Department News
PhD Candidate Kirby Sokolow Receives Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation Dissertation Research Fellowship
PhD candidate Kirby Sokolow was recently ann
Professor Thomas's "Religion of Anime" Featured in Omnia
Professor Thomas's course, "The Religion of Anime," got a brief writeup in the "Three Questions" column in Omnia.
Professor McDaniel's "Existential Despair" Featured in the Penn Gazette
Professor McDaniel's course "Existential Despair" was featured in the Penn Gazette. Here's an excerpt:
Graduate and Undergraduate Prizes at the Year-End Reception
The Department of Religious Studies acknowledged the accomplishments of several students at our year-end reception on Thursday, May 1, 2025.
Professor Elias Named Chair of Penn Press Editorial Board
Jamal J. Elias, Walter H. Annenberg Professor of the Humanities, has been named the Chair of the Penn Press Editorial Board.
PhD Candidate Hallie Swanson Receives the Stallybrass Prize
Hallie Swanson has just received word that she has won Penn's Stallybrass Prize!
Congratulations to Dr. Jeremy Steinberg!
The Graduate Group in Religious Studies is delighted to congratulate Dr.
Sam Herrmann Wins Dissertation Research Award!
The Religious Studies Graduate Group is very happy to announce that PhD Candidate Sam Herrmann has received a Dissertation Research Award from the Graduate Division of Arts and Sciences!
Graduate Students Sana Rizvi, Kirby Sokolow, and Jeremy Steinberg Win RELS Research Awards
The Religious Studies Graduate Group is delighted to announce the winners of our annual research awards!
Aditya Bhattacharjee Receives Fellowship at Cornell's Society for the Humanities
The Department of Religious Studies is delighted to announce that alumnus Aditya N.
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.
Faculty Bookshelf
The Evolution of Affect Theory: The Humanities, the Sciences, and the Study of Power
Across the humanities, a set of interrelated concepts - excess, becoming, the event - have gained purchase as analytical tools for thinking about power.
Wayward Distractions: Ornament, Emotion, Zombies and the Study of Buddhism in Thailand
When more than 93 per cent of the citizens of one country profess a single religion, as Thais do Buddhism, and when that religion is deeply integrated into national institutions and ideologies, it
The New Nanzan Guide to Japanese Religions
Edited by Matthew D. McMullen and Jolyon Baraka Thomas
Song and Story in Biblical Narrative: The History of a Literary Convention in Ancient Israel
This book examines a literary form within the Bible that has slipped through the cracks of modern scholarship: the mixing of song and story in biblical narrative.
Light Upon Light
Light upon Light: Essays in Islamic Thought and History in Honor of Gerhard Bowering brings together studies that explore the richness of Islamic intellectual life in the pre-modern period
Aisha’s Cushion: Religious Art, Perception, and Practice in Islam
Media coverage of the Danish cartoon crisis and the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan left Westerners with a strong impression that Islam does not countenance depiction of religious imagery.
Women in the Church of God in Christ: Making a Sanctified World
The Church of God in Christ (COGIC), an African American Pentecostal denomination founded in 1896, has become the largest Pentecostal denomination in the United States today.
Cosmologies and Biologies: Illuminated Siamese Manuscripts of Death, Time and the Body
A beautifully illustrated study of rare and unique Siamese manuscripts.
Gathering Leaves and Lifting Words: Histories of Buddhist Monastic Education in Laos and Thailand
Gathering Leaves and Lifting Words examines modern and premodern Buddhist monastic education traditions in Laos and Thailand.
Alef is for Allah: Childhood Emotion and Visual Culture in Islamic Societies
Alef Is for Allah is the first groundbreaking study of the emotional space occupied by children in modern Islamic societies.
Wild Experiment: Feeling Science and Secularism after Darwin
In Wild Experiment, Donovan O. Schaefer challenges the conventional wisdom that feeling and thinking are separate.
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.