Department of Religious Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara

The Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, is one of the finest centers for the study of religious traditions and phenomena in the United States and internationally, and one of the largest Departments in the United States solely dedicated to the secular study of religion. Our present and past faculty includes presidents of the American Academy of Religion, Guggenheim Scholars, and award-winning scholars. Since its founding in 1964, UCSB’s department has been at the forefront of discussions about the nature of religion and pioneered new theoretical and methodological approaches. Our 24 full-time ladder professors, our lecturers, and affiliated faculty members from across the humanities and the social sciences, represent an unparalleled depth of expertise in studying the multifarious ways in which humans have conceptualized, interacted with, and contested the sacred — and what is taken to be its opposite, the “secular”. Several of us are interested in aspects of Japanese religions and culture, either directly (as Japan specialists) or comparatively and transnationally (as specialists in other disciplines).