In the Religious Studies Program, religious traditions are explored in all of their complexity through comparative, contextual (in specific historical or cultural contexts), and thematic studies. The courses offered through the program are built on the established scholarly tradition of the study of religion as an academic, as opposed to confessional, pursuit.
The Religious Studies Program, an undergraduate program in the College of Arts & Sciences, is designed to meet the needs of three classes of students: students planning to pursue advanced degrees in the academic study of religion or allied disciplines or sub-disciplines (e.g., history of religions, religion and literature, religion and psychology, ethics, theology, area studies); students seeking courses on topics relating to religion to fulfill distribution requirements: and students desiring a more systematic exposure to the academic study of religion as a significant component of a liberal arts education.
The program offers an excellent opportunity to develop a deeper understanding and appreciation of the complex ways in which religious traditions inform human thought and behavior. The program hosts lectures, conferences, symposia and periodic social gatherings for faculty members and students throughout the academic year to foster a sense of intellectual community.
Department website“It’s All Just Poetry: Writing ʿUmar ibn Abī Rabīʿah’s Life” in Journal of Arabic Literature 52:3–4 (2021), 321–50
“Colonial South America, Identity and Race as Seen by a Chaldean Priest from Baghdad” in CompLit: Journal of European Literature, Arts and Society 2 (2021), 115–43
“Building a Library: The Arabic and Persian Manuscript Collection of Sir William Jones” in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 31:1 (2021), 1–70
Books
Edited Volumes
The Aramaic Incantation Bowls in Their Late Antique Contexts (under contract, Brown Judaic Studies). Co-edited with Alexander Marcus.
Journal of Hebrew Scriptures, special edition on “Ancient Jewish Memories of Achaemenid Persia.” Co-edited with Kristin Joachimsen (PERSIAS research group).
Selected Articles
“Families and Lists of Protections in the Aramaic Incantation Bowls” (forthcoming)
“A Judeo-Persian Translation of the Book of Esther (Bibliothèque nationale de France MS Hébreu 127)” (forthcoming)
Select publications:
• Haskalah: The Romantic Movement in Judaism (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2012).
• Conscription and the Search for Modern Russian Jewry (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006).
“The Jewish Boswell: Y. D. Berkovich and the Invention of Sholem-aleichem [Heb.],” Ot 7 (2017): 129-154.
“The New Marranos,” Studies in Contemporary Jewry Annual 29 (2016): 245-267.
“Rome and Jerusalem: The Figure of Jesus in the Creation of Mark Antokol’skii,” The Art of Being Jewish in Modern Times, ed. Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett and Jonathan Karp (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007), 441-496.
“The Poet in Hell: H. N. Bialik and the Cultural Genealogy of the Kishinev Pogrom of 1903,” Jewish Studies Quarterly, vol. 12, no. 1 (2005), 101-128.
Unknowing and the Everyday: Sufism and Knowledge in Iran, forthcoming with Duke University Press
“Open Sounds, Hidden Spaces: Listening, Wandering, and Literalism in Sufi Iran,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, March 2022.
‘To be Transformed into Thought Itself’: Mystical and Political Becomings in the work of Ali Shariati," Philosophy and Global Affairs, Spring 2022.
“Text and Contest: Theories of Secrecy and Dissimulation in the Archives of Sufi Iran” in Sufism and Shi’ism in the Early Modern and Modern Eras, IB Tauris, 2019.
“Women’s Religious and Social Activism in Iran” in ed. Afsaruddin, Asma, Oxford Handbook on Islam and Women, forthcoming.
The Future of Bangalore's Cosmopolitan Pasts: Civility and Difference in a Global City. (U. Hawaii Press, 2018)
Tamils and the Haunting of Justice: History and Recognition in Malaysia’s Plantations (U. Hawaii Press, 2014)
Clio/Anthropos: Exploring the Boundaries between History and Anthropology. Andrew Willford and Eric Tagliacozzo, eds. (Stanford University Press, 2009)
Cage of Freedom: Tamil Identity and the Ethnic Fetish in Malaysia. (University of Michigan Press, 2006
Asian edition: National University of Singapore Press, 2007.)
Spirited Politics: Religion and Public Life in Contemporary Southeast Asia, Andrew Willford and Kenneth George, eds. (Cornell University: SEAP Publications, 2005)
Selected Articles and chapters
“Betrayal, Sacred Landscapes, and Stories of Justice in Malaysia,” DORISEA Working Papers, Issue 22, 2016. ISSN 2196-6893. University of Gottingen.
Book Review: “Lost Selves and Lonely Persons: Experiences of Illness and Well-Being among Tamil Refugees in Norway,” by Anne Gronseth. Medical Anthropology Quarterly spring, 27:2, 2014.
“Cosmopolitan Pasts and Monocultural Futures (?) of a Deccan Metropolis”, in Perdue, Siu, and Tagliacozzo eds., Asia Inside Out. (Harvard University Press, 2014)
“Every Indian is Burning Inside,” in The Abdulla Badawi Years: A retrospective. Edited by Bridget Welsh. Petaling Jaya: SIRD., 2013.
“The Letter of the Law and the Reckoning of Justice Among Tamils in Malaysia,” in Encountering Islam: The Politics of Religious Identities in Southeast Asia. Yew-Foong Hui, ed. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2012.
“The Last Plantations in Kuala Lumpur”, with S. Nagarajan. in Subaltern Kuala Lumpur, edited by Yeoh Seng Guan. (forthcoming, Routledge)
“From the margins to centre stage: ‘Indian’ demonstration effects and Malaysia’s political landscape”, Tim Bunnell, S.Nagarajan, and Andrew Willford, Urban Studies: 1-22: 2010.
‘“The Truest Belief is Compulsion”: Othering and the Unconscious as an Object of Ethnographic Inquiry” (Review essay) American Ethnologist, Vol 34 N4 (Nov. 2007)
“Ethnic Clashes, Squatters, and Historicity in Malaysia,” in Rising India and Indians in East Asia, A. Mani and P. Ramasamy, eds., Institute of Southeast Asian Studies Press: Singapore (2008).
“The ‘Already Surmounted’, yet ‘Secretly Familiar’: Malaysian Identity as Symptom” Cultural Anthropology, V.21 N.1 Feb. 2006)
“Possession and Displacement in Kuala Lumpur’s Ethnic Landscape” International Social Science Journal (2003. ISSJ. N.175).
“‘Weapons of the Meek’: Ecstatic Ritualism and Strategic Ecumenism among Tamil-Hindus in Malaysia’,” Identities 9(2) (2002)
RECENT BOOKS
-Philostratus, Heroicus and Gymnasticus (Loeb Classical Library volume, with Jason Koenig) 2014
-The Birth of Comedy: fragments of ancient Greek drama, 500-250 B. C., 2011
-Oxford Readings in Classical Studies: Thucydides 2009.
RECENT EDITED VOLUMES
-Romilly, Jacqueline de. 2012. The mind of Thucydides. Edited and with an Introduction by Hunter R. Rawlings and Jeffrey Rusten. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
-Mabel Lang, 2011. Thucydidean Narrative and Discourse, eds. Eleanor Dickey, Richard Hamilton and Jeffrey Rusten, Michigan Classical Press.
RECENT ARTICLES
-(2013) Rusten, J. 2013. "Political discourse and the assembly in four plays of Aristophanes," in M. Quijada Sagredo and M. C. Encinas Reguero, eds. Retórica y discurso en el teatro griego. (Madrid) 249-60
-(2013) "Δῆλος ἐκινήθη: An “imaginary earthquake” on Delos in Herodotus and Thucydides." Journal of Hellenic Studies
-(2013) "The mirror of Aristophanes: the winged ethnographers of Birds (1470-93, 1553-64, 1694-1705)." In Greek comedy and the discourse of genres. eds. E. Bakola, L. Prauscello and M. Telò. Chapter 12. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
-(2013)"‘The Odeion on his head:’ Costume and identity in Cratinus’ Thracian Women fr. 73, and Cratinus’ techniques of political satire." In OPSIS: Studies on the Performative Aspect of Greek and Roman Theatre. eds. George W. M. Harrison and Vayos Liapis. Brill.