TO STUDY RELIGION is to study the beliefs and practices through which groups of people have tried to make sense of their experiences in the world. In virtually all human cultures, religion has developed as a powerful dimension of social, political and economic life. And a brief glance at today's headlines will also indicate how religion permeates every corner of human affairs in every nation.

Besides influencing people's behavior, religion has had enormous impact on literature, the arts, and thought. Many great thinkers have concerned themselves with the nature of religion.

For these reasons and more, religion is a topic that is both fascinating to study and important to understand.

In Fall 1999, the Department changed its name from The Department of Religion to The Department of Comparative Religion.   This modification more accurately conveys the purpose and mission of the faculty and students: to study all world religions, their history, their relationships, and their impact on the individual and on society.

Comparative Religion is a Humanities department of the College of Arts and Science at Miami University. The Department consists of nine full-time faculty and approximately fifty students majoring or minoring in the program. Beyond those, more than 700 students enroll in classes offered by the department each semester.

Our home is in the historic Old Manse, located in the Northwest section of Miami University's main campus, in Oxford, Ohio.

This web site serves three primary purposes: to inform prospective students, graduate and undergraduate, of the details of the department and programs offered; to assist current students by providing online course material, such as notes and syllabi, as well as links to relevant sites on the World Wide Web; and to serve as a worldwide resource for religious study comprised of the publications and research of the departmental faculty and students.

This updated incarnation of the web site was created in the fall of 2004 in cooperation with Information Technology Services and Undergraduate Assistant Marina Ristev Rana.