Jason Bartashius

M.A. Thesis: American Catholicism and the Appeal of Zen Buddhism

In the M.A. program Jason focused on Japanese Religions, American Buddhism, and Buddhist-Christian Studies. His thesis examined the Catholic interest in Zen Buddhism. Jason currently lives in Kyoto, Japan. He works part-time as an English instructor and as a lecturer. This year he will be teaching a course on Japanese Religions at Osaka Gakuin University. He has also been involved in the relief efforts after the disasters of 3/11. He manages a project that assists affected children with their educational needs called After School Lessons For Tohoku Children (www.aslftc.com).

Takashi Miura

Takashi's thesis focused on the intersection between millenarian beliefs and religious practices in a post-war Japanese new religion. He is now a Ph.D. student in the Department of Religion at Princeton University. His research focuses on popular religious movements in nineteenth-century Japan, with a particular emphasis on the their millenarian characteristics. He seeks to analyze the rhetoric of "world renewal," which was appropriated by several of these popular movements.

Deeksha Sivakumar

During her M.A., Deeksha studied a variety of Hindu rituals and traditions supplemented by learning three major Indian languages: Hindi; Sanskrit; and Tamil over independent study. Her work at UH culminated with extensive research on a popular Tamil ritual called Bommai Kolu – a tiered arrangement of dolls for the south-Indian celebration of Navarthiri (Purattasi). She documents her work at http://sites.google.com/site/devikolu/. After travelling to Chennai for another Kolu season in 2010, Deeksha took a hiatus in her hometown Dubai before enrolling for a Ph.D. in Religion at Emory University, where she hopes to write more about the unique dolls used in Kolu displays.