An education to prepare you for life

Our Religious Studies students are equipped to understand our diverse and rapidly changing world while learning much about themselves. This comparative field of study imbues students with the ability to assess diverse actions, traditions, and values. The knowledge and habits of mind learned in Religious Studies remain relevant forever, as key to a life of conscious choice and thoughtful, multi-cultural engagement.

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Understand the world differently

Religious Studies courses help you examine your core values, both objectively and in terms of personal experience. In our classes, you will explore how people make sense of the world and enhance your global cultural knowledge as you engage in a wide variety of topics from barbecue to baseball, magic to mindfulness, and sexuality to the sacred.

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Religious Nationalisms

Prof. Winnifred Fallers Sullivan’s recent piece “Conducts of revolt: Refusing a Napoleonic politics of religion” discusses political theology and religious nationalism.

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Themester Tudor Room Lunch

Undergraduates are invited to engage with Prof. Constance Furey on the theme of Lux et Veritas | Light and Truth at the IMU’s Tudor Room while enjoying lunch or dessert and coffee as guests of Themester. Friday, Sept. 22 at 1pm.

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Supporting Ukrainian Scholars

Prof. Patrick Lally Michelson, in coordination with REEI served as a faculty partner to the IU-Ukraine Non-Residential Scholars Program.

Dissertation Award

Sean Sidky was selected as the winner of the University Distinguished Ph.D. Dissertation Award for 2023 in the Humanities category.

Religious Ethics

Prof. Aaron Stalnaker recent article “Religious Ethics and its Publics” recommends broader public engagement by scholars of comparatively oriented religious ethics.

Sabbatical and Translation

Prof. Richard Nance spent his recent sabbatical completing a translation of a lengthy Sanskrit treatise on commentary (now extant only in Classical Tibetan), authored by the great Buddhist intellectual Vasubandhu.

Born from Darkness

Prof. Michael Ing and Alexus McLeod hosted a workshop featuring Indigenous scholars who shared accounts of the world’s creation from Indigenous communities in North America and the Pacific.

A community of support

Our department is home to an incredible community of teachers and students ready to support your intellectual and personal pursuits. We are innovative and open-minded researchers who welcome unconventional ideas to help us better understand the role religion plays in culture and society.

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Being Human

The study of religion broadens and deepens your understanding of the diverse richness and mystery that attends being human. Our faculty is engaged in research through the LUCE-funded Being Human project to learn more about what it means to be human in our rapidly changing world.

Learn about the Being Human project