Religious Studies
The goal of the Religious Studies Department is to provide students with an expansive, self-reflective, and critical understanding of the complexity of diverse religious traditions, engaging in a variety of approaches, methods, and theories.
About the Major
The Religious Studies Department offers students the opportunity to develop skills in critical and creative thinking, analysis, and research through the study of diverse religious traditions. Our courses explore the texts, objects, spaces, and lived experiences connected with religious traditions and cultures, as well as the art, films, and other forms of cultural expression that represent them.
Students Will Learn To:
- Examine different approaches to the academic study of religions
- Analyze diverse sets of evidence including both primary and secondary sources
- Critically analyze the category of “religion”
- Communicate clearly, coherently, and effectively
A Sampling of Courses
Pirates, Ports, and Piety: Religion Across the Indian Ocean World
Long before the modern rise of globalization, the Indian Ocean world was defined by the movements of itinerant merchants, saints, pilgrims, and adventurers across the political boundaries of empires and kingdoms. What role did religion and the bonds of faith play in empowering the kinds of mobility and circulation characteristic of the Indian Ocean? This course will use the ports of south India and Sri Lanka as launching points to trace the circulation of religious objects, people, and ideas across the Indian Ocean.
Explore these select courses:
Jews’ relationship to mass media has long been stereotyped and misunderstood. This course raises questions about race, ethnicity, and modern media by exploring the intersecting developments in mass media – including publishing, photography, film, and television – with Jewish history in Europe and the United States. How and why did media industries offer Jews social mobility? How do different media enable assimilation, passing, or stereotyping? How and when have Jews used visual media to assert their identity, including by aligning with other minorities and outsiders? Topics include print culture in Eastern Europe; the Yiddish avant-garde; Jewish Hollywood; Zionist aesthetics; photojournalism and the Holocaust; and Jewish photographers in the Civil Rights Movement.
Taking a broad, inter-disciplinary approach, students become familiar with issues facing contemporary American Indian communities. Confronted with unprecedented political, environmental, and cultural challenges, Indians continue to mobilize ancient values to effectively reimagine and reshape them for the contemporary context. Drawing from historiography, literary analysis, and knowledge of current Indigenous leaders, we examine how relationality, resilience, adaptability, and revitalization are informing Native-led social movements while also reconnecting American Indians to their spiritual foundations in times of turmoil and difficulty. Students will have opportunities to engage in discussions with Native spiritual and cultural leaders and will also present their own research projects.
Meet Our Faculty
history of early Christianity; New Testament; early Christian martyrdom; ancient Christianity in a Jewish and Greco-Roman context; ancient reception of the classics
American religious history; religion in the American West; interreligious contact; religious experience of racial/ethnic and religious minorities; Native American and African American religious history; Mormonism; gender and religion
Baruch Spinoza, Moses Maimonides, neuroethics, and Jewish studies
religion and media, religion and popular culture, comparative religions, blasphemy and controversial art, religious life in the U.S.
Seth Schermerhorn
Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Director of American Studies
anthropology of religion; global Christianities; religion in America; Native American religious traditions; traditional ecological knowledge; pilgrimage; personhood and place
New Testament studies; literary and social-historical criticism of the Gospels; religion in film; early Christian mysticism; theories and methods for the study of religion
Richard Seager
Bates and Benjamin Professor of Classical and Religious Studies Emeritus (retired)
religions of the United States with emphasis on new, marginal, or excluded groups and their relationships to the core American values; Buddhism in the U.S. over the last century; Mexican-U.S. border issues and tensions
comparative religion
Explore Hamilton Stories
Ravven on Voting as “Science and Ceremony”
Professor of Religious Studies Heidi Ravven recently discussed “Science and Ceremony” in an invited lecture at the European Society for Medicine Annual Congress in Vienna.
Griffis Publishes Religious Studies Project Article
Visiting Assistant Professor of Religious Studies Sarah Griffis recently published an article online for The Religious Studies Project, an international collaborative enterprise that produces podcasts and resources on the social-scientific study of religion.
Alvarez ’22 Honing Career Skills in Dartmouth Bridge Program
For many Hamilton students, a trip to the Howard Diner delivers little more than a late-night meal. But for Yenesis Alvarez ’22, it provided an unexpected academic opportunity.
Careers After Hamilton
Hamilton graduates who concentrated in religious studies are pursuing careers in a variety of fields, including:
- Financial Advisor, Morgan Stanley Wealth Management
- Brand Coordinator, Legendary Entertainment
- Upper School Dean of Students, American School of Madrid
- Rabbinical Student, Hebrew Union College
- Director of Development, The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia
- Gerontologist, Gateway Adult Center
- Director of Youth & Education Justice, Children’s Defense Fund-NY
- Clinical Social Worker, Morris Foundation
Contact
Department Name
Religious Studies Department
Clinton, NY 13323
