Graduate study is flexible. Students create?individualized programs of study?in consultation with their advisors and core committee members, in light of?faculty expertise within the department and around the University. Programs often are developed in relation to one of the following four areas of concentration:

• religions in the Middle East,?Ancient Near East, and Mediterranean;
• religions in Asia;
• religions in the Americas and Europe; or?
• religion, ethics, and society.

Programs also are developed across these areas or thematically in relation to the department's central focus which is religion and public life, most notably?religion's impact on the construction of individual and group identities and the dynamics of social change. Included in this focus is religion's relationship to gender, race, ethnicity, and other markers of identity, and the?practice and?study of religion in a digital age.