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A Letter to Prospective Students

Reading novels by Elie Wiesel, Toni Morrison and Henry James, studying Buddhist ethics in Sri Lanka or spending a term abroad in Israel, debating feminist issues, or taking a course on AIDS may not be the kind of academic activities you associate with a religious studies department. If you asked your parents what kind of religion courses they took in college, they would probably recall classes primarily devoted to biblical and Christian perspectives and church history, typically taught from a denominational viewpoint and no doubt, by a male professor. That's not the case at Hobart and William Smith.

The intellectual energy afoot in our department produces an environment where you will explore the rich variety of religious experience from many perspectives. Whether you are in Europe or Asia on one of the Colleges' many study abroad programs or studying an ancient Greek text in a carrel right next door to our department, you will crisscross disciplines in ways you -your parents- might never have imagined.

That AIDS course which I mentioned above proves the point. It's a bidisciplinary course called AIDS: Scientific Investigation and Human Experience, team-taught by chemistry professor David Craig and Professor Susan Henking from our department. Here's another example: One of our professors, Michael Dobkowski, is the co-author of a book titled The Nuclear Predicament. His fellow writers are four Hobart and William Smith colleagues: a physicist, a philosopher, a political scientist, and the Colleges' librarian.

Yes, our approach to Religious Studies is definitely eclectic, and our students like it that way. You may find your study related to anthropology, history, politics, gender, literature, or psychology - all areas which continually invigorate our courses. Moreover, we are especially strong in Women's Studies, Asian Studies, and Judaic Studies, three fields experiencing a booming interest among Hobart and William Smith students.

Our courses attract so many non-majors that we have dubbed these students "Friends of Religious Studies." Like our majors, "Friends of Religious Studies" come to us for courses like The History and Impact of the Holocaust -taught in the depth of winter, a season, our students tell us, painfully appropriate to the subject matter. Or they may choose courses on Buddhism and Hinduism, taught by Professor Lowell Bloss, our specialist in Asian religions just recently returned from Japan. They may take the course titled "What's Love Got To Do With It?" that studies the concept of love, using texts from Eastern and Western religions along with a whole variety of genres, including newspaper columns and pop lyrics. Professor Mary Gerhart, who is interested in gender issues, hermeneutics, and literature (she had a recent book published, Genre Choices; Gender Questions) created that course. Or they might consider whether modern psychotherapy is a form of religion or explore women's religious experiences across a variety of traditions with me. And those are just a few examples of the more than 40 courses and seminars that provide challenging course work for our majors and "Friends."

A good way to grasp our approach is by taking a look at our introductory courses (Religious Studies 100-110). Each of us in the department has shaped a course that reflects our academic interests and unique teaching styles. And, by the way, after teaching an introductory course, our next course will find us teaching majors and upper-level students. At Hobart and William Smith, we don't reserve our senior and most experienced teachers for "the chosen few," leaving our freshmen and sophomores to graduate teaching assistants. We all teach courses at every level. If we have no classes scheduled, we may try to grab a half hour to proofread one of the many articles and books our faculty members seem to find the time to produce, or await the steady stream of students who appear at our doors in Demarest Hall during office hours.

Although the introductory courses naturally differ in content, they share concern for a set of questions which define religious studies. The books we use also overlap often; many of us teach the Book of Job and In Praise of Krishna, for example - a good way to give students a common ground for discussions back in their residence or dining hall.

My introductory course, Imagining American Religion(s), looks at the vast diversity of religion in the United States. Together we read about Malcolm X, Zen Buddhism in America, contemporary Catholic debate regarding sexuality and AIDS, and evangelical Christianity, for example, and ask whether baseball and politics are forms of American religion. Rather than a central thesis for the course, we share central course questions; what if religion? What does American mean? And What does it mean for a religion to be American or Americanized? In turn, each of our faculty members brings his or her academic perspectives to the introductory series, teaching course like "Religion and Alienation in Twentieth Century Culture" or "Journeys and Stories."

As a Religious Studies major, you will be encouraged to branch out on your own and explore a topic for an independent or Honors project. The titles of a few recent papers written by our students will give an idea of what our students are up to: Feminist Catholic Views of Abortion, Near death Experiences, Women in Buddhism, and Holocaust Art. Honors projects by religious studies students have covered an impressive array of topics. Deborah Levine, who hails from Framingham, Massachusetts, compared the notion of Jewish identity as expressed in the work of Elie Wiesel, who is coming from a religious tradition, to the works of novelist Anne Roiphe, who treats the subject from a secular perspective. Another thesis involves a topic which is highly original; Kristin Boyce '92, from Paint Lick, Kentucky, studies the relationship between her two majors, mathematics and religious studies. More recently, LaKisha Williams wrote on Black-Jewish relations in an honors thesis called "Am I My Brother's Keeper?"

We believe we prepare our majors well to pursue a variety of career paths after college. Our senior seminar -this year's topic is Towards Theory in Religious Studies- is a demanding course that serves as the culmination of our major. By senior year, we feel our majors are ready to rub elbows with the likes of Sigmund Freud, Martin Buber, and William James, and to take on these thinkers in lively and stimulating discussions. With only 14 students in the class, everyone gets the chance to argue their positions. Our graduates are doing all the kinds of things you expect a liberal arts graduate to pursue -medicine, teaching, Wall Street banking, and law, for instance. Of course, we send our majors off to graduate study, as well. You'll find our graduates studying for a Ph.D. in religion at the University of Chicago, Yale Divinity School, Northwestern, and Brandeis.

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. Meanwhile, we would encourage you to browse our department web site where you can find an article on our majors and what they're doing after graduation as well as some further information on faculty and courses. The Admissions staff will gladly make the arrangements if you'd like to transform your visit from virtual to "real" world.

Professor Susan Henking