My UCLA colleague Kevin reminds the world on his new blog–while he also notes my “world famous” status. Indeed. Kevin’s post is similar to one that he wrote on the now defunct Novum Testamentum blog. That older post was what inspired me to pursue UCLA as a potential program. If he hadn’t shared that info at that time, my life would look very different right now. His current post complements my announcement about my acceptance to UCLA from about a year ago, if you’re interested in the program.
If you are looking for “official” information on the program, go to this link. The program is a bit of a misnomer as “Religion” since it is really only New Testament and Christian origins. Judaism has its own separate category in the history department. Later developments in Christianity are usually studied under the umbrella of the medieval field, for instance.
With my interests: Textual Criticism – particularly in Patristic texts, Patristic Exegesis, early Christian history, Julian the Apostate, etc, would you say UCLA is a program I should look into?
I’m much more interested in the “history” of it rather than Historical Theology or anything like that (though I realize you cannot separate the two completely).
Interesting question. It sounds like our field (”Religion”) might be a bit early for you–as we are focused mostly on the first century and some in the second. I wonder if you might be able to pursue those interests in the Ancient and/or Medieval fields. Certainly, studying Julian the Apostate would fit into the Ancient field. I should warn you that the whole history department is geared towards social history, so if you’re not interested in social history, then you might not be as happy.
Kevin mentions in his post that he has been able to take classes such as Greek Papyrology and Greek Paleography from world class scholars in those fields. Kevin did a project on P46 for, I think, Greek Papyrology. If you’re interested in textual criticism, our access to the UCLA Classics department would be invaluable.
As for “patristic exegesis,” I’m not sure about that. Try looking into the work of Claudia Rapp and see if her stuff interests you. It’s not really a direct correlation, but you might find it interesting.
Hope that helps!