Religion, Ethics and Public Life
This field of concentration focuses on religious responses to issues in public life, with an emphasis on the environment, bioethics and sexuality, and social policy. Students may choose either of two theoretical approaches, although they are expected to be conversant in both. The first--descriptive and analytical--investigates the responses of religious individuals and communities to political and social movements focused on moral questions; it emphasizes the disciplines of history, sociology, and anthropology. The second approach--critical and constructive--analyzes theological and moral positions on these social phenomena as expressed in many genres; it stresses the disciplines of philosophy and theology. Students may pursue a strict double major in Religion and a second department or may take a more flexible approach, as their interests dictate.
Projects in this concentration might either focus on a single religious tradition or take a comparative approach. Our greatest strengths lie in the Islamic, Jewish, Roman Catholic, and Buddhist traditions.
Core faculty:
George Bond (engaged Theravada Buddhism)
Christine Helmer (early modern to contemporary Protestant theology)
Robert Orsi (American religious life, especially 20th-century Roman Catholicism)
Rüdiger Seesemann (Islamic culture and education in Africa)
Sarah Taylor (American religious life, with an emphasis on “green” religious movements)
Cristina Traina (Christian ethics, especially sexuality, children, and environment)
M. Sani Umar (Islamic thought in West Africa)
Barry Wimpfheimer (Talmud)
Laurie Zoloth (justice and frontier issues in bioethics, Jewish bioethics)
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