History

Wlliam Clebsch, First Chair of Religious Studies — William Clebsch, first chair of the Department of Religious Studies, 1974

Founded in 1973, Stanford’s Department of Religious Studies offers a variety of disciplinary perspectives on religion and on the history, literature, thought, and practice of particular religious traditions. The department is home to more than a dozen regular faculty, with expertise in the study of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism; it enrolls about twenty graduate students and roughly fifteen undergraduate majors, minors, and combined majors (with Philosophy) at any one time.

An early history of the department by Emeritus Professor Van Harvey is available here: “Religious Studies at Stanford: An Historical Sketch”