The Department of Religious Studies offers graduate work in several study areas:

Buddhism  - Primarily concerned with Theravada Buddhism, Buddhist literature in Chinese, Japanese, Sanskrit, Pali, and Tibetan; Modern and Contemporary Buddhism in Japan; Medieval Chinese Buddhism; Buddhist thought

Development of Buddhist Doctrines, Buddhist Literature, Buddhism and Problems of Philosophy, Early Buddhist Monastic Institutions, Abhidharma, Buddha in the Pali canon, The theory of dependent origination, The theory of anatta in early Buddhism, Empiricism and Buddhism, Buddhist theory of mind and Nibbana

East Asian Religions - Primarily concerned with Taoist canonical literature; the construction of Shinto; Chinese science, alchemy and medicine; the New Religions of Japan; the relationship of Buddhism with indigenous East Asian traditions (Confucianism, Taoism, Shinto

Christianity - Primarily concerned with the writings included in the New Testament, particularly the gospels, Pauline literature, Hebrews, and in the early Greek Church Fathers

Homiletics, Dispensations, Early Church History, Comparative Religions Eschatology, Tripartition of Man, Spiritual Gifts, Bibliology Introduction to Old Testament, Introduction to New Testament Marriage & Family, Apologetics, Systematic Theology, Doctrines, New Testament survey, NT Greek

Western Religious Thought - Primarily concerned with the philosophy of religion, theology, and ethics (Islamic, Jewish, Christian, secular) in the classical and modern periods. Areas of specialization include patristic thought, the interrelations between philosophy and religion

Philosophy of Religion - Philosophy of Religion is identified by a style of thinking and writing. Complementing ‘analytic’ approaches, the philosophy of religion draws upon literary devices; cultural, feminist or political theory; historical analysis; play and imagination; experimental forms of language; psychoanalysis; deconstruction and many others.  Students will engage with selected themes, issues and texts which may be drawn from such examples as Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and  Heidegger

Indian Religion and Philosophy - The study will focus on religious and philosophical texts of the Hindu and Buddhists traditions. Texts may include the Rg Veda, Upanishads, Mahabharata, Bhagavad Gita, or the Yoga Sutra from the Brahmanical/Hindu tradition, and the Nikayas, Vinaya, Jatakas, Lotus Sutra, from the Buddhist tradition. Alongside reading the primary sources, we will also focus about methods of interpretation such as text-historical criticism, hermeneutics, phenomenology, orientalism, and post-colonial theory.

Philosophy of Religion - role of Africa in theory formation. Students who successfully complete this module will be able to demonstrate knowledge of the nature of religion as defined by leading theorists of religion, can demonstrate knowledge of, and critically assess, the linguistic, anthropological, sociological and psychological theories of religion, as well as the intersection of religion with phenomenological and critical theories of class, race and gender.