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.
Submissions from 2023
Higher education can do more to help our city’s immigrants, Christopher D. Tirres
Submissions from 2022
Spiritual Healing on the Border: Lessons in Art, Culture, and Education, Christopher D. Tirres
Submissions from 2021
Pedagogy in process: engaging micro-decisions about race and gender, Christopher D. Tirres
Popular Ritual as Liberating Pedagogy, Christopher D. Tirres
Witnessing the Seeds of Liberation: Immigrant Detention and Pedagogical Encounter, Christopher D. Tirres
Submissions from 2020
Book Review: Boff, Leonardo: The Following of Jesus: A Reply to The Imitation of Christ, Christopher D. Tirres
Faith in Action, Adult Learning, and Immigrant Justice: Bringing Mission to Life, Christopher D. Tirres and Melanie C. Schikore
Faith in Action and Community Engagement: Realizing Mission through Immersion Experiences, Christopher D. Tirres and Melanie C. Schikore
Submissions from 2019
Escaping the Perils of Sensationalist Television Reduction, Michelle Mueller
Submissions from 2018
If all acts of love and pleasure are Her rituals, what about BDSM? Feminist culture wars in contemporary Paganism, Michelle Mueller
Spiritual Realities and Spiritual Activism: Assessing Gloria Anzaldúa’s Light in the Dark/Luz en lo Oscuro, Christopher D. Tirres
Submissions from 2017
Jesuit Ecumenism in Three Acts: Lessons from the Life of Robert McAfee Brown, Paul G. Crowley
At the Crossroads of Liberation Theology and Liberation Philosophy: José Carlos Mariátegui’s “New Sense” of Religion, Christopher D. Tirres
Submissions from 2016
Bold Mercy: God's Summons to Ecclesial Conversion, Paul G. Crowley
Borderlands saints: Secular sanctity in Chicano/a and Mexican culture by Desirée A. Martín, Christopher D. Tirres
Exploring the Aesthetics ofMexican-American Popular Ritual, Christopher D. Tirres
Suffering and Hope in the Enchanting Garb of Poetry, Christopher D. Tirres
Submissions from 2015
Mystagogy and Mission: The Challenge of Nonbelief and the Task of Theology, Paul G. Crowley
Deepening Conversations between Ritual Studies and Pagan Studies, Michelle Mueller
Submissions from 2014
Conscientization from Within lo Cotidiano: Expanding the Work of Ada María Isasi-Díaz, Christopher D. Tirres
iberation Theology, Pragmatism, and the Integration of the Aesthetics and Ethics of Faith, Christopher D. Tirres
Liberation in the Latino/a Americas: Retrospect and Prospect, Christopher D. Tirres
Submissions from 2013
Theological Aesthetics and the Many Pragmatisms of Alejandro García-Rivera, Christopher D. Tirres
Submissions from 2011
"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
Decolonizing Religion: Pragmatism and Latina/o Religious Experience, Christopher D. Tirres
Submissions from 2010
Ignatian Values in the Core Curriculum, Phyllis Brown and Diane Jonte-Pace
Encountering the Religious Other: Challenges to Rahner’s Transcendental Project, Paul G. Crowley
Jesuit Theology, Scientific Culture and the Challenge of Climate Change, Paul G. Crowley
The Rediscovery of God and the Recovery of Systematic Theology: Questions for East Asian Contexts, Paul G. Crowley
Santa Clara University's Faculty Student Research Assistant Program, Diane Jonte-Pace
When Throne and Altar are in Danger: Freud, Mourning, and Religion in Modernity, Diane Jonte-Pace
Reflections on Mourning Religion: A Response to the Respondents, William B. Parsons, Diane Jonte-Pace, and Susan E. Henking
Submissions from 2009
Introduction to Ritual Theory Ritual Practice, Catherine M. Bell
Songs from the Missions,” review of Chanticleer disk “Mission Road, Paul G. Crowley
Julia Kristeva and the Psychoanalytic Study of Religion: Re-reading “Mourning and Melancholia”, Diane Jonte-Pace
Tributes to Peter Homans, Diane Jonte-Pace, Richard A. Rosengarten, and Jennifer Homans
Submissions from 2008
Believing and the Practice of Religion, Catherine Bell
Extracting the Paradigm—Ouch!, Catherine Bell
The Winter of My Desolation,' Conscience and the Contradictions of Atheism according to John Henry Newman,, Michael J. Buckley S.J.
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
Walking Different Pathways: Coming to Know our Own Journey Better, Diane Jonte-Pace
Submissions from 2007
Response: Defining the Need for a Definition, Catherine Bell
Religion through Ritual, Catherine M. Bell
Guadalupe and Her Faithful: Latino Catholics in San Antonio, from Colonial Origins to the Present. By Timothy Matovina, Christopher D. Tirres
Submissions from 2006
Embodiment, Catherine M. Bell
Paradigms Behind (and Before) the Study of Religion, Catherine M. Bell
Ritual, Catherine M. Bell
Psychoanalysis, Colonialism, and Modernity, Diane Jonte-Pace
Alienated Catholics: Establishing the Groundwork for Dialogue, Catherine M. Murphy
Submissions from 2005
Constraints on the Theological Absorption of Plurality, Catherine M. Bell
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
Introduction: Improbable Encounters?, Paul G. Crowley S.J.
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
Homosexuality and the Counsel of the Cross, Paul G. Crowley
What Child is This? John Adams’s "El Niño", Paul G. Crowley
Submissions from 2003
Introduction: Teaching Freud and Religion, Diane Jonte-Pace
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
Ritual Tensions: Tribal and Catholic, Catherine M. Bell
“The Chinese believe in spirits”: belief and believing in the study of religion, Catherine M. Bell
Music of the Invisible: Messiaen’s "Saint Francis", Paul G. Crowley
The Impact of Women's Studies on the Psychology of Religion: Feminist Critique, Gender Analysis, and the Inclusion of Women, Diane Jonte-Pace
Psychology and Religion: The Purist's Map: A Response to Peter Connolly, Diane Jonte-Pace and William Parsons
Submissions from 2001
What's So Powerful about Ritual?, Catherine M. Bell
Finding "the Catholic Thing": Catholic Studies Should be "catholic", Paul G. Crowley
Analysts, Critics, and Inclusivists: Feminist Voices in the Psychology of Religion, Diane Jonte-Pace
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
Rahner, Doctrine and Ecclesial Pluralism, Paul G. Crowley
The Soulfulness of Black and Brown Folk, Christopher D. Tirres
Submissions from 1999
In Defense of an Unfriendly Freud: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and Theology, Diane Jonte-Pace
Legitimation of Hatred or Inversion into Love:' Religion in Kristeva's Re-Reading of Freud, Diane Jonte-Pace
Psychology of Religion, Diane Jonte-Pace
The Psychoanalyst and the Exorcist: Perspectives on Psychology and Religion, Diane Jonte-Pace
The Disposition of Wealth in the Damascus Document Tradition, Catherine M. Murphy
Submissions from 1998
Performance, Catherine M. Bell
Modernity and the Satanic Face of God, Michael J. Buckley S.J.
The Swami and the Rorschach: Spiritual Practice, Religious Experience, and Perception, Diane Jonte-Pace
Submissions from 1997
Preface to Ritual: Dimensions and Perspectives, Catherine M. Bell
Rahner's Christian Pessimism: A Response to the Sorrow of Aids, Paul G. Crowley
Julia Kristeva and the Psychoanalytic Study of Religion: Rethinking Freud's Cultural Texts, Diane Jonte-Pace
New Directions in Feminist Psychology of Religion: An Introduction, Diane Jonte-Pace
Submissions from 1996
“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
Stories from an Illustrated Explanation of the Tract of the Most Exalted on Action and Response, Catherine M. Bell
Between Earth and Heaven: The Dialectical Structure of Ignatian Imagination, Paul G. Crowley
At Home in the Uncanny: Freudian Representations of Death, Mothers, and the Afterlife, Diane Jonte-Pace
Submissions from 1995
Ecclesial Mysticism in the Spiritual Exercises: Two Notes on Ignatius, the Church, and Life in the Spirit, Michael J. Buckley S.J.
Piecing Together the Past, Eugene Ulrich, James Vanderkam, and Catherine M. Murphy
State and Ritual in East Asia, Pierre-Etienne Will and Catherine M. Bell
Submissions from 1993
In Search of the Tao in Taoism: New Questions of Unity and Multiplicity, Catherine M. Bell
The Authority of Ritual Experts, Catherine M. Bell
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
