Department News
Kirby Sokolow Receives Dissertation Research Award
PhD Candidate Kirby Sokolow has received a Dissertation Research Award in support of her archival and oral historical research for her dissertation, “Buddhist Exceptionalism Behind Bars: Transformi
Claire Elliot Receives Hopkinson Fellowship
PhD student Claire Elliot was recently selected as a recipient of the Hopkinson Fellowship.
Hallie Swanson Appointed as Junior Fellow of the Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography
PhD Candidate Hallie Nell Swanson has been appointed as a Junior Fellow of the Andrew W.
Angela Xia Receives Postdoctoral Fellowship at Notre Dame's Cushwa Center
PhD Candidate Angela Xia has recently accepted a postdoctoral fellowship at Notre Dame's Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism.
Hallie Nell Swanson Receives Cheng-Harrell Graduate Internship at NMAA
PhD Candidate Hallie Nell Swanson was selec
Congrats to Prof. Durmaz & Prof.Schaefer!
Prof. Durmaz and Prof. Schaefer were both named finalists in the 2023 AAR Book Awards! Prof.
In Memoriam: Emeritus Professor Stephen Dunning
Stephen Northrop Dunning, Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies in the School of Arts and Sciences, passed away on January 6th, 2024. He was 82.
PhD Student Hallie Nell Swanson Named BSA's first "D.F. McKenzie New Scholar"
PhD Student Hallie Nell Swanson has been selected as the Bibliographical Society of America's first D. F.
Grad Coordinator Katelyn Stoler Receives Staff Recognition Award
RELS Graduate Coordinator Katelyn Stoler has just received the 2023 Silver Level Staff Recognition Award from the School of Arts and Sciences. Way to go, Kate!
With particular strengths in the study of Christianity, Judaism, American religions, Islam, secularism, Buddhism, and other Asian religions, the Department of Religious Studies emphasizes descriptive, historical, and theoretical approaches to the study of religion.
Upcoming Events
"The Vicissitudes of Divine Desire: Mind, Pain, and Discernment in Chinese Charismatic Christianity and Spirit Mediumship"
Center for East Asian Studies Humanities Colloquium
Emily Ng (Penn)
CETLI Teaching Workshop: Teaching Outside of the Tenure Track
Steve Weitzman (Katz Center & Religious Studies); Natalie Dohrmann (Katz Center & Religious Studies); Anne Albert (Katz Center & History)
Barbara Ambros, Feeling Cross-species Kinship in Edo-Period Morality Books: Excessive Affect and the Ethic of Refraining from Killing and Releasing Life
RELS Colloquium/TRAP Faculty Working Group Lecture
Barbara Ambros, UNC-Chapel Hill
Faculty Bookshelf
Key Themes for the Study of Islam
Key Themes for the Study of Islam examines the central themes and concepts indispensable to an informed understanding of Islamic religion and society.
Wild Experiment: Feeling Science and Secularism after Darwin
In Wild Experiment, Donovan O. Schaefer challenges the conventional wisdom that feeling and thinking are separate.
Surviving Sacrilege: Cultural Persistence in Jewish Antiquity
In a world of relentless and often violent change, what does it take for a culture to survive?
The Origin of the Jews
The Jews have one of the longest continuously recorded histories of any people in the world, but what do we actually know about their origins?
The FBI and Religion
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has had a long and tortuous relationship with religion over almost the entirety of its existence.
Faking Liberties: Religious Freedom in American-Occupied Japan
Religious freedom is a founding tenet of the United States, and it has frequently been used to justify policies towards other nations.
Architects of Buddhist Leisure: Socially Disengaged Buddhism in Asia’s Museum, Monuments, and Amusement Parks
Buddhism, often described as an austere religion that condemns desire, promotes denial, and idealizes the contemplative life, actually has a thriving leisure culture in Asia.
Death before Dying: The Sufi Poems of Sultan Bahu
These 115 poems introduce readers in English to Sultan Bahu (d. 1691), a Sufi mystical poet who continues to be one of the most beloved writers in Punjabi.
White Evangelical Racism
In this clear-eyed, hard-hitting chronicle of American religion and politics, Anthea Butler answers that racism is at the core of conservative evangelical activism and power.
Wisdom as a Way of Life: Theravada Buddhism Reimagined
This wide-ranging and powerful book argues that Theravāda Buddhism provides ways of thinking about the self that can reinvigorate the humanities and offer broader insights into how to learn and how
Solomon: The Lure of Wisdom
Tradition has it that King Solomon knew everything there was to know—the mysteries of nature, of love, of God himself—but what do we know of him?