Religions change. Religious questions ­ and questions about religion ­ persist. What are the major religious questions of our time? If you were to ask our faculty, you would hear these:

"What is the perennial message of religion? Is it ethical or political? How does this message get translated into human civilization and continue to have an impact on human life across the boundaries of religious traditions, gender difference and cultural values? --Etin Anwar

"With our control over nature, with the growing understanding of the human psyche, and with inhumanity revealed in history, where can the sacred be discovered or uncovered?" --Lowell Bloss

"How is religion related to personality, to social structure, to history, to sets of beliefs, values, norms we call culture?" --Michael Dobkowski

"How do religions provide imaginative visions for interpreting human existence? How can we adequately evaluate the meaning and truth of these multiple expressions?" --Mary Gerhart (professor emerita)

"What is it religious people want? What are the relationships between religious traditions and social change?" --Susan Henking

"How do religious systems come to mean particular things to particular people? Can we understand those meanings if we don't share them? How and why do those meanings change?"-- Richard Salter

Through the first half of the twentieth century, college courses on religion were usually limited to biblical and Christian perspectives and were often taught from a particular denominational viewpoint.

Today, the field of religious studies in a liberal arts program involves disciplined inquiry into the array of religions and this study is undertaken from a variety of perspectives. Courses at Hobart and William Smith Colleges range across a variety of religious traditions (Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism, for example) and look at these from the perspectives of history of religions, social scientific frameworks, philosophical and literary analysis, and in dialogue with science, feminist theory, and other contemporary approaches.

In investigating these particulars, we ask more general questions about religion as well ­ What is "religion"? How do religions function? In what sense is a religious perspective meaningful?

For Prospective Students

A Letter to Prospective Students from the Religious Studies Department
This letter, written by Professor Susan Henking in the 1990s, continues to give an accurate picture of the Department of Religious Studies here at Hobart and William Smith Colleges.

Admissions Offices
For more information about Hobart and William Smith Colleges, or to begin an application process, visit this section of our website.

If you would like to meet one of our faculty members, sit in on a class, or browse through the journals in a lounge area that we've set up for our students, we would be happy to see you. The Admissions staff will gladly make the arrangements.

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