Martin Marty Center for the Advanced Study of Religion

The Martin Marty Center for the Advanced Study of Religion is the institute for advanced research in all fields of the study of religion at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

It provides facilities, staff, and financial support for research pursued by the Divinity School faculty, University of Chicago graduate students, and affiliated scholars from around the world. Through a variety of consultations, conferences, and publications, the Center brings scholarly perspectives to bear on religious questions facing the wider public, while encouraging scholars to situate their academic questions within a broader cultural frame of reference. The vision of establishing an institute for the advanced study of religion at the University of Chicago came from Joseph M. Kitagawa, the Dean of the Divinity School from 1970 to 1980. Martin E. Marty, a historian of modern Christianity, worked closely with Dean Kitagawa to formulate the purposes and operation of the institute within the context of the Divinity School’s general mission of teaching and graduate research.