This gateway course will offer an introduction to the study of religion, culture, and politics as an interdisciplinary area of inquiry housed within the study of religion but connected to a range of areas within the humanities and interpretive social sciences. The course seeks to model the modes of critical inquiry associated with such subfields as critical discourses on religion, the cultural history of the study of religion, and religion and culture, showcasing the range of ways in which the academic study of religion works to produce a history of the present by critically interrogating major questions facing contemporary society. In a given semester, the course may focus on a particular theme or topic, but will use this topic as a point of entry onto the study of religion, culture, and politics more broadly.