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Theses & Dissertations Boston University Theses & Dissertations
2018
Pluralismo vivo: lived religious
pluralism and interfaith dialogue in
Rome
https://hdl.handle.net/2144/31246
Boston University
BOSTON UNIVERSITY
GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
Dissertation
PLURALISMO VIVO: LIVED RELIGIOUS PLURALISM
AND INTERFAITH DIALOGUE IN ROME
by
JENN LINDSAY
B.A., Stanford University, 2001
M.Div., Union Theological Seminary, 2011
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
2018
© 2018
JENN LINDSAY
All rights reserved
Approved by
First Reader _________________________________________________________
Nancy T. Ammerman, Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
Second Reader _________________________________________________________
Charles Lindholm, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus of Anthropology
Third Reader _________________________________________________________
Steven Sandage, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology of Religion
“The product of dialogue is the dialogue.”
Giulia, Roman interfaith dialoguer
“It was interesting but I didn’t learn much.
I never learn much at these things.
It’s just to be seen and heard and to reinforce the same ideas.
But it’s always nice to see everyone.”
Ariana, Roman interfaith dialoguer
“I’ll teach Islam. But I don’t like it.”
Roman public school religion teacher
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DEDICATION
To Edo, for whom I went native.
And for Caterina Duprè (1970-2015). Love never fails.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Interfaith dialogue was a natural topic for me to pursue in my doctoral
education. My family background boasts several religious traditions: Judaism,
Hinduism, Christian Science, Presbyterianism, Unitarian Universalism,
paganism, Darwinism and raging atheism. In Rome, my home is decorated with
Jewish ritual accoutrements, collections of Muslim art from Indonesia and
Istanbul, and several Ganesha figurines carried from Malaysia, India and
Vietnam. My husband is Buddhist, so we have some Buddhas scattered about. At
Christmastime, we mount our Star Wars nativity scene at the beginning of
Advent, both kissing the baby Jesus doll before we place him in the manger,
where he is gazed upon lovingly by R2-D2 and Darth Vader. When we first
moved into our apartment, we found a portrait of Pope John Paul II left behind
by the previous owners. We couldn’t bear to either mount it or toss it, so we’ve
got a pope in the closet. I am also shaped by my studies of Vedantic Hinduism
and my master’s education at a progressive Christian seminary but, when asked,
I simply call myself a Jewish Unitarian Universalist with Buddhist leanings.
I was 16 when I traveled from San Diego to Rome on a singing tour with
my high school choir. When I first entered Saint Peter’s Basilica, my life changed.
I was awestruck by the hooded monks, the silent nuns, and the solemn priests:
not by their religion, but by their religious commitment. Why would someone
give their life to God? I wanted to know their stories; I wanted to know what
they believed and why. After Rome, I went looking for my ultimate concern.
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After fifteen years of playwriting, touring as a singer-songwriter, working
in film and television, and dilettante philosophizing, I returned more formally to
my religious questions—this time as a master’s student at Union Theological
Seminary in New York City. I pursued a specialization in ecumenical and
interfaith studies, assuming the mantle of ethnographer amongst the Christians,
conducting participant-observation among people of various denominations and
religions. My experience of interfaithing at Union was educational, meaningful,
and personally transformative. It was in this immersive interfaith laboratory that
I was exposed to, and began to internalize, different religious understandings
and embodiments of transcendent truths. Thanks to a Henry Luce Foundation
grant in the final year of my Master of Divinity, I traveled to Indonesia and lived
for three months in Jogjakarta on a cultural exchange study program, where I
conducted fieldwork for my master’s thesis on interfaith families and how
religious difference is negotiated in personal relationships.
Research for my doctorate from the Religion Department at Boston
University brought me back to Rome, ground zero of my hunger to understand
more about religious beliefs and communities. I arrived in the Eternal City in the
Summer of 2012 to research mixed marriage in the Roman Jewish community,
supported by a pre-dissertation fellowship from the Robert Lemelson
Foundation and the Society for Psychological Anthropology. Through this
research I was introduced to Confronti Magazine, which I recognized as an ideal
perch from which to explore the constellation of interfaith organizations in
Rome.
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I am so lucky to work under the wing of my Boston University doctoral
advisor Dr. Nancy T. Ammerman. I am very grateful for the advice and support
of this mind-blowingly productive, accomplished, generous, efficient and eagle-
eyed expert in the social of science of religion. Even though she often had to rein
in my passions and overly creative methodologies, she did so with grace and
patience. So much of a doctoral education and dissertation writing experience is
determined by one’s relationship with the dissertation advisor. Nancy won my
trust and loyalty through her measured brilliance and consistent support, and I
believe that she managed to bring out the best in my work. There’s nobody I can
give more credit to than Nancy for pulling me forward in the last year of this
process, and I’m so grateful. If this dissertation is at all clear and well-organized,
she is the one to thank.
I would like to express my deep gratitude to Dr. Charles Lindholm, who
served patiently, always with humor and kindness, on my three comprehensive
exams and this dissertation. I’m very grateful I enrolled in some of his
anthropology seminars in my first year at Boston University, where I discovered
our common interests, and learned that he was open to creative anthropological
reflection such as my ethnographic documentary films. I appreciate his
straightforward guidance, enthusiastic encouragement, useful critiques of this
research work, and the photographs we have sent back and forth to each other
for the last few years.
I also thank Dr. Steven Sandage for his time, advice and assistance in
helping me think through methodological questions and for being open-minded
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and practical about my complicated and non-traditional way of approaching
data analysis. In 2014 I saw him present his work at the Social Science of Religion
Network meeting at the Institute on Culture, Religion and World Affairs
at Boston University, and I knew he was someone I had to be in conversation
with. His theoretical recommendations and insights have been formative for this
project, and his work on spiritual transformation is ubiquitous in this research
analysis. I’m most grateful that every time I burst into his office with a million
questions about psychological research and interlacing psychoanalytic theory
with ethnographic data, he patiently listened, drew out and answered the most
important questions, and was always just so darn friendly.
As a collective, my dissertation committee has been patient and affirming
as I followed (and often exhausted) a scattered array of artistic impulses for
interacting with my data. They let me play and explore and never stood in my
way, stepping in when I got lost in my data to help me get back on track. They
have read A LOT of words to get to the end of this project. Thank you, thank
you.
Even before I arrived at the doctoral program at Boston University I had
heard tell of the beautiful mind of Dr. Wesley J. Wildman. When I met him, his
brilliance was obvious but even more striking was the attention and kindness he
gives to students. He is not a man with much time to spare but he is generous
with it, and I count our conversations and collaborations as the finest hours of
my graduate career. He has inspired me to push myself to new creative frontiers,
to develop new skills, and to think with more clarity and discipline. Wesley gave
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