"I was drawn to the Department of Religious Studies at Queen's because of its innovative one-year master's program in religion and modernity and post-modernity. The religion department offers incredible guaranteed funding and valuable teaching assistant positions and because the program is quite small it is easy to get to know your fellow MA students and professors. The program itself is challenging but professors are approachable and willing to discuss course material and research projects, which is very helpful."

Degrees Offered / Length of Program

Method of Completion

Students take one core course and two elective courses in both the fall and winter terms, then write a master's essay over the summer.

Before graduating, students are required to give evidence of a reading knowledge of at least one language, in addition to English, selected from the languages of modern scholarship and/or necessary source languages.

Degree Level Expectations & Learning Outcomes

M.A. - view this information as a pdf (99KB)

Supervisors and Fields of Study

Students are assigned a supervisor once they have been accepted into the program.

• Islam, modernity and democracy (Forough Jahanbakhsh)
• Hinduism and Buddhism (Ellen Goldberg)
• Daoism and Confucianism (James Miller)
• Religious responses to the global environmental crisis (James Miller)
• Feminist studies and queer theory (Pamela Dickey Young)
• Violence, sacrifice and religion & Biblical Interpretation (Bill Morrow)
• Theory and method in the study of religion (Ellen Goldberg)
• Biblical interpretation (Richard Ascough)
• Sociology of leadership and religious communities (Richard Ascough)
• Ethics (Tracy Trothen)
• Judaism and modernity, race, nationalism and identity (Mari Réthelyi)

Employment Opportunities

Graduates of our program have been accepted into Ph.D. programs at the University of Toronto, McGill, the University of British Columbia, York University, the University of Waterloo, the University of Ottawa and McMaster University. Others have entered the private sector as journalists, public policy analysts and researchers or international development workers. Still others have gone on to study at institutions such as Oxford University.

Funding Information

Basic Funding Package: $13,800 (minimum) Our funding package includes internal and external awards and teaching and research assistantships. Many students also qualify for Ontario Graduate Scholarships and Canada Graduate Scholarships and SSHRC awards.

Entering graduate students who win federal government tri-council awards are automatically provided a $5,000 top-up award by Queen’s.

Academic Prerequisites

Grades: We consider all courses taken over 4 years.

We require a GPA equivalent to "B+" on the Queen’s scale in a four-year Honours Bachelors degree program in Religious Studies, or equivalent (e.g. history, anthropology, etc.), awarded by a recognized university.

Other Requirements

We ask all applicants to send a writing sample (an essay you have already written) directly to the department.

Test Requirements

For international students, if required, a TOEFL total score of at least 600 (paper-based) or or TOEFL iBT minimum scores of: writing (24/30); speaking (22/30); reading (22/30); listening (20/30), for a total of 88/120. Applicants must have the minimum score in each test as well as the minimum overall score.

Program Profiles

• Dr James Miller & An Jing - working together in researching the Blang people of China...

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