The Graduate School at the University of Notre Dame accepts up to two, funded (tuition scholarship + full stipend) PhD students per year in Liturgical Studies. The program integrates three sub-disciplines: Liturgical History; Liturgical Theology; Ritual Studies.
The program offers a wide range of research opportunities with particular strengths in early and late antique Christian liturgy and material culture, medieval liturgy, history and theology of the sacraments, Eastern Christian traditions, ritual studies, and manuscript studies.
The Liturgical Studies program was founded in 1947 as the first graduate program in the Department of Theology and quickly grew to become an international center for the study of liturgy. Pioneers in the discipline who have taught at Notre Dame include Josef Jungmann, Louis Bouyer, Robert Taft, Paul Bradshaw, and many others. The program is currently comprised of six faculty members and represents one of the largest concentrations of liturgical scholars at one place in the world.
In addition to its core strengths, Liturgical Studies offers a variety of opportunities for research collaboration with other institutions at Notre Dame, including the Medieval Institute, the Program in Sacred Music, other departments at the university (including Anthropology, Classics, History and Sociology) and other programs within the Theology Department, including Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity (CJA), the History of Christianity (HC), and Systematic Theology (ST), among others. PhD students in liturgical studies also have opportunities to simultaneously pursue graduate minors in other areas of the department and a range of disciplines, including Medieval Studies, Gender Studies, Peace Studies, and Byzantine Studies. The Hesburgh Libraries system has extensive holdings in theology and one of the nation’s largest collections in medieval studies, including the Milton Anastos Collection. The university also offers a broad range of ancient languages (Greek, Latin, Syriac, Hebrew, Coptic, among others), and the Graduate School provides funding opportunities for students to conduct dissertation research abroad.
All PhD applications must be submitted to the Graduate School by January 2, 2023. More information and a link to the online application may be found here: https://theology.nd.edu/graduate-programs/ph-d/
For those without a Master degree, the Theology Department also offers a two-year Master of Theological Studies (MTS) with a concentration in Liturgical Studies, which is geared toward eventual PhD work in liturgy or other fields: https://theology.nd.edu/graduate-programs/mts/