Religious Studies explores religious thought and practice in various historical, cultual, and social contexts, in order to understand and interpret societies and cultures throughout the world. It fosters scholarly skills such as close reading (of text, images, artifacts, and other social data), excellence in writing and verbal expression, interpretation of the past from multiple forms of evidence, and assessment of contemporary social issues. By exploring the public and private concerns that a focus on religion highlights - for example, the creation of community, the nature of the individual, suffering, and death, good and evil - students discover new ways of interpreting the complex world in which they live. As studens examine religious activity in regions like Asia, the Middle East, Africa, the Americas, and Europe, they not only learn about the formation and transmission of beliefs, behaviors, values, rituals, and identities but also come to understand how divers peoples have expressed religious understandings of themselves and others through social policies, institutions, and conflicts often seen as secular.