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About Religious Studies

Religion is central to all aspects of human life. The Department of Religious Studies offers a wide range of courses to help students explore religion in its many aspects in societies around the world; become familiar with the diversity of religious expressions; and develop the conceptual tools necessary for understanding how religion shapes the thoughts, lives, and values of its practitioners.  The Department encourages students to draw upon a variety of fields and disciplines for their study of religion, including African-American studies, anthropology, cultural studies, gender studies, history, literary criticism, philosophy, psychology, and sociology. This interdisciplinary and multicultural character makes religious studies at Vanderbilt an excellent field for a general liberal arts education.

Students are given considerable freedom to shape their 30- hour major or 18-hour minor in religious studies around their own interests. Students are simply required to select courses that: (I) introduce them to the range of ways in which religions are studied and understood; and (II) familiarize them with at least two major world religious traditions. In the process, students learn to understand and appreciate more deeply the role religion plays in contemporary society. A major in religious studies, besides the personal growth it affords, lays a solid foundation on which to build a career in professions that demand critical thinking and conceptual flexibility in interacting with diverse populations. The minor in religious studies and the minor in Jewish studies, though narrower in scope, have the same goals.