The Religious Studies Department educates students in religious and theological disciplines, including the study of religious texts, histories, beliefs, practices, and ethics. Rooted in Santa Clara’s mission and identity as a Jesuit Catholic University, the department seeks to engage Catholic faith in critical dialogue with the world’s religious traditions and conduct Christian theology in conversation with a full range of religious studies methodologies.

The department thus aims to educate students in the knowledge and skills they need (1) to think in a multidisciplinary and contextualized way about religion and matters of Christian faith, (2) to reason critically and ethically about personal beliefs and institutional religious practices, (3) to explore how religions are lived and practiced in local communities and global contexts, and (4) to cultivate a sense of solidarity with poor and marginalized communities informed by the study of theology and religion.

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Submissions from 2019

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Escaping the Perils of Sensationalist Television Reduction, Michelle Mueller

Submissions from 2018

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If all acts of love and pleasure are Her rituals, what about BDSM? Feminist culture wars in contemporary Paganism, Michelle Mueller

Submissions from 2017

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Jesuit Ecumenism in Three Acts: Lessons from the Life of Robert McAfee Brown, Paul G. Crowley

Submissions from 2016

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Bold Mercy: God's Summons to Ecclesial Conversion, Paul G. Crowley

Submissions from 2015

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Mystagogy and Mission: The Challenge of Nonbelief and the Task of Theology, Paul G. Crowley

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Deepening Conversations between Ritual Studies and Pagan Studies, Michelle Mueller

Submissions from 2011

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"Doctrinal Responsibilities": Evenhanded, Open and Fair, Michael J. Buckley S.J.

Tomorrow's Theologians, Paul G. Crowley

Universality, Learned Ministry, and Depth of Thought and Imagination: Reflections on ‘Shaping the Future’ Conference, Mexico City, 2010, Paul G. Crowley

Psychology of Religion and Gender: Freud, Pfister, and the Body of the Mother, Diane Jonte-Pace and Isabelle Noth

Submissions from 2010

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Ignatian Values in the Core Curriculum, Phyllis Brown and Diane Jonte-Pace

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Encountering the Religious Other: Challenges to Rahner’s Transcendental Project, Paul G. Crowley

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Jesuit Theology, Scientific Culture and the Challenge of Climate Change, Paul G. Crowley

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The Rediscovery of God and the Recovery of Systematic Theology: Questions for East Asian Contexts, Paul G. Crowley

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Santa Clara University's Faculty Student Research Assistant Program, Diane Jonte-Pace

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When Throne and Altar are in Danger: Freud, Mourning, and Religion in Modernity, Diane Jonte-Pace

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Reflections on Mourning Religion: A Response to the Respondents, William B. Parsons, Diane Jonte-Pace, and Susan E. Henking

Submissions from 2009

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Introduction to Ritual Theory Ritual Practice, Catherine M. Bell

Songs from the Missions,” review of Chanticleer disk “Mission Road, Paul G. Crowley

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Julia Kristeva and the Psychoanalytic Study of Religion: Re-reading “Mourning and Melancholia”, Diane Jonte-Pace

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Tributes to Peter Homans, Diane Jonte-Pace, Richard A. Rosengarten, and Jennifer Homans

Submissions from 2008

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Believing and the Practice of Religion, Catherine Bell

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Extracting the Paradigm—Ouch!, Catherine Bell

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The Winter of My Desolation,' Conscience and the Contradictions of Atheism according to John Henry Newman,, Michael J. Buckley S.J.

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Theology in the Light of Human Suffering: A Note on “Taking the Crucified Down from the Cross", Paul G. Crowley

Melancholia and Religion in French Feminist Theory, Diane Jonte-Pace

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Walking Different Pathways: Coming to Know our Own Journey Better, Diane Jonte-Pace

Submissions from 2007

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Response: Defining the Need for a Definition, Catherine Bell

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Religion through Ritual, Catherine M. Bell

Submissions from 2006

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Embodiment, Catherine M. Bell

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Paradigms Behind (and Before) the Study of Religion, Catherine M. Bell

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Ritual, Catherine M. Bell

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Psychoanalysis, Colonialism, and Modernity, Diane Jonte-Pace

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Alienated Catholics: Establishing the Groundwork for Dialogue, Catherine M. Murphy

Submissions from 2005

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Constraints on the Theological Absorption of Plurality, Catherine M. Bell

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The Study of Religion and the Rise of Atheism: Conflict or Confirmation?, Michael J. Buckley S.J.

Considering the Legacy of Pope John Paul II, Paul G. Crowley

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Introduction: Improbable Encounters?, Paul G. Crowley S.J.

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Introduction: The Dead Sea Scrolls in the Popular Imagination, Maxine L. Grossman and Catherine M. Murphy

Tracking the Emotion in the Stone: An Essay on Psychoanalysis and Architecture, Diane Jonte-Pace and Peter Homans

Submissions from 2004

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Homosexuality and the Counsel of the Cross, Paul G. Crowley

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What Child is This? John Adams’s "El Niño", Paul G. Crowley

Submissions from 2003

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Introduction: Teaching Freud and Religion, Diane Jonte-Pace

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Teaching Freud in the Language of Our Students: The Case of a Religiously Affiliated Undergraduate Institution, Diane Jonte-Pace

Submissions from 2002

Introduction to Medieval and Early Modern Rituals: Formalized Behavior in Europe, China and Japan, Catherine M. Bell

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Ritual Tensions: Tribal and Catholic, Catherine M. Bell

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“The Chinese believe in spirits”: belief and believing in the study of religion, Catherine M. Bell

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Music of the Invisible: Messiaen’s "Saint Francis", Paul G. Crowley

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The Impact of Women's Studies on the Psychology of Religion: Feminist Critique, Gender Analysis, and the Inclusion of Women, Diane Jonte-Pace

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Psychology and Religion: The Purist's Map: A Response to Peter Connolly, Diane Jonte-Pace and William Parsons

Submissions from 2001

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What's So Powerful about Ritual?, Catherine M. Bell

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Finding "the Catholic Thing": Catholic Studies Should be "catholic", Paul G. Crowley

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Analysts, Critics, and Inclusivists: Feminist Voices in the Psychology of Religion, Diane Jonte-Pace

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Introduction - Misogyny and Religion under Analysis Masterplot and Counterthesis in Tension, Diane Jonte-Pace

Turning Away at the Navel of the Dream: Religion and the Body of the Mother at the Beginning and End of Interpretation,, Diane Jonte-Pace

Submissions from 2000

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Rahner, Doctrine and Ecclesial Pluralism, Paul G. Crowley

Submissions from 1999

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In Defense of an Unfriendly Freud: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and Theology, Diane Jonte-Pace

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Legitimation of Hatred or Inversion into Love:' Religion in Kristeva's Re-Reading of Freud, Diane Jonte-Pace

Psychology of Religion, Diane Jonte-Pace

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The Psychoanalyst and the Exorcist: Perspectives on Psychology and Religion, Diane Jonte-Pace

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The Disposition of Wealth in the Damascus Document Tradition, Catherine M. Murphy

Submissions from 1998

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Performance, Catherine M. Bell

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Modernity and the Satanic Face of God, Michael J. Buckley S.J.

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The Swami and the Rorschach: Spiritual Practice, Religious Experience, and Perception, Diane Jonte-Pace

Submissions from 1997

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Preface to Ritual: Dimensions and Perspectives, Catherine M. Bell

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Rahner's Christian Pessimism: A Response to the Sorrow of Aids, Paul G. Crowley

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Julia Kristeva and the Psychoanalytic Study of Religion: Rethinking Freud's Cultural Texts, Diane Jonte-Pace

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New Directions in Feminist Psychology of Religion: An Introduction, Diane Jonte-Pace

Submissions from 1996

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“A Precious Raft to Save the World” The Interaction of Scriptural Traditions and Printing in a Chinese Morality Book, Catherine M. Bell

Modernism and Postmodernism in the Study of Religion, Catherine M. Bell

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Stories from an Illustrated Explanation of the Tract of the Most Exalted on Action and Response, Catherine M. Bell

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Between Earth and Heaven: The Dialectical Structure of Ignatian Imagination, Paul G. Crowley

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At Home in the Uncanny: Freudian Representations of Death, Mothers, and the Afterlife, Diane Jonte-Pace

Submissions from 1995

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Ecclesial Mysticism in the Spiritual Exercises: Two Notes on Ignatius, the Church, and Life in the Spirit, Michael J. Buckley S.J.

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Piecing Together the Past, Eugene Ulrich, James Vanderkam, and Catherine M. Murphy

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State and Ritual in East Asia, Pierre-Etienne Will and Catherine M. Bell

Submissions from 1993

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In Search of the Tao in Taoism: New Questions of Unity and Multiplicity, Catherine M. Bell

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The Authority of Ritual Experts, Catherine M. Bell

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The Catholic University and the Promise Inherent in its Identity, Michael J. Buckley S.J.

The Ongoing Search for a ‘Catholic’ University, Paul G. Crowley

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Augustine on the Couch: Psychohistorical (Mis)Readings of the Confessions, Diane Jonte-Pace

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Psychoanalysis after Feminism, Diane Jonte-Pace

Submissions from 1992

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Printing and Religion in China: Some Evidence from the Taishang Ganying Pian, Catherine M. Bell

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Presidential Address: The Rise of Atheism and the Religious Epoché, Michael J. Buckley S.J.

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Catholicity, Inculturation and Newman’s Sensus Fidelium, Paul G. Crowley

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Foreword: Notes on a Friendship, Diane Jonte-Pace

Maternal Absence, Castration and the End of the World: A Freudian Reading of the Notion of Self as Endangered Species, Diane Jonte-Pace

Situating Kristeva Differently: Psychoanalytic Readings of Woman and Religion, Diane Jonte-Pace

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Which Feminism, Whose Freud?, Diane Jonte-Pace

Submissions from 1991

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The Church and Its Responsibility to Foster Knowledge, Michael J. Buckley S.J.

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Instrumentum Divinitatis in Thomas Aquinas: Recovering the Divinity of Christ, Paul G. Crowley

Praxis and Humanism, Paul G. Crowley

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Technology, Truth and Language: The Crisis of Theological Discourse, Paul G. Crowley

Submissions from 1990

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The Ritual Body and The Dynamics of Ritual Power, Catherine M. Bell

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Religion and Science: Paul Davies and Jolm Paul II, Michael J. Buckley S.J.

Submissions from 1989

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Religion and Chinese Culture: Toward an Assessment of "Popular Religion", Catherine M. Bell

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Ritual, Change, and Changing Rituals, Catherine M. Bell

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Experience and culture: a point of departure for American atheism, Michael J. Buckley S.J.

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Quest for the Religious Freud: Faith, Morality, and Gender in Psychoanalysis, Diane Jonte-Pace

Submissions from 1988

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Ritualization of Texts and Textualization of Ritual in the Codification of Taoist Liturgy, Catherine M. Bell