Department of Religion

Along with the Department of Modern Languages & Linguistics and the Winthrop-King Institute, the Department of Religion is proud to present the 2023 Tessa J. Bartholomeusz lecture, to be presented by Prof. Dennis Washburn of Dartmouth College on Friday, April 21 at 5pm in Room 249 of the Fine Arts Building. His lecture is entitled "'Death is the Mother of Beauty': Sublime Aesthetics in The Tale of Genji"; further information can be found here.

The Department of Religion will hold its 20th Annual Graduate Student Symposium February 17-18, 2023, in Tallahassee, Florida. The symposium will center on the theme “Sensational Religion.” For more details, see the digital schedule.

As detailed in this FSUNews story, the Department of Religion is proud to be the administrative home for a new interdisciplinary undergraduate major in Human Rights and Social Justice that will begin in the Fall 2022 semester. Details about the requirements for this major can be found here. For more details about the major and its requirements, or to declare the major, please email Prof. Joseph Hellweg at jhellweg@fsu.edu.

The Department of Religion congratulates Profs. Elizabeth Cecil and Sonia Hazard on their NEH Summer Stipend awards. These competitive grants will support their summer writing and research. Cecil's award will support her book project, "Natural Wonder: Indigenous Landscapes and the Building of Hinduism in Early Southeast Asia." Hazard's award will support her project, "Sovereignty, Christianity, and the Book in the Cherokee Diaspora, 1828-1861." 

Faculty News

The Department of Religion celebrates with Profs. Jamil Drake and Laura McTighe on their having been awarded a three-year $250,000 grant from the Henry Luce Foundation for a project on Black religion and public health in the South. For more details on Profs. Drake and McTighe's project, see the FSU News story here. This is part of a number of prestigious projects spearheaded by scholars and community organizations across the US on race, justice, and religion that the Luce Foundation is funding; its press release appears here.

Faculty News