PhD in Study of Religion - Human Rights in Davis United States | University of California Davis

The Ph.D. program in Religious Studies is structured as a six-year curriculum. Participants develop expertise in the textual traditions of specific faiths while exploring their connections to modern themes and regional contexts, such as ethics, human rights, secularization, scientific thought, visual arts, digital media, linguistic expression, embodied practices, and methodological approaches. Graduates acquire both qualitative and quantitative research competencies essential for academic careers in religious scholarship. Our program provides dual training: traditional textual analysis within specific religious canons alongside theoretical frameworks that situate these traditions within contemporary regional dialogues. The program features specialized research concentrations in three geographical areas: North American religious movements, ancient Mediterranean belief systems, and Asian spiritual traditions. Students also pursue a secondary regional focus for comparative analysis, while concentrating their research through thematic perspectives including Ethics and Human Rights, Modernity and Secular Thought, Media and Visual Culture, Performance and Rhetoric, Embodied Practices, or Theoretical Approaches. This rigorous curriculum fosters innovative scholarship that pushes disciplinary boundaries and engages broader academic and public discourse.

Human Rights represents an emerging academic discipline that enables scholars to investigate fundamental questions about human suffering, social transformation, cultural preservation, systemic injustice, and power dynamics beyond traditional disciplinary confines. This field has sparked new intellectual frameworks, creative expressions, and critical social analyses that are drawing significant scholarly interest. Human Rights studies also demonstrate academia's societal relevance by addressing pressing global concerns. The discipline has gained institutional recognition through specialized academic associations, peer-reviewed publications, and the establishment of endowed professorships, research centers, and degree programs at universities worldwide.