USC Dornsife News

Provost Postdoctoral Scholar Stephanie Balkwill studies the ideal of female-to-male sex change within Buddhism, focusing on the women and religious texts of 5th-century China.

A Christian movement led by popular independent religious entrepreneurs, often referred to as ‘apostles,’ is changing the religious landscape of America. Richard Flory of sociology and a colleague look at the fastest-growing Christian group in America.

Who are the religiously unaffiliated in America? Richard Flory explains they are a complex and evolving category that includes people with “different relationships to religion.”

Mark Ridley-Thomas, drawing inspiration from civil rights leader and activist Martin Luther King Jr., has spent more than a quarter century working to transform the Los Angeles community he calls home.

In a new Thematic Option course, “Love and Its Reasons: Eros and Transcendence,” USC Dornsife’s David Albertson of religion charts the evolution of changing beliefs about love and religion through the ages by exploring seminal texts from a wide range of authors, including Plato, Dante and Kierkegaard.

Ellen Wayland-Smith’s new book traces the scandalous secret history behind a well-known brand’s rise from a 19th-century radical religious sect.

At USC Dornsife, we view stars differently. Join us as we explore the constellation of meanings these celestial bodies have in literature, physics, spatial sciences — and more.

Visit to the university he attended in the 1970s wraps up a week of historic diplomacy across the U.S.

Egyptologist Zahi Hawass delivers a lecture about his discoveries and the importance of archaeology to our understanding of human history.