Dive deep. Aim high.
The Doctor of Philosophy is an advanced research degree for:
- Students aspiring to work in teaching, research and leadership in college, university and seminary level education
- Professionals in government, law, religious leadership, NGOs, libraries and media seeking high-level credentials as an expert in religious and theological studies
The PhD is the highest academic degree available in the United States.
Students complete coursework and comprehensive exams in three to four years. The dissertation, from prospectus to defense and submission, often takes two years.
Areas of Study
The Theological School’s Graduate Division of Religion (GDR) supports graduate research in the following disciplinary areas of specialization:
Bible and Cultures
Cultivate a biblical hermeneutic that is historically informed, theoretically infused, politically attuned and contextually relevant.
Bible and Cultures is a uniquely forward-looking doctoral program in biblical studies, quite unlike any other in North America. It thinks transtestamentally beyond the frequently artificial partitioning of Hebrew Bible studies from New Testament studies that tends to silo faculty and students and foreclose cross-testamentary dialogue. It also thinks transculturally beyond the equally artificial investigation of biblical texts in their ancient contexts of production in isolation from their multifaceted histories of influence and contemporary contexts of reception. Finally, it thinks transdisciplinarily by continually bringing biblical studies into transformative dialogue with other theological and religious studies fields of study and many of the most consequential theoretical and political currents in the humanities and social sciences.
In the Bible and Cultures program, explorations of the Bible’s rhetoric, its material and political contexts, its interpretation in diverse cultures, its representations of gender, sexuality, social status, the natural environment, group identity and cultural Others are conducted interactively with such contemporary resources as literary and cultural studies, postcolonial theory, gender studies and queer theory, ecological studies, racial/ethnic studies, and theological and pastoral studies. Students in the program develop disciplinary depth and intellectual breadth as well as practical skills in teaching, research, writing, public presentation, building and maintaining a public professional presence, and translating their transdisciplinary knowledge and insights into socially, politically, and ethically relevant resources for ongoing, critically-reflective discourse.
Students in the Bible and Cultures area work closely with faculty specializing in the biblical testaments:
- Hebrew Bible: Danna Nolan Fewell and Kenneth Ngwa
- New Testament and Early Christianity: Stephen Moore, Althea Spencer-Miller, and Melanie Johnson-DeBaufre
They also work with faculty beyond their area, such as:
- Traci West in Christian Ethics and African American Studies
- Arthur Pressley in Trauma Studies
- Catherine Keller in Process and Eco-Feminist Theology
- Terry Todd in Religion in America
Language Requirements
Demonstrated competence at the appropriate level in the relevant ancient languages is a prerequisite for admission into the Bible and Cultures PhD program. Proficiency in these languages is usually demonstrated by evidence of at least two semesters of course work per language at a minimum of 3.0 grade level.
Religion and Society
We are currently searching for a new faculty member in Religion and Society and look forward to receiving applications for this area for the 2024-2025 academic year.
The Religion and Society area focuses on the role of religion and Christianities in relation to structures of oppression, struggles for liberation and the restoration of wholeness for individuals and communities. This approach to the study of religion and society attends to intertwine public and private dimensions as well as implications for the natural environment.
The diverse academic training and research interests of the faculty encompass cultural studies, psychoanalytic theory, sociology, Christian social ethics, religion and ecology, pastoral theology, liberative and feminist/womanist theologies, Latino/a religions and Africana diasporic studies. They share the understanding that theory should respond to human experience and that academic scholarship must incorporate a concern with praxis.
Students in the program work at the intersections of at least two of the following emphases: Christian Social Ethics, Social Theory and Justice Studies, Ecology, Race/Ethnicity, Gender/Sexuality.
Students in the Religion and Society area work closely with faculty specializing in disciplines that examine individuals and groups in the context of social structures and movements, such as: Traci West, Laurel Kearns, and Edwin Aponte.
They also work with faculty beyond their area:
- Kenneth Ngwa, Althea Spencer-Miller, and Arthur Pressley in Africana Studies and Religion
- Catherine Keller in Process and Eco-Feminist Theology
- Hyo-Dong Lee in Asian theology and philosophy
Theological and Philosophical Studies
The area of Theological and Philosophical Studies fosters a transdisciplinary community of inquiry among students, with emphases on philosophical, constructive, pluralist, comparative and systematic approaches to theological themes.
These emphases; supported by the philosophical traditions of pragmatism, phenomenology, process and poststructuralism; entail strong interests in ecology as well as sex/gender, social-political, and decolonial theory.
Our faculty bring their distinct methods in the study of religion and its multiple sites of interconnection and contestation to the common table of open, dialogical discourse. Students are invited participants in this collegial and rigorous table talk, learning the textual content and practicing the theories specific to particular fields of interest.
They come to appreciate and negotiate the complexities of those fields as they take shape within concrete contexts marked by ethical struggle as well as by interdisciplinary and interreligious conversation.
Students in the Theological and Philosophical Studies area work closely with faculty specializing in theology and philosophy:
- Constructive and Systematic Theologies: Catherine Keller, Chris Boesel, and Daniel Shin
- Comparative Theology: Hyo-Dong Lee
They also work with faculty beyond their area, such as:
- Laurel Kearns in Religion and Ecology
- Stephen Moore in Critical Theory and Religion
- Angella Son in Self-Psychology and Pastoral Theology
Transdisciplinary Signature Areas
To deepen transdisciplinary work, all students also declare a Signature Area major in one of the following:
Africana and Black Studies and Religion
Explores African and African-derived religious practices and ideas, philosophical and intellectual traditions, and relationships among African ancestored persons in the U.S. and in other parts of the world. Examines issues of nationality, race, sexuality, and gender with a specific interest in the manifestation of these issues as African-American, African, and African Diasporic.
Women, Gender, Sexuality, and Religion
Examines the diversity of expressions and constructions of gender, sex, and sexuality in religious texts, doctrines, practices, and communities, as always experienced in relation to class, race, ethnicity, age, ability, social location, ecological context, and cultural and national identity. Engages theoretical and methodological insights of feminist and womanist thought and gender and queer scholarship that include the lives, voices, and perspectives of women and gender and sexual minorities in order to expand justice practices and thought.
Ecology and Religion
Examines the mounting planetary crisis of environmental degradation, mass extinctions, and climate change in relation to religious practices and discourses. Pursues ecological justice and planetary health in their intersections with struggles of race, economics, coloniality, gender, and queerness. Rethinks Earth with respect to theories and theologies of animality, space, matter, ethics, food, politics and ecospiritualities.
Decolonial and Critical Theory
Explores an assemblage of interdisciplinary strategies that aim to decenter, deconstruct and decolonize Eurocentric paradigms of thought. Critical theory as recently unfolding in decolonial, (post-)poststructuralist, and new materialist perspectives, brings an intersectional pluralism of social, political, and ecological contextuality to theoretically undergird enquiry into the particularity of faith and the multiplicity of religions.