Religious Studies

专业详情

Religion is arguably the most powerful and pervasive force in the world. Studying religions can help one understand the complex and sometimes volatile relationships between religion and politics, economics, and social structures. In our increasingly interdependent global community, awareness of various past and present features of religious life—events, texts, personages, ceremonies, rituals, convictions, theologies, visual representations, artifacts—can lay the foundation for informed and thoughtful analysis of contemporary life.

Such analysis is important in considering international issues and also domestic ones (such as abortion, evolution, faith-based initiatives, homosexuality, capital punishment, stem-cell research, marriage, civil rights, and school prayer). The study of religion thus helps us to understand the faiths, world views, and ways of life of millions of people. And of course, the study of religion can be a path to self-understanding.

Our Department offers introductory courses in all the major religious traditions, notably Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Other courses offer additional study of these or other traditions and their texts, often focusing on specific features — such as gender, ethics, visual modes, mysticism — or historical periods. Many other courses examine theoretical or comparative aspects of religious phenomena, especially as they are manifest in the modern world.