The Yale Department of Religious Studies is one of the leading scholarly communities dedicated to the study of religion. Our faculty members research religions from around the world in an effort to understand the role of religion as social movement, textual tradition, sensory culture, and arbiter of value.
Undergraduate Program
Religious Studies explores and critically analyzes religious traditions and systems of value. Diverse courses delve into the history and meaning of rituals, canonical and non-canonical texts, and theological and social categories and how they have been shaped by and construct institutions, habits, hierarchies, and collectives.
Graduate Program
The Department has trained several generations of intellectual leaders working inside and outside the academy. Our vibrant doctoral program includes faculty from the Department of Religious Studies and across Yale University, with special ties to the faculty in Yale Divinity School. We teach across many fields of study, time periods, geographical regions, and sources.
-
Laura Nasrallah one of two FAS faculty honored with 2025 ACLS Fellowships
The American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship supports and recognizes excellence in the humanities.
Faculty in the News
-
The Worlds of Tarot: Students explore the history and meaning of divinatory cards
A new course takes an interdisciplinary approach to the study of tarot—a divinatory medium practiced by fortune-tellers, artists, and the curious.
-
RLST welcomes new faculty member Marta Sanvido
Marta Sanvido describes the impact a trip to Japan had on her studies and the “secret documents” of her most most recent research.
-
Passover pop-up exhibit at Sterling teaches visitors about Jewish tradition
The exhibit featured books telling the Passover story from many centuries and regions of the world.
