This Graduate Student Handbook is meant to guide students through the PhD program in the Department of Religious Studies. While the following sections are organized by academic year and focus on the year-by-year activities of students and advisers in our program, this section will focus on the advising structures and resources available to students. It includes information about the advising relationships students will form at each stage of their time at Yale, the responsibilities of graduate students and their advisers, as well as the responsibilities of the ADGS, the DGS and the department at-large. This section should also answer questions about what to do when students have concerns either about academic or personal matters or about their advising relationships.
The Department of Religious Studies is committed to confronting and contesting racism, anti-Blackness, and the legacies of colonialism. Our goal is to interrogate how the study of religion, in its historical constitution and current practices, contributes to systems of inequity in structures of evaluation, curation of ideas, and mechanisms for the development of intellectual leaders. We strive to create a collaborative environment that supports and empowers all our members and that fosters debate on the ethical implications of intellectual engagement.
We encourage both students and faculty to recognize each other holistically, as people with non-academic responsibilities. We wish to create an inclusive teaching and studying environment and encourage students to speak out in case they encounter discrimination, have Title IX concerns, need accommodations due to disability, or otherwise wish to discuss a situation. Students and faculty should be aware of the Graduate School’s (GSAS) Guide to Advising Processes for Faculty and Students.
Advising Structure
Individual Responsibilities