2025-2026 Academic Catalog
Department of Religion Studies
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Department Chair: Associate Professor Dustin Nash
Professor: Gruen
Associate Professor: Takahashi
Senior Lecturer: Albert
The work of the Religion Studies Department of Muhlenberg College is the academic investigation of religious traditions in their thought and practice. Faculty and students study cultural and intellectual responses to basic questions of life and meaning. Our discipline, exploring essential aspects of human experience, is inherently cross-cultural, multidisciplinary, and analytical. Its geography is global; its chronology extends from antiquity to the present. We analyze texts, beliefs, rituals, arts, communities, cultures, and their integration into coherent worldviews. Our methodologies as well as our content interact with disciplines spanning the liberal arts curriculum from the humanities to the social sciences to the sciences.
Honors Program
This project is designed for Religion Studies majors who have proven themselves to be prepared for sustained, independent research. It offers them the opportunity to pursue a self-designed research and analysis project, in close consultation with a faculty advisor. The project will normally be undertaken in either semester of the student’s senior year. Students who wish to complete the Honors Thesis in the Study of Religion must have at least a 3.5 grade point average in departmental courses and at least a 3.3 grade point average overall. A written proposal for this project must be approved by a faculty member in the Religion Studies Department in the semester prior to the one in which the thesis will be completed. The proposal must consist of a working thesis, a detailed description of the project, and a tentative bibliography. The culmination of the project will be a presentation for faculty and students at the end of the term. The Religion Studies Department faculty will determine whether Honors will be awarded upon completion of the thesis.
ProgramsMajorMinorCoursesReligion Studies- REL 100, 101 - Religion and Popular Culture
- REL 104, 105 - Gender and Sexuality in Religion
- REL 115, 116 - Monotheism: Creating God
- REL 117 - Animals and the Sacred
- REL 123, 124 - Sacred Stories
- REL 127 - Religious Migrations
- REL 131 - Myth, Religion, and Creation
- REL 133, 134 - Pilgrimage: Rites of Way
- REL 137 - Speaking with the Divine
- REL 140 - Ecology and Religion
- REL 144 - It’s The End of the World
- REL 146 - Religions and their Monsters
- REL 201, 202 - Theory and Method in the Study of Religion
- REL 207 - Religions of China
- REL 208 - Religions of Japan
- REL 215, 216 - New Religious Movements
- REL 225 - The Good Life in Buddhism
- REL 227 - Islamic Traditions
- REL 229 - Judaisms
- REL 233 - Christians and their Communities
- REL 235 - Gender and Sexuality in Buddhism
- REL 237 - Reading the Rabbis
- REL 252 - Hebrew Bible
- REL 254 - New Testament
- REL 270 - Conflict, Culture & Community Development in South Africa
- REL 272 - Zen Buddhism
- REL 308 - Scrolls, Scribes, and Scriptures
- REL 314 - Death and Desire in Tibetan Buddhism
- REL 330 - Ecology and Religion in Japan
- REL 353, 354 - Gender and Sexuality in Judaism
- REL 355 - Power and Piety in Ancient Christianity
- REL 363 - Islam in America
- REL 365 - Gender and Sexuality in Islam
- REL 371 - Paths in Jewish Thought
- REL 450-469 - CUE: Culminating Undergraduate Experience Seminars in the Study of Religion
- REL 470 - Honors Thesis in Religion Studies
- REL 960 - Religion Studies Internship
- REL 970 - Religion Studies Independent Study/Research
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