The department of Religious Studies at Franklin & Marshall offers one of the most international majors on campus, with strengths in American religions, Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Islam.  It also has thematic courses addressing, for example, religion and literature, and religion and politics.  It offers highly individualized, independent study opportunities both on campus and around the world.  Religious Studies is in many ways a quintessential liberal arts major in that it teaches rigorous critical thinking, textual analysis, and broad acquaintance with multiple cultures, while expanding your mind about what it means to be human and to wrestle with the most important questions human beings have asked.

We have an excellent record of preparing students for a broad range of careers (including higher education, business, education, law and medicine) and elite graduate programs, including those at Harvard, Yale, the University of Chicago, and UC Santa Barbara.

Recent independent projects have included studies of specific Native American traditions, Buddhism in Thailand, Hindu Mythology, the Taoist influence on Zen Buddhism, spiritual healing, Islamic fundamentalism, 20th century women mystics, and modern commentaries on the book of Job.