About the Department of Religious Studies
Why Study Religion?
The American Academy of Religion has devoted a site to answering this question. A recent book by Professor Stephen Prothero, Boston University, entitled Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know -- and Doesn't (HarperSanFrancisco, 2006) has been generating public debate and new justification for our academic enterprise.
For more suggestions on careers using a Religious Studies degree, CLICK HERE.
Purpose
The purpose of the Department is the academic study of the role of religion in history and culture in a manner appropriate to the rigorous canons of scholarship of the Humanities and Social Sciences of a College of Arts and Sciences in a State University. The dissemination of the results of these studies is accomplished through:
- undergraduate and graduate teaching and advising
- research reports both in scholarly publications and at professional meetings
- service in continuing education programs
- participation in public service and professional development activities.
Accomplishment of this mission requires a faculty with graduate training in the academic study of religion and a faculty that is actively engaged in scholarly research and publication. It requires a supportive university context. It also requires an awareness that the literature and history and sensibilities of Western European humanity are incomplete unless they are studied with those of other past and present cultures and civilizations. Contributions to the undergraduate general education programs of the College of Arts and Sciences and the campus are central to the mission of the department. The Department also offers the citizens of Tennessee the scholarly resources for understanding their religious traditions--namely, objectivity, clarity, disciplined critical distance, sensitive understanding; and an ordered fund of scholarship about religion.
The first purpose is the offering of a reasonably broad and representative if not entirely comprehensive set of courses in the field, appropriate to the mission of a liberal arts college and a major state university, and presumably of general interest to students pursuing the baccalaureate degree or to others (special students, graduate students, the general citizenry) who have reason to want to learn about selected topics in the field without reference to degree programs or degree requirements that may be in place at any given time.
Publications
Contact Information
Department of Religious Studies
Rosalind I. J. Hackett, Ph.D.
Professor and Interim Head
501 McClung Tower
University of Tennessee
Knoxville, Tennessee 37996-0450
Phone: 865-974-2466
Fax: 865-974-0965
Email: dbinder@utk.edu