Welcome

In the Department and Centre for the Study of Religion we explore the way religions have grown and developed, how they have been understood and transformed, and how we can think about them with discipline in our religiously plural environment.

Our programs enable students to grasp religion as an essential aspect of the cultures of the world and the interactions among them. We look at the development of religious beliefs, practices, and doctrines as they intersect with the history of peoples and cultures right up to the contemporary world. We explore religion and its connections with social issues, ethics, philosophical questions, and personal psychological considerations.  In this way, students at all levels can better understand their own traditions and those of others, in ways that provide insight into the significant impact of religions in contemporary affairs.

Daniel R. Schwartz

The Department for the Study of Religion welcomes Professor Daniel R. Schwartz as the 2010 Shoshana Shier Visiting Professor.

Daniel R. Schwartz is a professor in the Department of the History of the Jewish People in the Hebrew University of Jersualem. He is a graduate of Hebrew University, and an expert in the history of Israel in the Second Temple period, and has written extensively on Josephus, Agrippa I, the Second Book of Maccabees, and the Jewish background of Christianity. His most recent book is on the Jewish encounter with Hellenism.

Professor Schwartz has conducted research at Yale, Basel, Lucerne, NYU, Munich, and was appointed to the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Hebrew University.

This spring he will teach an undergraduate and a graduate course, RLG 389H1S Special Topic II: Ancient Jewish Dichotomies and RLG 431H1S/RLG 3691 Josephus' Jewish Antiquities.