GENERAL PURPOSE

This collection supports the department's curricular mission to study religion as a pluralistic phenomenon from theoretical and practical perspectives. The collection supports comparative approaches to world religions as well as more in-depth research of individual traditions. The collection reflects the specialization of faculty whose expertise covers: Islam and other traditions of Central and South Asia, Buddhism and religions of East Asia, Judaism, Christianity, Religions of the Americas, and African/African-American religions. The collection is also strengthened and diversified by multi-disciplinary materials from other academic departments, including: African/African-American Studies, Anthropology, Art History, Asian Studies, Classics, History, International Studies, Modern Languages and Literature, Sociology, and Women's and Gender Studies.

GENERAL SUBJECT BOUNDARIES

Subject boundaries reflect the departmental curriculum that covers seven traditions/areas: Judaism, Christianity, Religions of the Americas, Islam, South Asian religions, Buddhism and East Asian religions. The collection addresses the impact of religion as it pertains to the self, to society, and to the surrounding cultural worlds; therefore, the collection contains primary resources, textual and historical criticism, liturgical/ritual analysis, and comparative studies. It does not contain non-academic denominational works or popular inspirational texts, except as these may have become classics in any given tradition or have been used for a class.

The faculty are active in research in the following areas: Biblical studies; Intertestamental and Medieval Jewish History; Modern Jewish History; History of Christianity, ancient and modern; Reformation studies; Modern Catholicism; Ethics and Social Justice; Liberation Theology in Latin America and Africa; Neo-Confucian Studies; Sufism; Ritual Performance; Religious Communities; Religion and Literature; Religious Ecology; Religion and Science; Mysticism; Religion in American Culture; African-American Religion; Religion and Gender; and Holocaust Studies.

TYPES OF MATERIALS COLLECTED

The acquisitions budget supports collection of print monographs, electronic and print serials, indexes and abstracts, and audio-visual materials. There are no restrictions on publishing dates.

FORMAT OF MATERIALS COLLECTED

Monographs comprise the majority of the collection. Full-text electronic and print serials, indexes, CD-ROMS, videos, DVDs, and sound recordings are also collected. Few materials take the form of government documents or microform materials. The department makes frequent and widely-ranging use of the Art History department's slide collection, which includes the large Baly Collection on the Middle East and uncatalogued material from East Asia. The Multimedia collection contains a significant group of Holocaust and Holocaust-related videos.

LANGUAGES

While the Department of Religious Studies strongly encourages its students to study languages, ancient and modern, the bulk of the collection is written in English or translated into English.

GEOGRAPHICAL AREAS

The collection has a broad geographical scope, including: North and South America, East Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe.

CHRONOLOGICAL GUIDELINES

There are no restrictions on the collection in terms of chronology.

SPECIAL COLLECTIONS AND MANUSCRIPTS

The Special Collections division contains significant local and state holdings on the history of the Episcopal Church. The archives also contain the records of Harcourt Parish. Rare books include such works as The Nuremberg Chronicles and examples of medieval illuminated pages and later incunabula.

OTHER RESOURCES AVAILABLE

Kenyon's participation in Consort and OhioLINK offers students and faculty access to monographs of higher educational institutions statewide. The Electronic Journal Center and JSTOR offer full-text access to journal articles. Interlibrary loan services offset limitations in Kenyon's serials collection. Instruction services are available through the departmental LBIS library liaison.

Technology support services include availability of scanners and image editing software, support software for some other languages (Turkish, Chinese, Hebrew, Japanese, Hindi, Tibetan, and Arabic), and local and networked HTML editors for student project and department/course web pages.

A list of new books is available via the Consort catalog.

CREATION DATE AND REVISION HISTORY

First draft/March 31,2000, by Barbara Thompson; Second draft/December 1, 2000 by Royal Rhodes; Third Draft by Barbara Thompson, December 22, 2000; Reviewed by Karen Greever, November 2009

LC CLASS

BL, BM, B, BQ, BR-BV, BX