5 PhD programmes in Theology and Religious Studies in California, United States

The Buddhist Studies offers an interdisciplinary program of study and research leading to a Ph.D. degree in Buddhist Studies. The Group at the University of California, Berkeley, which cooperates closely with the SSEAS, and of East Asian Languages and Cultures, emphasizes the study of Buddhism in its many forms within its Asian historical and cultural context.

The flagship Religious Studies and Theology degree that the Graduate Theological Union offers is the PhD in Religious Studies. It is an advanced academic degree intended to prepare students for careers in teaching, writing, and scholarship, as well as for leadership opportunities with religious organizations, social service agencies, museums, libraries, publishing, and in educational institutions.

Students in this program at Stanford University declare an area of specialization in a particular period, topic, or corpus of materials, usually within one of the subfields into which Religious Studies is often divided (in most cases according to religious traditions), which are themselves distributed over the following broad areas, geographical or historical.

The program at University of California, Davis offers advanced opportunities in the Study of Religion. Students receive classical training in the literatures of particular religious traditions, and they are encouraged to understand these traditions at the intersection of contemporary thematic and regional phenomena. 

The Department for the Study of Religion at the University of California, Riverside offers a focused Religious Studies graduate program that is designed to train advanced students in the critical study of religious traditions through close study with our faculty.