Department News
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!
PhD Student Julio Nascimento Named 2023–24 Graduate Fellow in Korean Studies
PhD student Julio Nascimento has received the 2023–24 Graduate Fellow Award from the Kim Center for Korean Stud
Emeritus Professor Robert Kraft (1934–2023)
We are sad to report that the Berg Professor of Religious Studies, Emeritus
Professor Schaefer's Book Wins Prize from International Society for Science and Religion
Professor Schaefer's Wild Experiment has received a book prize from the
Prof. Schaefer Receives 2023 Ludwik Fleck Prize from Society for Social Studies of Science
Associate Professor Donovan Schaefer was just announced as the winner of the 2023 Fleck Prize for his book Wild Experiment: Feeling Sci
PhD Candidate Angela Xia Receives Two Grants for Archival Research
PhD Candidate Angela Xia has received two grant
Congratulations to ASSOCIATE Professors Megan Eaton Robb and Donovan Schaefer!
The Department of Religious Studies is thrilled to announce the recent promotions of two of our colleagues.
Claire Elliot wins the annual Khyentse Foundation Award for Excellence in Buddhist Studies
Claire Elliot graduated with her Masters in Asian studies from Cornell University in 2020, where she studied Thai, Pali, and Sinhala.
RELS Students Receive Prizes and Awards
RELS celebrated the accomplishments of many students and faculty at an end-of-year celebration held on Thursday, April 27th.
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
Vaughn Booker, Title TBA
RELS Colloquium
Vaughn Booker (Africana Studies, Penn)
Laura Nasrallah, Title TBA
RELS Colloquium
Laura Nasrallah, Yale Divinity School
Rebuilding Community: Displaced Women and the Making of a Shia Ismaili Muslim Sociality
RELS Colloquium/Global Islamic Studies Lecture
Shenila Khoja-Moolji, Georgetown University
Faculty Bookshelf
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
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.
Religion and the Self in Antiquity
Many recent studies have argued that the self is a modern invention, a concept developed in the last three centuries.
Religious Affects: Animality, Evolution, and Power
In Religious Affects, Donovan Schaefer challenges the notion that religion is inextricably linked to language and belief, proposing instead that it is primarily driven by affects.
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.
Print and the Urdu Public: Muslims, Newspapers, and Urban Life in Colonial India
Published by Oxford University Press
The Jews: A History
The Jews: A History is a comprehensive and accessible text that explores the religious, cultural, social, and economic diversity of the Jewish people and their faith.
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.
Islam
Islam is a concise and readable survey of the history of Islam from the birth of Muhammad in seventh century Arabia to the differing situations of Muslims throughout today's world.
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
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?
Feeling Modern: The History of the Emotions in South Asia
A special issue of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, co-edited by Megan Robb with Elizabeth Chatterjee (Queen Mary, London) and Sneha Krishnan (Oxford).