Mission Statement

Religion courses at Smith are critical and comparative, interdisciplinary, and cross-cultural. They examine the nature and function of religious phenomena in the past and present of many cultures. They provide opportunities to analyze systems of belief and patterns of religious behavior, the history of religious traditions, the functions of religion in society, and various forms of religious expression such as myth, ritual, sacred story, sacred texts, liturgy, and theological and philosophical reflection.

In the department's view, a student's personal religious perspective is not a consideration for entering or for successfully completing a course in the department. It is not unusual, however, for a student's interest in religion studies to be motivated by personal, existential questions--the perennial questions of human existence. There is no better way for a person to work out her own answers than by studying the distillations of insight found in the world's religious traditions.

Background

At the end of the nineteenth century the Smith College curriculum included among its offerings four or five courses under a simple non-departmental heading, "Biblical Literature." Some of these were required courses for all students at the college; the "higher criticism" of the Bible was a feature of the syllabus. The 1899-1900 academic year saw religion courses at Smith offered within a newly designated department, "Biblical Literature and Comparative Religion," staffed by one professor, Irving F. Wood. The announced text for the comparative religion course was Allan Menzies' History of Religion: a Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems (New York, 1897).

By 1908 the department faculty had grown in number by more than one hundred per cent, with one professor, one associate professor, and a "reader." Added to the religion curriculum over the next decade was a course titled "Early Oriental Civilizations," treating mainly of ancient Near-Eastern texts, and another titled "The Development of Christian Thought." By then, biblical Hebrew and koine Greek were also being taught. By 1927 the department's faculty had increased to six, and in that year its name was changed to Religion and Biblical Literature--still its designation today. Informally, of course, "Religion Department" or "Department of Religion" is the commonest expression.

What may be seen as a milestone in the subsequent history of the department was the introduction in 1940-41 of a course, "Contemporary Judaism," taught by the late S. Ralph Harlow. Other landmarks include the appointment, in 1962, of the first non-Protestant department member, the late Jochanan Wijnhoven, to teach full time in the area of Jewish studies; and the establishment in 1967-68 of the endowed Ada Howe Kent Program to support the study and teaching of "World Religions" (understood to mean "non-Western" religions) in the department, in collaboration with other departments in the Humanities at Smith. Following these innovations, our curriculum today includes a rich and wide array of courses dealing with the religious traditions of the world from a variety of different viewpoints.

Other Academic Activities

Members of the Religion Department also serve on a number of advisory committees for interdepartmental programs, such as Archaeology; Jewish Studies; Medieval Studies; Ancient Studies; Ethics; and East Asian Studies. Courses taught jointly by members of two or more departments or programs give our students further opportunities in their designing their course of study. One example include is an innovative colloquium offered by John Hellweg (Theater) and Dennis Hudson (Religion): "Religion and Theater in Southeast Asia" (REL 373). In recent years Hudson, with Howard Adelman, director of the Program in Jewish Studies, have together taught the course in "Jewish-Christian Relations." This has developed into a major symposium on that subject, "New Perspectives in Jewish-Christian Relations," meeting once a week over six weeks, to which have been invited scholars from off-campus who are in one of either of the two traditions but have particular scholarly interest in the other. Other examples include Japanese Buddhism and Buddhist Art, taught by Marylin Rhie (Art Department) and Jamie Hubbard, and Exploring the Holy Land, an on-site study tour in Israel taught by Karl Donfried and Patricia Skarda (English Department).

In addition to course offerings, the Religion Department regularly invites eminent scholars to the College and host symposia on a wide range of topics. Symposia organized by the Religion Department in recent years, usually with assistance from the Ada Howe Kent Program and the participation of Smith faculty from various disciplines, and scholars from elsewhere in the United States and abroad, include the following: Encounter with Emptiness: Japan's Philosophy of the Profound -- A Symposium in Honor of Keiji Nishitani (April, 1984, at Smith and Amherst Colleges), with panels in science, ethics, history, and metaphysics; Martin Luther: An Interdisciplinary Symposium Commemorating the 500th Anniversary of the Reformer's Birth (October, 1984), with Heiko Oberman, Bernard F. Law, Miriam Chrisman, Jaroslav Pelikan, and Smith faculty from the Religion, History, Philosophy, Art, Music, and German departments; Lectures in World Religions--in Honor of Virginia Corwin Brautigam (October, 1986); with Stephen Crary, Sallie McFague, Diana Eck, and Masao Abe; International Symposium on Metanoetics--Tanabe's Contribution to East-West Dialogue (October, 1989), with panels on Shin Buddhism, Christianity, Philosophy, and Society, and with scholars from the United States, Japan, Canada, Germany, and Smith faculty; Voices of Native American Religion--Four Lectures at Smith College (March-April, 1990), with Charles Long, Joseph Bruchac III, Linda Hogan, and David McAllester; and Flesh and Fantasy: Women in Tibetan Buddhism, with Miranda Shaw and Anne Klein.

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