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Department of Religious Studies

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What is religious studies?

Religion asks questions that touch every aspect of human life, past and present. The faculty and students in IU’s Department of Religious Studies are engaged in a deeply consequential effort to consider these questions across the world.

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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.

View our undergraduate programs
Learn about our graduate degrees

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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Spring TRiP Series Explores Scripture

Teaching Religion in Public (TRiP) announces their Spring series on Scripture. The series explores the pedagogical stakes of canonization and reverence. How do we teach texts deemed uniquely authoritative without being constrained by questions of authority or power dynamics? What can be learned by shifting attention from specific scriptures to the category itself? 

More about TRiP

New Volume on the Politics of American Religion

Edited by Winnifred Fallers Sullivan and Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, At Home and Abroad bridges the divide in the study of American religion, law, and politics between domestic and international to explore interrelations across conceptual and political boundaries.

Read more

URSA Spring Symposium

The Undergraduate Religious Studies Association (URSA) at Indiana University will be hosting their Spring Symposium online March 26-27. Undergraduate students from all academic backgrounds are welcome to participate in thought and discourse surrounding the study of religion.  

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Darius Sohrab elected to Phi Beta Kappa

Congratulations to Darius Sohrab on being elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Darius is a senior double majoring in Religious Studies and Psychology. His research interests include mental health, autism spectrum disorders, structural inequality, explicit and implicit bias, and psychology of religion.

Phi Beta Kappa at IU

Cooper Harriss Publications

Cooper Harriss' recent essay is a study of eschatology in the closing songs of recent Bob Dylan albums appears in 21st Century Dylan: Late and Timely, edited by Adrian Graf, et al, and published by Bloomsbury. 

Read about all his publications

Teaching the 1619 Project

Constance Furey organized an AAR Online Conference roundtable session on teaching the 1619 Project. Together with graduate students Hannah Garvey and Steve Kaplin, she taught the 1619 podcasts in Original Sin, a College Critical Approaches class discussing racism as America’s Original Sin. 

More about the 1619 Project

New Volume for Understanding Religion

Constance Furey’s article, Body, Society, and Subjectivity, originally published in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, appears again as the first chapter in this new volume, Religious Intimacies, from Indiana University Press. The editors describe her work as inspiration for their project.

More about the publication

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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Meet our faculty

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

News

Carter Gives Talk on Jews and the Religion of Whiteness

New Volume on the Politics of American Religion

American Religion Marks Dabru Emet Anniversary

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Events

Mar

24

Zakiyyah Iman Jackson

Starts at 5 p.m.

Mar

26

URSA Symposium

3 p.m.—7 p.m.

Mar

27

URSA Symposium

9 a.m.—3 p.m.

See more events

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The College of Arts & Sciences

  • About
    • Faculty
    • Affiliate Faculty
    • Emeriti Faculty
    • Staff
    • Graduate Students
    • About Bloomington
    • Diversity + Inclusion
  • Undergraduate
    • Religious Studies B.A.
    • Minor
    • Courses
    • Advising
    • Funding Opportunities
    • Scholarships & Awards
    • Student Experience
    • Career Preparation
      • Career Advising
      • Marketable Skills
  • Graduate
    • Religious Studies M.A.
    • Religious Studies Ph.D.
    • Ph.D. Minor
    • Fields of Study
    • Courses
    • Financial Support
    • Awards & Essays
    • Student Experience
    • Career Preparation
    • Job Placement
    • How to Apply
      • FAQs
  • Research
    • Research Areas
    • Being Human Project
    • Resources
    • Selected Publications
  • Alumni & Giving
    • Get Involved
    • Alumni Spotlights
    • Alumni Newsletters
  • News & Events
    • Departmental News
    • Event Calendar
    • Lectures & Workshops
    • Commencement 2020
  • Contact
  • Student Portal
    • Undergraduate
      • Religious Studies B.A.
      • Minor
    • Graduate
      • Religious Studies M.A.
      • Religious Studies Ph.D.
      • Ph.D. Minor
    • Courses