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Major and Minor

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Academic Departments

The Religious Studies Major and Minor at Davidson

A religious studies major allows you the latitude to pursue multiple interests, and a religious studies minor can add important dimensions to your major course of study.

A major in religious studies provides a broad background in different traditions from around the world, and exposure to different approaches, including historical, literary, sociological, and anthropological among others. This field of study encourages students to become critical and sympathetic interpreters of the beliefs and practices of other cultures as well as their own.

The religious studies minor offers students the opportunity to enhance their chosen major with a variety of religious studies courses. A minor allows for exposure to a spectrum of traditions and critical methods without the curricular demands required of the major.

Students In Action Beyond the Classroom Ben Haden '22

Over the summer, Ben Haden '22 studied at the Tunghai University in Taiwan through Fulbright, exploring Buddhism and music rituals on the island. He studied for seven weeks in Taiwan; and then worked as a ministry intern at All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Atlanta through the Davidson Chaplain’s Office fellowship program. He valued the church’s long history of serving Atlanta “in meaningful and lasting ways.”

Courses You Might Take

REL 280
Chinese Religions

This course offers a survey of the complex array of philosophical and religious traditions that have fundamentally shaped Chinese thought and culture. Topics covered in this course include ancient state religion, classic Confucian and Daoist texts, religious Daoism, Buddhism in China, and popular religion.

REL 278
Islamic City

To understand Islamic societies and their inhabitants, we approach Islamic civilization “spatially.” We will explore the great Islamic empires of the pre-modern era, the Ottomans, the Safavids and the Mughals, through their cities. By researching and imagining their societies, institutions, and cultural and artistic lives, we digitally recreate major cities of these Muslim empires.

REL 262
Imagining American Religion

The course offers a study of how people have portrayed the religious dimension of life through works of narrative fiction. The work will examine the various motives—religious, political, aesthetic or otherwise—that guide American imaginings about religion.

Related Academic Programs

Interested in Studying Religious Studies at Davidson?