Religious Thought (Philosophy and Theology)

The field of religious thought addresses theological and philosophical reflection in religious texts and contexts. Modes of analysis include intellectual history, critical engagement, and comparative work. The faculty at Harvard has particular strength in Christian thought but can also support theological or philosophical doctoral projects in other religious traditions, including Buddhist, Hindu, and Islamic thought.

Recent and current dissertation topics include:

  • The Ladder of Thorns: Søren Kierkegaard on the Varieties of Suffering
  • The Doctrine of the Soul’s Immortality in Sixteenth-Century German Lutheran Theology
  • Perceiving Splendor: The “Doctrine of the Spiritual Senses” in Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Theological Aesthetics
  • Leaning over the Abyss: Raissa Maritain (1883-1960) and the French Catholic Revival
  • Cosmic Theodicy: Origen on the Problem of Evil
  • The Humanity of Christ in Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics
  • Hume and Hope: A Study in David Hume’s Philosophy of Religion
  • The Workshop of Being: A Comparative Study of Jonathan Edwards and William James
  • Between Irony and Witness: Kierkegaard’s Poetics of Faith, Hope and Love
  • Veiled and Unveiled Others: Revisiting Karl Barth’s Gender Trouble
  • THOU ART On Representation of the Word and the Incarnation of the Human Subject: A Christological Aesthetics
  • The Subject of Emancipation: Critique, Reason and Religion in the Thought of Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Paul Tillich
  • The Frail Agony of Grace: Story, Act, and Sacrament in the Fiction of Cormac McCarthy

Affiliated Faculty

James Engell

James Engell

Gurney Professor of English Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature
ON LEAVE Spring 2024
Amy Hollywood

Amy Hollywood

Elizabeth H. Monrad Professor of Christian Studies
ON LEAVE Fall 2023
Jordan

Mark D. Jordan

Andrew W. Mellon Research Professor of Christian Thought
Matthew Potts

Matthew L. Potts

Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church
Mayra Rivera

Mayra Rivera

Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Religion and Latinx Studies
Charles M. Stang

Charles M. Stang

Professor of Early Christian Thought
Director of the Center for the Study of World Religions
Nicholas Watson

Nicholas Watson

Henry B. and Anne M. Cabot Professor of English Literature