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July 1, 2015

BCSR Receives $1 Million Grant from Henry Luce Foundation

The Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion has received a $1 million grant from the Henry Luce Foundation to fund the three-year Berkeley Public Theology Program. For the offical announcement, click here. Please continue to check the BCSR website in the coming months for more information on forthcoming programs funded by this grant.

February 2, 2015

BCSR Graduate Student Summer Research Grants in Religion

The Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion is offering five to ten summer research grants in the amount of $5000 each for advanced graduate students working on topics in the study of religion, broadly construed. Applications are welcome from all UC Berkeley Ph.D. students who have advanced to candidacy, with preference given to those who are close to completion of their dissertations. Grants are awarded for summer research travel and related expenses only.

To apply, please submit:

February 1, 2015

BCSR Graduate Student Summer Research Grants in Religion

The Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion is offering five to ten summer research grants in the amount of $5000 each for advanced graduate students working on topics in the study of religion, broadly construed. Applications are welcome from all UC Berkeley Ph.D. students who have advanced to candidacy, with preference given to those who are close to completion of their dissertations. Grants are awarded for summer research travel and related expenses only.

To apply, please submit:

December 1, 2014

BCSR Announces Nine Winners of the 2014-2015 Graduate Student Summer Research Grants in Religion

The Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion (BCSR), an academic center for independent and innovative research in religion, announces the nine recipients of the 2014-15 Graduate Student Summer Research Grants. These projects address a broad range of issues and topics in religion including relationships of religion to media and politics, under-seen global or early religious communities, and religious doctrine and law. Thirty strong proposals were received from an open call to UC Berkeley graduate students. Over $40,000 in awards were distributed.

November 4, 2014

Conference on Pre-Modern and Modern China Receives BCSR Graduate Student Event Grant

BCSR has selected “Between the Visible and the Invisible: Cosmology, Ritual, and Hermeneutics in Historical and Contemporary Chinese Worlds” to receive $1000 in graduate student event grant funding. The two-day event on November 14 and 15 presents the results of a yearlong interdisciplinary exploration by the Haas Junior Scholars Program of the Institute of East Asian Studies on the relations between ideas of cosmology, ritual practice, and classical scriptures in pre-modern and modern China.

Graduate Student Event Grants in Religion | Spring 2015 Applications Due December 4

BCSR’s Graduate Student Event Grants support innovative proposals for graduate student-led lectures, seminars, working groups and conferences for public and campus audiences. Awards range from $250 to $500 for a lecture, and up to $1000 for a conference.

August 28, 2014

Graduate Student Event Grants in Religion | Spring 2015 Applications Due December 4 BCSR’s Graduate Student Event Grants support innovative proposals for graduate student-led lectures, seminars, working groups and conferences for public and campus audien

BCSR welcomes Visiting Scholar Damon Mayrl, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.

August 1, 2014

Professors Niklaus Largier and David Marno Receive Faculty Project Development Group Grant

The 2014 Faculty Project Development Group (PDG) Grant has been awarded to Professors Niklaus Largier (German and Comparative Literature) and David Marno (English) for their collaborative project, Poetics of Prayer. The goal of the project is to develop a rhetoric and poetics of prayer from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century in tandem with prayer’s echoes in early modern and modern literature. The funds will support research, workshops, monthly meetings, and visiting speakers.

Professors Largier and Marno describe the project as follows:

July 1, 2014

Nine UC Berkeley Graduate Students Awarded 2014 Graduate Student Summer Research Grants in Religion

The Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion (BCSR), an academic center for independent and innovative research in religion, announces the nine recipients of the 2014-15 Graduate Student Summer Research Grants. These projects address a broad range of issues and topics in religion including relationships of religion to media and politics, under-seen global or early religious communities, and religious doctrine and law. Thirty promising proposals were received from an open call to UC Berkeley graduate students. Over $40,000 in awards were distributed.

February 20, 2014

BCSR Funds Faculty Project Development Groups in Religion – Applications Due April 1st

The Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion (BCSR) is sponsoring 1 to 2 Project Development Groups (PDG) in the study of religion for faculty in academic year 2014-15. BCSR PDGs provide an opportunity for small collaborative faculty groups to work on larger-scale projects related to the study of religion. Collaboration across the humanities and the social sciences is often prohibitively difficult both to organize and to fund. The PDG program seeks to ease these challenges by providing a congenial and productive framework for collaborative intellectual exploration.

BCSR Announces Graduate Student Summer Research Grants in Religion, Applications Due March 13th

The Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion (BCSR) is offering five summer research grants in the amount of $5000 each for advanced graduate students working on topics in the study of religion, broadly construed. Applications are welcome from all UC Berkeley Ph.D. students who have advanced to candidacy, with preference be given to those who are close to completion of their dissertations. Grants are awarded for summer research travel and related expenses only.

To apply, please submit:

February 13, 2014

BCSR Announces Graduate Student Summer Research Grants in Religion, Applications Due March 13th

The Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion (BCSR) is offering five summer research grants in the amount of $5000 each for advanced graduate students working on topics in the study of religion, broadly construed. Applications are welcome from all UC Berkeley Ph.D. students who have advanced to candidacy, with preference be given to those who are close to completion of their dissertations. Grants are awarded for summer research travel and related expenses only.

To apply, please submit:

January 13, 2014

Professors Niklaus Largier and David Marno to Receive Faculty Project Development Group Grant

The 2014 Faculty Project Development Group (PDG) Grant has been awarded to Professors Niklaus Largier (German and Comparative Literature) and David Marno (English) for their collaborative project, Poetics of Prayer. The goal of the project is to develop a rhetoric and poetics of prayer from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century in tandem with prayer’s echoes in early modern and modern literature. The funds will support research, workshops, monthly meetings, and visiting speakers.

Professors Largier and Marno describe the project as follows:

December 30, 2013

Call for Dissertation Workshop Proposals

The “Humanitarian Ethics, Religious Affinities, and the Politics of Dissent” UC Humanities Studio is pleased to announce a dissertation workshop for UC graduate students, to be held on March 17-18, 2014 at UC Santa Cruz. Graduate students will have the opportunity to share and receive comments on a chapter of their research project, which will be read by a group of 4-6 UC faculty, including faculty in the Humanities Studio, and other workshop participants.

December 25, 2013

Message from the Directors, 2013

We are delighted to announce the launch of the BCSR website. As one of Berkeley’s newest research ventures, our mission is to support and promote the best contemporary scholarship on religion across the disciplines. We are committed to engaging audiences both inside and outside the walls of Berkeley, in the hope that our scholarship might shape the many ongoing conversations about religion and its place in the world, past, present, and future.