Why Study Religion?
International and Interdisciplinary Scholarship

Religion shapes, and is shaped by, every other dimension of human society. It is impossible to fully understand politics, law, history, or science without understanding religion. We invite you to learn more about the most interdisciplinary field in the university: Religious Studies.
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Graduate Program
Featured Story
Desire and Intimacy in the Study of Religion Recap
The 2024 Northwestern Religious Studies Graduate Student Conference on Desire and Intimacy in the Study of Religion was a tremendous success. This was the first graduate student conference since before the COVID-19 pandemic, and brought scholars from Stanford, Harvard, Columbia, Vienna, Berlin, and more. Throughout our five panels, presenters explored on intimacies of land, reading intimacies, digital and media intimacies, sensorial intimacies, and scholarly intimacies. To read more about our Fall graduate conference, click on the link below!
Find Your Direction
Alumna Adina Goldman had a path that led her from pre-med to English literature and biological anthropology and then to religious studies and music.
News and Events
Faculty in the News

Professor Kevin Buckelew's new book Discerning Buddhas was recently published! Congratulations!
Click below to read more about Professor Buckelew's book Discerning Buddhas, which explores themes of authority, agency and masculinity in Chan Buddhism.
Upcoming Events
Apr
8
2025
Mermaids, Physicians, and Unruly Things: The Politics of Healing ...
12:30 PM - 2:00 PM, Evanston
Guest Lecture by Professor Khytie Brown, Professor in the Department of Religious Studies, The University of Texas at Austin
Apr
11
2025
(NARW) North American Religions April Workshop
3:30 PM - 5:00 PM, Evanston
NARW is an interdisciplinary workshop for Chicago-area students and faculty working in and alongside the field of North American Religi...
Apr
15
2025