God,” charactering it as the heart of the Judeo-Christian tradition. The books concludes that “King remains a model of spirituality and godly devotion in these perilous times of globalization, polarization, social regression, and growing cultural cynicism.” In the contents, the book has six chapters: an inward journey which explains the black prayers’ tradition, from shadowed places which introduces King’s prayer life from student days, trembles in the breast which indicates the art of preaching, before whom angles bow which explains the potencies of pastoral prayer, spirits soaring upward which suggest prayers’ struggles, and toward a harmonious whole which demonstrates praying in the spirit of King.  This book is a good source of my paper, but I think that I probably also need to find another book which is more related to Christianity, because this book has some paragraphs talking about Christianity, but not a lot. However, this book is a good reference.

Kraemer, David Charles. Jewish Eating and Identity through the Ages. New York: Routledge, 2007. Print.

I was interested in learning more about Kashrut and its meaning in the Jewish religion for this project. Due to that I started my research by typing three keywords into the library search engine, “Kashrut”, “Kosher”, and “Jewish”. Those three keywords brought me to a large collection of news articles, journal articles and books on Jewish eating. After I narrowed the search down to only books there were five options. I further narrowed that down to two options, this book and a book specifically on kosher. I decided to go with this book because I thought it would be interesting to learn about Jewish identity in general. I think it will be really interesting to look at how the way they eat, what they eat and with whom they eat influences their life and the way they interpret their religion.

When I first picked this book up I was intrigued by how plain the cover design was. It is a solid blue cover with the title and author’s name written on it in bold white letters. This simplicity made me want to look further into the book. It made me wonder what made the author choose a cover so plain. I wondered if maybe the author thought the content was so interesting and well written that they would not need an overdone cover to draw readers in. Another theory I had was that the author just wanted to stick with something simple for simplicity’s sake. These questions pushed me to take a look inside the book.

This book is separated into nine chapters with an introduction at the beginning and footnotes at the end. I took a quick read through the introduction and it delved into the idea that it is not just kashrut and the Jewish religion in which people form identities through their food. The author gave several different examples of other religions and other cultures throughout history in which people have formed their identities by what they eat. I think that this is a really interesting idea and I am looking forward to learning more about it. After the introduction there are nine more chapters, they are as follow: The biblical period: Our animals, their animals, The second temple period: The food of the gentiles, The rabbinic period: “Thou shalt not eat a calf with a mother’s milk”, The rabbinic period: Problematic mixings, The rabbinic period: Blessing food, Waiting for the next meal, Separating the dishes, Crossing boundaries, and “Bugs in the system” (The kashrut wars). When I was looking at the different chapters one of the questions that came to mind was why the rabbinic period is split up into three different chapters while everything else simply has one chapter. I think this question and many more will be answered through looking at this book and using it to help write my paper. I am very excited to write about this topic.

Finally while I was looking in between the stacks for this book there was one other, that I had already seen in the search catalogue, that caught my eye. This other book was the one that I had to choose between in order to narrow down my search to the book I chose. This book looks like it has a lot of background information on what Kashrut actually is and how to follow and perform it. This will be very helpful in writing my paper because it will provide background information and a good base before I start looking into why Kashrut helps form certain identities. After looking through the section I think that I will have good success in my research for this next paper.

Jewish cookery book, on principles of economy: adapted for Jewish housekeepers, with the addition of many useful medicinal recipes, and other valuable information, relative to housekeeping and domestic management, Esther Levy – Applewood Books- 2007

I became interested in religions and food after reading and discussing about Jewish laws of food in class. So for this shelfie, I searched “Judaism and food” in the Lafayette Library Catalog. The one book that came up on my search was called “Death Warmed Over: Funeral food, Rituals, and Customs From Around the World” by Lisa Rogak. Without even reading the entire title of the book, I decided to go check it out. When I saw that it was a book on funeral related foods, I decided that I needed to find another book. The area that I was in had only cookbooks. But in the middle of that shelf section, there were about 10 books on Jewish foods and cookbooks. I picked up the smallest one out of them and was glad to find that it was not a cookbook with recipes but a book that covered Jewish food rituals and customs.

The title of this book, written by Mrs. Esther Levy, is called “Jewish Cookery Book on Principles of Economy adapted for Jewish Housekeepers with Medicinal Recipes and Other Valuable Information Relative to Housekeeping and Domestic Management and Being The First Jewish Cookbook Published in America as Published in Philadelphia, 1871.” What I liked about this book was that the title pretty much gave away the entire content of the book. I don’t think I have ever read an actual book with such a long title. The book is small in size and is 200 pages. The cover is also old fashioned with about ten different fonts and styles.

After the preface, the introduction of the book gives “some information as to the manner of strictly keeping a Jewish house.” The book then goes on to talk about the Arrangement of The Table for breakfast, luncheon, and dinner. It also gives instruction on How to Place Dishes on the Table. The rest of the book is divided into different types of food (fish, soups, meat, poultry, bread, cakes, puddings, pastry, preserves/jellies, diet for invalids/sick, medicinal, cheese/wine, pickles/vegetables, and miscellaneous) and how to prepare them and place them. The last pages of the book give advise and tip to housekeepers, Seasonable Food for Each Month of the Year, and Culinary Utensils and Articles, which should be in All Kitchens.

If I decide to write my paper on Jewish dietary laws, this book would be very helpful. It contains so much information on every topic related to Jewish dietary laws while also keeping it in simple language. Since this is an older book, it would also be pretty reliable.

Ottoman Brothers, Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Early Twentieth-Century Palestine, Stanford University Press, Stanford, California, 2011

For my second shelfie process, it took me a while before deciding what I wanted to research for the final paper. I found an interest in the religion practiced in Turkey, specifically, the Byzantine empire and its collapse. I wanted to find out the impact religion had on the collapse of the “second roman empire.”

Unfortunately, I realized that my book really didn’t have much to do with religion at all. It was focused more on just the actual cultures involved in the collapse briefly mentioning which religion they were. So I searched for a new book but now with a better idea of the topic itself.

The second book I found was Ottoman Brothers, Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Early Twentieth-Century Palestine, which after skimming and reviewing the table of contents seemed a much better book for the topic. The chapters range from sacred liberty to brotherhood and equality for all Ottomans of different religions. Another chapter that sounded interesting was the Ottomans of The Mosiac Faith. The sub-topics here included communal rivalries, critiques of Ottomanism and this chapters explains the communal aspect of the empire built around so many religions. While my topic was altered in the process of changing books, the study of Muslims, Christians, and Jews, all living within the same empire, has the potential to be an interesting and engaging research topic. It would take require a lot of time to fully understand the concepts in this book, but if properly analyzed, the resulting essay may be well worth it. I would need to determine if there are enough outside sources covering this material as well.

Seager, Richard Hughes. Buddhism in America. New York: Columbia UP, 1999. Print.

I searched in the Lafayette College Library catalogue for “American Buddhism” because I am very interested in learning more about America’s perception of Buddhism, and how that perception has changed over the centuries. I am aware how America’s perception of Buddhism is, in some cases, different than how it is actually practiced in Asia, and I would like to know more about where the view that has been popularized in America derived from. When I did my search, Seager’s book was the fifth book to come up. I scrolled through the other pages of results, but this book seemed to be the best fit for what I was looking for.

The cover of the book depicts a modern women praying, making it appear that the book contains information about Buddhism in the contemporary world. The book is divided into three sections: “Background”, “Major Traditions”, and “Selected Issues”. The first section gives information about the development of Buddhism and the Three Vehicles-Mahyana, Theraveda, and Vajrayana. The second section discusses contemporary, Americanized Buddhist traditions, such as meditation. The third section discusses issues of Buddhism in American society, such as the different roles of men and women. Moreover, this book also contains a bibliography with separate book and internet sources, that will be useful if I choose to write my paper on this topic.

While looking for this book in the shelves of the library, I noticed other books around it that related to Buddhism. I did not see any other books that had to do with Buddhism in America, but I did see other books about the religious practices of Buddhism. I am mostly interested in how Buddhism is perceived and how it has adapted to fit in with American culture, so this book seems like it would be helpful to gain more insight into this topic.

Thomas, George M. Revivalism and Cultural Change: Christianity, Nation Building, and the Market in the Nineteenth-century United States. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989.

While scanning the list of terms on the review street, I settled on the Protestant Reformation as a starting point for my book search. To hone in my search even more, I thought about the historical implications of the Protestant Reformation. The United States, having been settled by Protestant’s fleeing persecution, has been greatly influenced by Protestantism. One of the prime examples of this is the Great Awakening. I logged onto the Lafayette Library website and searched “The Great Awakening” in the library Catalog. This search proved to be too specific as I was not able to find an entire book dedicated to that subject currently in the library (they did offer a few through the Interlibrary loan system). I broadened my search to “Christianity in America” and was able to find a book called Revivalism and Cultural Change by George M. Thomas.

This time proved to be much more fruitful than the last; I was actually able to find the one I was looking for amongst the sea of books. The book was a plain yellow-orange color with the title on the spine; both the front and the back were empty. Its contents were divided into 6 sections: introduction, institutional model of culture change and social movements, an institutional analysis of market penetration, the social meaning of revivalism and republicanism, political-economic aspects of revivalism, and towards a general theory of religious movements. I opened to a random page and began to read. It was a subsection within the Social Meaning of Revivalism and Republicanism section titled perfectionism. The book described the roots of Perfectionism in Wesleyanism during the second Great Awakening. Perfectionism was a result of full obedience to the Holy Spirit. Christian scripture teaches that the Holy Spirit wants to give “full and abundant life to everyone”. Mediocrity is a result of not accepting the Holy Spirit’s gifts.

The book’s calculated and empirical approach to studying religion intrigued me. It contained plenty of evidence, including numerical, while presenting its case. All of this data could be used when writing an essay on Christianity in 19th century America. Additionally, It goes into great detail describing the social, economic, and political impacts of religion. Located near this book were others about religion’s effect on American history and civil society. Examples of such books include Sermons at Court and Missionary Trail.

Collinson, Patrick. The Reformation: A History. Oxford: Oxford University, 2004.

I searched the Lafayette library catalogue for “Calvinism and the Protestant Reformation” because I am interested in studying the history of Calvinism in the Reformation movement in Europe as it was mentioned when we were given a lecture about the Protestant Reformation during class. Specifically, I also intend to examine how Calvinism promoted the development of the Reformed Church in the Netherland. Many relevant results appeared first, which made me hard to pick up the most valuable book for my paper. Therefore, I refined my search into “Calvinism and reformed church in Netherland.” Fortunately, I found out a book specifically discusses about the Calvinist presence in the work of the Dutch Reformed Church. However, the book I was looking for was not there. But I found another book on the shelf, which was The Reformation: A History.

Altering scanning the contents of the book, I found out it primarily provides a big picture of how the Protestant Reformation developed in the 16th century Europe, including causes, patterns, and particular cases like the Reformation in the British isles. Specifically, it portrayed in details about important figures in the Reformation like Martin Luther, John Calvin, and other related people, and their theologies and politics. As the author said in the preface, he “made issues that are remote from today’s thinking and concerns as accessible as possible to the general reader who may know very little about the Reformation”. In Chapter 6 about Calvin and Calvinism, the author used plain words to analyze the driving force for John Calvin to change from a lawyer into a principal figure in the second generation of the Protestant Reformation. On top of that, the book also defined Calvinism as an international movement as English Calvinists once intervened militarily in the Netherlands and “helped to sustain churches of French and Dutch “strangers” in London.” Reading this chapter led to my further curiosity to question the relationship between Calvinist and Dutch churches during the late sixteenth century.

I plan to continue read this chapter as it provides me basic information about Calvinism and its influence in the Netherlands. Though it does not perfectly fit my needs—the Calvinist presence in Reformed church in the Netherlands, I still found it interesting to read, especially the way it described historical cases vividly, like “Luther caught in a thunderstorm”, rather than just tediously provided me with tedious chronology. Therefore, I considered it useful and informative for helping me to clearly comprehend the causes and facts of Calvinism first.

Some neighboring books were also interesting and worth of reading, such as Early Protestant Spirit and The Theology of Food. Similar to the book I chose to read, Early Protestant Spirit portrayed some famous figures and their biography. Additionally, the latter one specifically mentioned food preparation during the Eucharist and how bread and wine were associated with Jesus.

Cahill, Lisa Sowle. Family: A Christian Social Perspective. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000. Print.

Before starting my shelfie process, I initially wanted a book on the idea of domus and all that it encompassed. Thus, I went to the “OneSearch” option on the Lafayette College Library website and searched “domus” but I was unable to find a source that fit my needs. Although I didn’t find anything on the domus itself, I still wanted to find an indirect relationship between the domus and the social aspect of families in Christianity. Specifically, I wanted to learn more about how Christian families were shaped as well as any particular values they lived by. In addition, I wanted to know how the typical Christian family had changed overtime, especially through all of the major events that had marked Christianity. Therefore, I once again went to the “OneSearch” option and typed in “Christian family”. The second result was the book Family: A Christian Social Perspective, by Lisa Sowle Cahill, which contained information on what I had been looking for.

This book was not very hard to find as its cover is full of vivid colors as well as an interesting mosaic of people. The book is divided into multiple different chapters. The ones that caught my attention were “Family Bond and Christian Community: New Testament Sources”, “Family as Church: Three Historical Representations”, and “Lessons from African American Families”. While briefly flipping through the pages, I noticed that she used a lot of comparison in her reasoning. She compares families of different parts of the world, families of different time periods, and even briefly on families of different religions. This ultimately makes it relatively easy to determine the distinctions between multiple kinds of families and what the word family means to particular cultures. Additionally, she also describes multiple figures and groups in Christianity, such as Martin Luther, and how their understandings and views of the term family differed. This kind of information was what I was expecting to find after researching the different social perspectives of Christian families. If I were to write a paper on this topic it would concern the chapter “Lessons from African American Families”. Everything that we are learning now about African Americans is fascinating and it would be interesting to see if the negative perception of  white Christianity transferred over to the idea of the white Christian family.  It would also be interesting to see how these views impacted African American families.

Many other interesting books were located near the one written by Cahill. These books ranged from topics of other aspects of Christianity to some books on Judaism. In addition, there was a large section on the Gospels, which contained each of the individual ones.  There were also a lot of books on African Americans and Christianity, which  may be helpful if I choose to write my paper on them.  The books were mainly about their views on Christianity along with their relationship with the religion.

Aronson, Harvey B. Buddhist Practice on Western Ground: Reconciling Eastern Ideals and Western Psychology. Boston: Shambhala, 2004. Print.

Two major aspects of Buddhism that intrigued me were The Tibetan Book of the Dead and Psychotherapy. The first search I did on the library OneSearch catalog was for “the Tibetan Book of the Dead”. I quickly wrote down the call number for the book: The Tibetan Book of the Dead by Donald S. Lopez Jr. who is also the author of the Religions of India in Practice book we use in class. The second search I did was for “Buddhism psychotherapy”. A few of the results had key words like Zen, the self, and mindfulness, which all would be helpful, but I was drawn to a title “Buddhism and Psychotherapy Across Cultures”. It just so happens that this text was right next to the Book of the Dead text. I looked at both, but decided that I was more interested in how Buddhism has changed and adapted in America.

When checking the shelves, it is important to look at all the neighboring books. I found “Buddhist Practice on Western Ground” by Harvey B. Aronson, Ph.D. which seemed very promising. The back explained that the book discussed the differences between Asian and Western cultural and spiritual values, which I began to write my paper on. He makes notes on the conflicts experienced by practitioners of psychotherapy when they look to the Buddhism traditions for guidance.

When first looking at the contents, I noticed there are 15 chapters addressing issues of spirituality, ego, anger, love, and nonattachment. I was drawn in by the chapters: “The Joys and Perils of Individuality”, “Ego, Ego on the Wall: What is Ego After All?”, “Anger: Abandon It or Express It?” and “Making Nonattachment Real”. By looking at these I knew I could gather information on many of the terms we discussed in class. There is also sections comparing these ideas of Buddhism in the traditional sense and in the modern western culture. Helpful chapter would be: “Psychotherapy in the Context of Ongoing Buddhist Practice”, “Attachment East and West” and “Presence and Absence in Life and Practice”. Seeing these outlined comparisons made choosing this book very easy.

Another reason I chose this book was from reading the acknowledgements. In one paragraph, Aronson gives thanks to “Joshua Cutler and Diana Marks of the Tibetan Buddhist Learning Center in Washington, New Jersey” for allowing him to “publicly birth many of the ideas in this work at their center in 1995” and offering him support on many occasions. Aronson gives excellent insight to Buddhist practices for those interested in starting their spiritual journey and good analysis for those already acquainted. This book has proved helpful in the paper writing process so far as it addresses many issues of psychotherapy in the West.

Haigh, Christopher. “Chapter 6: Divorce, Supremacy, and Schism, 1530-1535.” English Reformations: Religion, Politics, and Society under the Tudors. Oxford: Clarendon, 1993. 105-21. Print.

After we learned about the Protestant Reformation in class, I was intrigued as to how King Henry VIII of England could garner enough support from his fellow elite and clergy to break from the Roman Catholic Church and create the Church of England in 1534. The King’s intention of marrying Anne Boleyn, while he was still legally bound to Catherine of Aragon, spurred him so far to establish himself as the head of both Church and State in England. I wondered whether King Henry VIII also had political motivation to create schism in the Christian faith. As a result, for this assignment I searched the online Skillman Library catalogue for “Henry VIII Church” to find books on this rift. The first and second returns Henry VIII: Court, Church, and Conflict by David Loades and The King’s Reformation: Henry VIII and the Remaking of the English Church by G.W. Bernard respectively caught my eye – so I went to the stacks to take a look.

When I arrived at the right shelf, I noticed that neither of the two books had covers and were quite plain in color. I scanned the rest of the shelf and noticed English Reformations: Religion, Politics, and Society under the Tudors by Christopher Haigh, which had a painted depiction of a figure, resembling Henry VIII, reading the Bible as the cover. Although the title indicated that the text would not purely focus on King Henry VIII, I believed that it would give good background information on the religious and political turmoil in England during the 1530s. When I looked at the table of contents, I found that Chapter 5 gave insight into the politics of English Parliament at the time, while Chapter 6 focused upon the actual division from the Catholic Church. The latter chapter proved to be more interesting.

Author Haigh, in Chapter 6 exemplified the frustration of both King Henry VIII as well as his religious adversaries during the initial request for divorce. Haigh also explained that at first King Henry the VII had not intended to reform the Church. Instead, he merely wished for dissolution of marriage, which was not granted by the Pope. As a result, King Henry VIII’s advisors gave him conflicting guidance. Some were adamant on adhering to Roman Papal decrees while others, such as Thomas Cromwell, “proposed to ignore Rome and seek a dissolution from an English Court under parliamentary authority” (105). Perhaps, King Henry VIII’s decision to circumvent the authority of the Catholic Church provoked the schism, which allowed for a reformation of the Christian faith.

I plan on continuing to read the rest of this book for my paper on the causes for the English Reformation period under King Henry VIII as well as its legacy. I will also include information from the two books I found first (as stated above) to create a more rounded paper.