Religious Studies Major
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About the Major
The religious studies major explores religious practices, beliefs and cultures from a variety of angles and in multiple ways, including through history, in politics, philosophically, as part of current events, in relation to science and economics, and through the study of ritual.
Jobs in Religious Studies
- Archivist
- Government/Foreign Service worker
- Political/social activist/community organizer
- Journalist
- Researcher
Past Elon Religious Studies Internships
- High Museum in Atlanta
- Planned Parenthood in Durham
- Holocaust Memorial Museum
- Chapel Hill Zen Center
Related Majors
Exploring religious studies through research and study abroad set grad up for prestigious fellowship
At the end of 2019, Madelyn Starr had just completed her first semester at Elon University — taking a hodgepodge of courses in an attempt to find the subject area that grabbed her interest the most. Then, over winter break, as she and her family traveled to Israel to honor her brother’s bar mitzvah, she found her interest piqued.
“One day we were driving through the West Bank to get to a tourist site, and we saw some Palestinian refugees in a makeshift tent on the side of the road,” Starr recalled. “My dad pointed it out to me and said, ‘Do you see this, Maddy? This is not OK.’ That was the first real encounter I had with the conflict, and I just really wanted to learn more.”
Starr, who was an Elon College Fellow, knew she would soon have to begin her required research project, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was foremost in her mind when she returned from her overseas trip for her spring semester. “It really interested me, and I wanted to expand my knowledge on the subject, especially being raised in a Jewish family with certain narratives about the conflict,” she said.
But it wasn’t until she finished her sophomore year at Elon — after taking two religious studies courses that helped her fulfill the requirements to be a Multifaith Scholar — that she found her aha academic moment: In addition to studying international and global studies, she decided to pursue religious studies as a second major.
I just can’t say enough good things about the Religious Studies Department and their investment in students. They really want us to grow and excel.
The two religious studies classes she took that semester introduced her to ideas and research methods that got her excited to learn more.
“I don’t want to say it disproved my preexisting ideas about religion, but it greatly complicated them in terms of really making me question what religion was and how it impacted people and societies,” Starr said of the introductory religious studies class. “I love learning new things and challenging myself, and it was a course where everything that I thought I believed, even from just how you define religion, kind of got turned upside down.”
The second religious studies class she took that spring was just as meaningful, though in a different way. Taught by Professor Amy Allocco, the class on Hindu goddesses introduced Starr to ethnography — studying a culture from the point of view of its people.
“What I really loved about Dr. Allocco’s approach to religion is that she’s an anthropologist of religion, so she really looks at how people experience different religious traditions and rituals,” Starr said. “I was really drawn to that ethnographic approach to religion.”
Starr graduated from Elon in 2023 with a double major in religious studies and international and global studies and minors in political science and Middle East studies. After Elon, she worked for the International Affairs Division at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as an intern specializing in the Middle East, Turkey, and Central Asia. And in December 2023, she was selected for the prestigious Charles B. Rangel Graduate Fellowship Program, which prepares people for careers in the U.S. State Department’s Foreign Service by funding a two-year master’s program and two summer internships followed by five years of employment as a Foreign Service officer.
Looking back at her time at Elon, Starr praises the people and opportunities that set her up for success. One of the most valuable experiences, she said, was her research project. The amount of support and funding that Elon gives to undergraduate research “is truly one of a kind and something that I really doubt I could have gotten anywhere else,” she said.
Her research looked at how the Israeli–Palestinian conflict plays a role in people’s day-to-day lives and how they invoke different objects and imagery in advocating their stances. Some use flags or street art; for many Palestinians, the key signifies the right to return to their pre-1948 homes. Starr used extensive ethnographic research for the project, including interviewing residents during her summer abroad in the Israeli–Palestinian region in 2022.
“I don’t know if I could have gone through a lot of the experiences I did without Dr. Allocco,” Starr said of her research mentor. “My research was an extremely heavy topic — even well before October 7 — and growing up in a Jewish household, I went through a pretty significant identity crisis while doing my research. It was the community around me — Dr. Allocco and Dr. [Brian] Pennington and also my cohort in Multifaith Scholars — that was really there for me and very supportive and willing to help me, whether that be personally, if I was feeling bogged down by the content, or academically, just letting me talk through my research paper to get ideas flowing.”
The research experience has also been valuable in the work she’s done since graduation. Not only did it teach her how to take criticism well — the college papers she got back covered in red pen marks have helped her handle with grace and humility the edits made to her memos and briefs — but it also taught her how to think critically and analyze text.
“Those skills proved to be really, really valuable,” she said. “Now it’s less of reading academic articles and more of reading news sources and primary sources and legislation and things like that, but I’m able to read those and pick out the important pieces of information and be able to synthesize that in my writing fairly well, and that research experience really helped me with that.”
The fieldwork and ethnographic research she did interacting with Israelis and Palestinians — in addition to two other study abroad opportunities in Amman, Jordan, and Tamil Nadu and Kerala, India — taught her how to travel as a learner, she said.
“They taught me how to take in different environments, different cultures and different people and be able to interact with them in a very respectful and friendly manner,” she said. “I can only imagine that having those three study abroad experiences will enrich my time in the Foreign Service.”
Starr also took six semesters of Arabic at Elon — and two Arabic classes while studying in Amman — which she expects will also be very valuable to her career.
She praises the faculty and mentors at Elon who “are just truly unbeatable; they want to enhance your learning and your careers and in every way possible.” And that support, Starr found, doesn’t end when you graduate.
She attributes the help she received from Elon’s National & International Fellowships Office (NIFO) for where she is today — a Rangel Fellow preparing to begin a master’s program at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service. Two contacts she made at NIFO during her time at Elon, Nicole Galante and Ann Cahil, reached out to her about applying for the Rangel Fellowship and were with her along the way — helping her with the application and even holding mock interviews. Starr is one of only two Elon alums to ever receive the fellowship.
She has thought about one day possibly getting a PhD in religious studies and teaching the subject but in the meantime is hoping to use her undergraduate degree in her work over the next seven years in her fellowship. “I would love to study ethno-religious conflicts and continue to explore lived religion in some way in the Foreign Service,” she said.
She’s confident that the education she received at Elon will support her no matter where the roads take her.
“I just can’t say enough good things about the Religious Studies Department and their investment in students,” she said. “They really want us to grow and excel. They will forever remain an integral part of my story and continue to be valued mentors and colleagues.”
Did You Know?
- Religious studies is an interdisciplinary field of study that prepares students for a variety of paths and careers. With a focus on developing critical thinking and reading skills, students acquire valuable expertise that can be used for adaptive problem solving, ethical leadership and engaged global citizenship in an increasingly interconnected world.
- Most religious studies majors study abroad. Students can also earn credit in a number of semester-long study abroad programs in locations such as Denmark, France, Ghana, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, New Zealand, Scotland, Senegal, Spain, Switzerland and Turkey. Department faculty also offer the winter-term study abroad course “India’s Identities: Religion, Caste, and Gender in Contemporary South India.
- Many religious studies students pursue undergraduate research projects with faculty mentors, and many regularly attend and present at the Southeastern Commission for the Study of Religion annual conference. Students have conducted research at the Sikh Gurudwara of North Carolina, at yoga centers in India and the United States, at the Schomburg Center for Black Culture in New York City and within the Interfaith Worker Justice Movement.