This is not officially a Department, but a "Committee." In terms of Harvard's scale hierarchy, it is much smaller than the "Divinity" School, but the only Doctorate degree offered by the Divinity School, the ThD, "is administered by the Harvard University Committee on the Study of Religion, a standing committee of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences." In terms of courses offered, this "Committee" is also bigger than some smaller Departments.
This "Committee" offerred courses under 11 areas:
"Committe" Courses | "Cross-Listed" Courses | |
General: Comparative and Methodologic | 35 | 27 |
Ancient Near Eastern and Israelite | 0 | 15 |
Judaic | 4 | 24 |
Greak, Hellenistic, Roman | 2 | 2 |
Christianity | 31 | 13 |
Modern Western / Religions of the Americas | 23 | 16 |
Hinduism and South Asia | 5 | 7 |
Buddhism | 8 | 10 |
Islam | 7 | 28 |
African and Afro-Atlantic Religions | 3 | 12 |
Chinese and Japanese Religions | 0 | 17 |
Total | 118 | 171 |
Cleary this is a western-focused department, but with coverage of major traditions in the world. There is also division of work between this "committee" and other departments, for exampe, most East Asian religion courses were in East Asian department.
Other observations:
1. Other than Bible (and related texts), what authors/texts are mentioned in course titles? Augustine, Origen, Evagrius, Cassian, Martin Luther King, Jr., Plotinus, Kant, Qur'an.
2. Language requirement for the Ph.D. and Th.D. Programs: two modern languages of secondary scholarship other than English, typically French and German, but could be others like modern Japanese. Plus primary source languages.
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