Study programme

The research Master's programme in Religious Studies comprises two years (120 EC). Each year is divided into two semesters, running from September until January and from February until June. A semester is divided into two study periods.

Curriculum

The programme consists of compulsory courses, electives, tutorials, study abroad or a research internship, and a thesis. 

Year 1

Compulsory courses familiarize students with theories and methods in the study of religion. Electives and tutorials help students to specialize and pursue their research interests.

Year 2

The first semester will be devoted to your stay at a university abroad, to a research internship, or to electives/tutorials. The second semester is reserved for writing the Master’s thesis. In this text, you will contribute your own independent research to a debate in the field of religious studies. To help prepare your thesis, you will also participate in a Thesis Lab. Examples of recent thesis titles:

• “Afghan Women Are Being Their Own Heroes”: Radio and Women’s Education in Afghanistan under Taliban Rule (Fleur Schekman, 2024)
• An “Archeology of the Present”: On Religion, Negotiations of Belonging, and the Indigenous Surinamese Collection of the National Museum of World Cultures (Isabelle Best, 2023)
• Siege Saints, ‘Chad’ Martyrs and Holy Warriors: On the Veneration of Violent Right-Wing Extremists on 4chan (Mara Luna van Dijk, 2022)

Thesis awards

Students who pursue a degree in Religious Studies are intrinsically motivated and this shows in their study results. Our graduates are regularly awarded prizes for writing excellent theses.

• Wytze J. Dijkstra won the 2024 Cornelius Tiele MA Thesis Award of the Dutch Association for the Study of Religion. The title of his thesis is Spatial Storytelling in Yad Vashem: An Ethnographic Exploration on the (Dis)Placement of the Sacred in Israel's National Holocaust Memorial.
• Veerle Dijkstra won the 2022 Thesis Award of the Faculty of Humanities with her thesis Going Digital: Corona as a Lens onto the Dynamics of Religious Mediation in Four Christian Church Communities in The Netherlands.
• Wouter Kock was awarded the 2022 Jan Brouwer Thesis Award of the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities with his thesis Loss in Translation: The Heritagization of Catholic Monasteries.
• Rashmi Shetty won the 2021 Thesis Award of the Faculty of Humanities with her thesis Digitally Mediated Neo-Hindutva Affective Economies and Publics.
• Chunrong Zhao won the 2020 Cornelis Tiele MA Thesis Award of the Dutch Association for the Study of Religion. The title of his thesis is Overcoming Essentialism: A Transcultural Approach to Gandhāran Buddhist Material Culture.

Educational methods

• lecture (10%)
• seminar (50%)
• research colloquia (10%)
• independent study (30%)
• research internship/study abroad (optional)

Internship at Museum Catharijneconvent

RMA student Gert Naberman did an internship at Museum Catharijneconvent in Utrecht. He organised a workshop day with the Network for Religious Heritage and he worked on the inventory of the Christian collection of the 'Museum van Wereldculturen'. 

Examination methods

• research papers
• written assignments
• oral presentations
• Master’s thesis