Ohio State has faculty and graduate students studying religion in every department of the College of Arts and Sciences and many other departments campus-wide. This research is diverse in terms of both historical period and geographical span, although individuals are united by a common interest in the ways in which religion causes, and in turn is affected by, cultural and societal change.

Our work at Ohio State emphasizes the dynamic aspects of religious systems and the importance of studying them within carefully nuanced understandings of the larger social and cultural contexts in which they exist. We seek to understand the symbiosis that exists between religions and other social and cultural systems, and view religion as an embedded phenomenon, one that cannot be studied apart from its surroundings.