The Study of Religion Ph.D. program is designed as a 6-year program. Students gain advanced knowledge of the literatures of particular religious traditions and the intersections of these with contemporary thematic and regional phenomena including values, ethics and human rights, modernity, science and secularism, visual culture, media and technology, language, rhetoric and performance, body and praxis, and theory and method. Students graduate with the qualitative and quantitative skills necessary for professional research and teaching in religious studies. Graduate students in our program receive two kinds of training: classical research in the corpus of a particular religious tradition, and theoretical training to place this tradition at the center of broader concerns, in contemporary and regional context. We offer distinctive research strengths in three regions: American religious cultures, ancient Mediterranean religions, and Asian religions. A second regional specialization gives students an in-depth comparative basis. Students focus their scholarship through one of the following thematic lenses: Values, Ethics, and Human Rights, Modernity, Science, and Secularism, Visual Culture, Media and Technology, Language, Rhetoric, and Performance, Body and Praxis, Theory and Method. This curriculum provides the depth to produce rigorous scholarship that is on the cutting edge, redefining what religious studies has to say to the academy and public.
The Designated Emphasis in Feminist Theory and Resesarch affords graduate students in affiliated programs the opportunity to augment their Ph.D. in a given discipline with a specialization in Feminist Theory and Research. Typically a graduate student in good standing can enroll in Designated Emphasis in Feminist Theory and Research Courses. Those students in affiliated Ph.D. programs who complete the requirements of the Designated Emphasis will have this noted in their transcripts and their Ph.D. diplomas will indicate the Ph.D. training in the DE as Special Emphasis in Feminist Theory and Research.
