In this program primary responsibility for instruction in this area has, for more than half a century, been entrusted to the Department of Religion, which belongs to the Division of the Humanities. Our charge is to do our best to examine religious life, the diverse forms it has taken in different cultures and historical periods, and the questions it poses for theoretical, ethical, and political reflection. As a humanities department, we appeal to the same standards of historical and philosophical scholarship found in neighboring disciplines.