Stephanie Nijhuis, MA student in Religious Studies.

Topic: How perceptions of Greco-Roman cults affected the development and use of music in Early Christianity Overview: Throughout my research, I hope to show a lineage of how trance and altered states of consciousness (ASCs) induced through music function within the religious experience of Dionysian rituals and how it leads to how early Christians either accepted or rejected specific musical practices throughout their own rituals and worship, especially surrounding percussive instruments and dance.