Religious Studies (AB)

About this programme

The concentration in Religious Studies cultivates understanding of societies and cultures throughout the world by exploring religious thought and practice in various historical, geographic, and political contexts. Concentrators discover new ways of engaging the complex world in which they live by studying the public and private concerns that the study of religion highlights, including understandings of self, community, good, evil, authority, and inequality. Equipped with interdisciplinary skills of interpretation and analysis, students learn how political affairs, institutions, conflicts, and social spheres commonly recognized as secular have taken shape through the formation and transmission of religious beliefs, behaviors, values, and rituals. These skills include: close analysis of texts, images, artifacts, artistic works, and other social data; synthesis of research through written and verbal expression; interpretation of the past and present through multiple forms of evidence; and engagement with contemporary social issues and communities.