Religion and Literature Phd Program

[blaisec]

Hi,

Besides U of Chicago, are there any other schools offering PhD programs in Religion and Literature? I believe Claremont has an interfield program in Religion and Literature.

If you are applying or are in one of those programs would love to hear from you.

[jacib]

Hi,

Besides U of Chicago, are there any other schools offering PhD programs in Religion and Literature? I believe Claremont has an interfield program in Religion and Literature.

If you are applying or are in one of those programs would love to hear from you.

Don't limit yourself just to Religion and Literature type programs. Tomoko Masuzawa (now in Comp Lit at Michigan) and John Lardas Modern (now at Franklin & Marshall) both did very literature theses and both went to Santa Barbara, which has nothing resembling a "Religion & Literature" track. Modern did a study of religion in Moby Dick, I think, as part of the Religion in America track, and Masuzawa's thesis turned into In Search of Dreamtime and I think was either in Religion & Culture or the Social Sciences & Religion type thing. There are lots of rubrics you could fall under here. A lot of places have "Religion & Culture", "Religion & Society" or "Religion & Modernity" type programs that you may well apply to. Get in touch with the heads of those tracks. Off hand, maybe Duke and Santa Barbara and Toronto would be particularly worth the look. If the author you want to do is American, that opens up whole new worlds for you. I didn't apply for Religion and Lit, and I don't go to Santa Barbara, I just also applied for weird, non-traditional tracks (though, really, History of Religion has a very very long tradition, but that's another issue). Brown might have something but I might be making that up entirely. Look around at all the Emories, Vanderbilts, Harvards, Yales, etc. The thing you really have to do is email, email, email. I applied to five sociology programs and five religion programs. It took me well over a month to find the right five religion programs. It took me two conversations and a few days of digging to figure out the right five sociology programs. I feel like I applied to every single appropriate religion program (and yes, only five fit my interests) but I realized there was at least one sociology I should have applied to, but didn't. It's hard being non-Biblical, non-"World Religion"-based when applying to Religion graduate programs. It will take a bunch of work to find the right programs. Follow every lead. It's extra hard for us to find the right matches.