Master of Arts (M.A.) in Religious Studies

McMaster University

Religion is of critical importance for understanding society, and the Department of Religious Studies engages in intensive and broad-ranging research across Asian and Western traditions in their historical and modern expresssion. Since 1964, the department of Religious Studies has offered graduate programs dealing with religion and human religious experience, past and present, East and West. The department has no confessional ties it seeks, rather, to cultivate a positive appreciation of the world’s religious traditions in a spirit of free, open enquiry, critical reflection, and solidly-grounded judgment. The department draws on a wide variety of methodological resources, especially philosophical, philloogical, literary, historical, and social scientific, in the effort to understand religion and religious phenomena.Areas of ResearchAsian Field (Buddhism, East Asian)Biblical (Early Judaism, Early Christianity)Western (Religion and Politics, Religion and the Social Sciences)

Faculty of Social Sciences