Welcome to the website of the Department for the Study of Religions, Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University.
The Department for the Study of Religions was founded as a joint institution of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (Institute of Philosophy) and the Faculty of Arts of Masaryk University in Brno in 1991. In 1992, the Department started the teaching of a five-year study programme in the field of Academic Study of Religions as the first institution in the Czech Republic. In 1993, it became an independent department of the Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University. At present, the Department for the Study of Religions offers a three-year undergraduate (B.A.) programme, a two-year follow-up graduate (M.A.) programme and since 2002 also a postgraduate (Ph.D.) study programme, as the first department in the former Czechoslovakia. The Department is the only one in the Czech Republic, which obtained accreditation for the habilitation procedures and for full professorship procedures in the field of the Academic Study of Religions.
The study programmes were prepared in close cooperation with several universities abroad with an established tradition of providing education in the Academic Study of Religions (Marburg, Germany; Burlington, USA; Hannover, Germany; Aarhus, Denmark; London, United Kingdom). This close international cooperation has ever since been maintained through exchange programs for students as well as teachers, within the framework of which we have had the honor to host lectures by such outstanding scholars as for example Jacques Waardenburg, Luther H. Martin, Hans Gerald Hödl, and Harvey Whitehouse(see foreign lectures).
The Department for the Study of Religions had the honor to co-organize one of the most important events in the history of Czech academic study of religions, the 8th conference of the European Association for the Study of Religions, held in Brno, Czech Republic in September 2008.
Besides academic teaching, the Department also focuses on research activities, whose structure and topics are based on the broad conception of the academic study of religions and enable organic interconnection with the pedagogical process. The Department for the Study of Religions is particularly engaged in the research of new religious movements, perception of Eastern religious systems in the West, archaic religious traditions, and last but not least issues of methodology of the discipline. A list of past and current grants and a list of publications offer a more comprehensive picture of particular topics studied by staff and postgraduate students of the Department for the Study of Religions.
In September 2008, the Department for the Study of Religions had the honour to coorganize the 8th conference of the European Association for the Study of Religions, held in Brno.
The Department for the Study of Religions, Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University is also the seat of the Czech Society for the Study of Religions and Editorial Office of the only specialized journal for the Academic Study of Religions in the Czech Republic: Religio: Revue pro religionistiku.
Address: Department for the Study of Religions, FF MU, Arna Nováka 1, 602 00 Brno, Czech Republic. Tel.: +420 549 496 819.