Jewish Studies Graduate Area
McMaster University’s Department of Religious Studies offers excellent graduate opportunities to study Jews and Judaism in ancient, modern, and contemporary contexts.
Our department offers: a 12-month MA (with a Major Research Project); a two-year MA degree (with either a thesis or a project), as well as the PhD degree.
Areas of strength are:
- Historical and textual study of Second Temple Judaism
- Ancient and contemporary interpretations of Scripture
- Modern Jewish thought, philosophy and contemporary critical theory
- German, and German-Jewish, culture and history
- Ethnographic study of contemporary Jewish communities and practices in diverse cultural contexts
- Feminist and Gender Studies approaches to Jewish texts and cultures
- Training in Biblical Hebrew
Participating Faculty
Ellen J. Amster Full Expert Page
Religious Studies / Family Medicine
Expert in the history of medicine in the West, the Islamic world, and French empire, whose research and teaching involves North African Jewry, Middle East History and Politics, and European Fascism.
Iris Bruce Full Expert Page
Linguistics & Languages / Global Peace & Social Justice
Research areas include: Franz Kafka in his time and in contemporary popular culture; Jewish folklore; Zionism.
She has published Kafka and Cultural Zionism: Dates in Palestine (2007). Among the courses she teaches is “The Holocaust in Film and Fiction” and “Longing and Belonging: Narratives of Israel/Palestine.
Dana Hollander Full Expert Page
Religious Studies
Studies modern Jewish thought in its interactions with philosophical movements (especially 19th- and 20th-century French and German philosophy) and contemporary Theory, as well as in the context of modern European and American religion, politics, and culture
Meirav Jones Learn More
Religious Studies
Expert on religion and modern political thought, who studies intersections between traditional Jewish and religious sources and secular legal and political ideas.
Celia Rothenberg Learn More
Religious Studies
A cultural anthropologist specializing in contemporary North American Jewish life, beliefs, and practices.
Her previous research has examined Jewish summer camps, Jewish yoga, films made by and for Orthodox Jewish women, and, currently, Canada’s Holocaust Torahs.
Pamela E. Swett Learn More
History; Dean, Faculty of Humanities
Studies 20th century German and European social and cultural history.
Her publications include: Selling under the Swastika: Advertising and Commercial Culture in Nazi Germany (2014) and Neighbors and Enemies: The Culture of Radicalism in Berlin, 1929-1933 (2004), and her current research project is entitled “Citizen Soldiers: Military Service in Divided Germany.”
Hanna Tervanotko Learn More
Religious Studies
Studies the Jewish literature of the Second Temple era in the context of ancient Eastern Mediterranean cultures. Current research foci are: female figures in ancient Jewish texts and Jewish divinatory practices.
Matthew Thiessen Learn More
Religious Studies
Studies the rise of Christianity particularly as it relates to early Judaism, including the use of Jewish scriptures in early Christian writings, the role of Jewish law in community and identity formation, and the relationship between ethnicity and conceptions of religion.
Expandable List
Students may apply for a Freeman Family Bursary to pursue coursework and experiential education opportunities at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.