Students wishing to moderate into the Religion Program should, by the semester of Moderation, complete four religion courses, with at least one course in each of these three approaches. Students considering the religion major are strongly encouraged to explore several of the five major religious traditions of the world offered in the Bard curriculum: Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism.
Graduation requirements in religion include at least eight courses in the Religion Program, in addition to the Senior Project and the Religion Colloquium. Majors are encouraged as well to take courses relevant to the study of religion offered by other programs, such as anthropology, sociology, psychology, theology, literature, historical studies, philosophy, gender and sexuality studies, and others. Courses outside the program that centrally involve religious issues or texts may, in consultation with the adviser, be counted as religion courses. Two courses are required for all moderands: Sacred Pursuits: Seminar in the Study of Religion (Religion 320) and Religion Colloquium.
Religion Colloquium is a two-credit course open to all students, but required for students moderated in religion. (Moderands will enroll in the colloquium for four semesters, but only two of these semesters must be for credit.) The purpose of the colloquium is to foster a community of scholarship among faculty and students concerned with the study of religion, and to prepare public presentations of independent research. Weekly sessions are devoted to discussion of new books, films, etc., as well as regular updates of progress on student research. Public sessions of the colloquium will be scheduled three or four times each semester, and students enrolled for credit will take responsibility for preparing papers to present in those sessions.
Students are expected to study a language relevant to the particular religion or area of study upon which they intend to focus for their Senior Project. Relevant languages taught at Bard include Arabic, Chinese, Greek, Hebrew, Japanese, Latin, and Sanskrit.
The Senior Project in the Religion Program will ideally be the culmination of the student's investigation of religion at Bard. Both the Sacred Pursuits: Seminar in the Study of Religion course and Religion Colloquium are organized in part to aid each religion major in formulating an area for more concentrated investigation. In the final semester of their third year, all moderands present a précis of their proposed project at the colloquium. The Senior Project should reflect a sustained analysis of a carefully defined topic in the critical study of religion.
Core faculty: Richard H. Davis (director) , Ismail Acar , Bruce Chilton , Paul Edward Murray , Jacob Neusner , Kristin Scheible
