Congratulations to Professor Engelke on the publication of An Honest Death: Life's End and Humanist Funerals with Princeton University Press.
A fascinating, behind-the-scenes look at non-religious funerals in contemporary London
An Honest Death is an intimate and moving ethnographic account of funerals for people who don’t believe in God or an afterlife. Focusing on secular funeral celebrants of the British Humanist Association (now called Humanists UK), the book examines how their ritual work is geared toward helping realize a secular world. There is a strong ethical commitment behind this…
Congratulations to Professor Hale on the publication of Fugitive Religion: The Ghost Dance and Indigenous Resistance After the U.S. Civil War with Yale University Press.
A bird’s-eye look at the Ghost Dance, the first instance of modern, collective racial self-consciousness for Native peoples in the United States
From the Sand Creek Massacre (1864) to the Massacre at Wounded Knee (1890), Indigenous religious practices—legally banned after 1883—took on new meanings as acts of defiance against colonialism and white supremacy. By reexamining the familiar story of the Ghost Dance and Wounded…
We are heartbroken to convey that Katrina Dock passed away on July 4. Katrina was the administrative assistant in the Department of Religion for ten years. More than this, she was, for so many of us, a friend, confidant, joking partner, and keen observer of life at Columbia. At her funeral on July 17, which was attended by faculty, fellow staff, current and former students, and the College dean, alongside her many friends and family from Long Island and New Jersey, we heard testimonies of her generosity, her humor, and her supportiveness. From her niece, who could always rely on her love and advice,…
Professor Townsend spoke to Columbia News about her journey to becoming a Professor and her interest in the field of Buddhism. Find the article here.
It is with great sadness that the Department of Religion marks the loss of Professor Robert A.F. Thurman, who died on June 16, at home, in Woodstock, New York. A world-renowned scholar of Tibetan Buddhism, dedicated teacher, and public intellectual, Bob was the inaugural Jey Tsong Khapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia, a chair he held from 1988 until his retirement in 2019. The author of numerous books, and stalwart champion of the translation of the Tibetan Tengyur, Bob inspired generations of Columbia and Barnard students in and beyond the classroom. He was also the co-founder…
Congratulations to Professor Vasko on the publication of Making all the World America: Native Information and the Doctrine of Discovery with the University of Pennsylvania Press.
A provocative new account of the ideological framework undergirding early modern imperial expansion: the Doctrine of Discovery
Making All the World America offers a new account of the ideological framework undergirding early modern imperial expansion: the Doctrine of Discovery, which held that the first arrival of a European power among the lands and peoples of the Western Hemisphere granted the right to govern the…
The Departments of Religion at Columbia and Barnard are now welcoming submissions for the ninth annual Peter Awn Undergraduate Prize. This prize of $500 will be given to the best paper written by an undergraduate for any course or seminar in Religion in 2025.
This prize honors our colleague Peter Awn’s inspired teaching and his dedication to promoting and celebrating creative inquiry.
Submissions will be accepted until Friday, March 6 at 5 p.m. The Prize will be announced in mid-April.
Eligible papers will be:
- written for a Spring 2025 or Fall 2025 course or seminar in the Department of…
Congratulations to Professor Berkowitz on the publication of What Animals Teach Us About Families: Kinship and Species in the Bible and Rabbinic Literature with the University of California Press.
Moving beyond debates about the ethics of animal consumption to focus on animals' intimate lives, Beth A. Berkowitz examines the contribution of religious traditions and sacred texts to contemporary conversations about animals. Reading the four "animal family" laws of the Bible alongside their rabbinic interpretations from ancient times to today, she examines the bonds that animals form with each other…
The Religion Department congratulates MA student Nandini Rawal, whose entry was awarded first prize in the Hindi Essay Writing Competition organized by the Permanent Mission of India to the United Nations.
The award ceremony took place at the UN Headquarters in New York on Thursday, Oct 9, 2025, during the “Hindi Day” celebrations, an event which honours Hindi’s cultural and linguistic significance.
This event brought together ambassadors, diplomats, and UN officials to reflect on the role of Hindi in fostering dialogue and cross-cultural understanding, which highlighted the global…
Recent PhD graduate Connor Martini has won the 2025 American Religion Dissertation Prize for his thesis titled “The Evidence of Things Not Seen: Searching for Extraterrestrial Intelligence in an Enchanted Universe.” This prize is awarded annually by a jury of editors of the journal to works demonstrating excellence in the study of religion in America.
Connor’s project examines how scientists searching for alien life create what he calls pre-enchantment—using radio telescope observations, signal processing algorithms, and narratives of imagined contact scenarios to prepare…
The Department congratulates Shweta Radhakrishnan who recently won a Dissertation Fieldwork Grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. One of the most prestigious awards for ethnographic research, the Foundation’s goal is “to support vibrant and significant work that furthers our understanding of what it means to be human.” Here is a summary of Shweta’s project:
In 2008, a group of ritual possession specialists/oracles in Kerala came together to form a trade-union like collective. Their initial demands included better safeguards and protections, such as health…
Congratulations to Professor Boulouque on the publication of On the Edge of the Abyss: The Jewish Unconscious before Freud with University of Chicago Press