Philosophy and Religious Studies

The Philosophy and Religious Studies Department equips students with the means to critically examine notions about humanity, its place within the universe, and human understandings and experiences of existential realities. Its course offerings share a common commitment to the reasoned and respectful exploration of beliefs and issues crucial to human existence and to the development of the student’s capacity to comprehend and evaluate questions that pertain to life, what gives life meaning, truth, and reality.

Religious literacy is a central component of preparatory education in an increasingly connected and global society. The Department aspires to foster a more humane, aware, and conscientious student and it neither presumes nor promotes the particular ideals and values of any single system of belief. Courses in the department compel students to reflect actively upon responsible, consciousness-raising education as a component of meaningful social diversification and their overall intellectual and personal formation.

Students must complete a minimum of any one-term departmental course in the Upper School as a diploma requirement.

Classical Arabic and the Qur’an (S)

Open to Sixth, Fifth, and Fourth Formers. The course simultaneously allows students to become familiar with one of the world’s most influential scriptures and provides an introduction to a script and language that is more than two millennia old and yet is among the most widely used in the contemporary world. Students emerge from the course with the ability to read the Arabic script, recognize a host of key Qur’anic terms and concepts, and appreciate classical Arabic language in the context of Muslim culture more broadly. This course does not fulfill a Groton School language requirement.
Ethics (F)

Open to Sixth, Fifth, and Fourth Formers. How do people make ethical decisions? What moral frameworks help individuals and societies discern right from wrong? How can ethical theories be applied to contemporary situations that require moral clarity? This course is a survey of issues in applied ethics in which we explore the ideas of leading contemporary moral philosophers and ethicists; we deliberate case simulations that put different values into conflict; and we practice strategies for generating meaningful dialogue on contentious issues. We explore virtue ethics, personal and human rights, religious ethics, ethics of happiness, care and relationship ethics, and interpersonal communication, among other themes. Applied case simulations address environmental ethics, abortion and euthanasia, social justice, justice systems and capital punishment, media and corporate ethics, and more. Students create podcasts, opinion pieces, original case simulations, and write reviews of new books on themes related to applied ethics.
Ethics (W)

Open to Sixth, Fifth, and Fourth Formers. How do people make ethical decisions? What moral frameworks help individuals and societies discern right from wrong? How can ethical theories be applied to contemporary situations that require moral clarity? This course is a survey of issues in applied ethics in which we explore the ideas of leading contemporary moral philosophers and ethicists; we deliberate case simulations that put different values into conflict; and we practice strategies for generating meaningful dialogue on contentious issues. We explore virtue ethics, personal and human rights, religious ethics, ethics of happiness, care and relationship ethics, and interpersonal communication, among other themes. Applied case simulations address environmental ethics, abortion and euthanasia, social justice, justice systems and capital punishment, media and corporate ethics, and more. Students create podcasts, opinion pieces, original case simulations, and write reviews of new books on themes related to applied ethics.
Foundations of Global History (Y)

Taught jointly by the Philosophy and Religious Studies Department and the History and Social Sciences Department, this course surveys the histories and cultures that have shaped world civilizations and supports students in gaining the requisite skills, intercultural knowledge, and experience for success in the humanities. Global in scope, the course surveys peoples and histories of Africa, Asia, the Americas and the Mediterranean. Societies studied include Angkor, Athens, Babylon, Cahokia, Chichén Itzá, China, Egypt, Great Zimbabwe, Kilwa, Kush, India, Japan, Korea, Mali, Rome, Srivijaya, Yoruba, and more. The course considers a plurality of religious and philosophical traditions, including Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Daoism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Shinto, Sikhism, and Vodun. The course develops students’ skills for note-taking, critical inquiry, academic dialogue, and analytical writing. In order to prepare students for the Upper School history research paper requirements, one term will feature assessments specifically designed to help students discover, interpret, evaluate, synthesize, and cite scholarly resources.
Islamic Ethics (S)

Open to Sixth, Fifth, and Fourth Formers. This course is an introduction to the topic of ethics in Islamic intellectual history. Themes covered include gender relations, concepts of just warfare, racial equality, approaches to poverty, environmentalism, and Islamic virtue ethics. How do Muslims, individually and as social collectives, seek to live righteously, peacefully, and productively by articulating and applying ethical principles derived from Islamic foundational sources? How do principles in Islamic ethics compare and contrast to other ethical frameworks? What are common misunderstandings related to Sharia, or Islamic law? In answering these questions, attention is given to Muslim conceptions of justice and to the relationship between social norms and law in historical and contemporary contexts. A basic exposure to classical Arabic script and a basic working knowledge of the religion of Islam are helpful but not required.
Islamic Studies: Cultural and Linguistic Explorations (W)

Open Sixth, Fifth, and Fourth Formers. This course offers an in-depth exploration of Islamic foundational texts and principles as manifest in different cultural contexts. We consider passages of the Qur’an, hadith sayings, wisdom literature, philosophical texts, legal maxims, and contemporary devotional and aesthetic works. The course requires a basic exposure to classical Arabic script and a basic working knowledge of the religion of Islam. Students will leave the course with a greater facility in discussing Islamic ethics and will gain skills for future religious and philosophical studies.
Peacebuilding and the Israel-Palistine Crisis (F)

Open to Sixth, Fifth, and Fourth Formers. Drawing on the ideas of leading scholar-practitioners of religion, peacebuilding, and conflict transformation, this course offers a deep dive into the history of the political crisis in Israel–Palestine. Through exposure to multiple perspectives and interpretive frameworks, students learn strategies for holding the tensions in divergent historical and theological narratives. Students gain perspective on the origins of the crisis and its rippling contemporary impacts by engaging with historical and theological resources as well as the lived examples of community builders, educators, interreligious leaders, and peace activists. The course encourages students to develop cognitive tools to engage robustly with themes such as intergenerational suffering and collective grief with both insight and empathy. Throughout the course, we ask questions fundamental to the human experience: How can we encourage people to affirm and express their common humanity across disparate identity and ideological positions? What are the impacts of ritualized gestures and liturgy on transforming conflict? How do platforms for truth-telling and justice-seeking contribute to peacebuilding? What do other conflict situations around the world have to teach us about peacebuilding in the present situation? By examining how other violent ethnic conflicts have been transformed, we draw lessons applicable to peace-oriented activism in the Israel–Palestine context.
Racial Justice and Postcolonial Theory (S)

Open to Sixth, Fifth, and Fourth Formers. This course delves into historical, sociological, and anthropological theories to explore how racial and ethnic categories have been constructed and deployed in modern history and in the contemporary world. We seek to understand the political, social, economic, and cultural impacts of colonialism, political struggles for self-determination, and decolonization processes. We explore how constructions of race and ethnicity have impacted colonization and subsequent independence movements. We consider how racial categories function in different national and regional contexts and examine social discourses aimed at combating racism and ethnic disenfranchisement. The course also introduces students to major philosophers, ethicists, and cultural theorists from the late twentieth and twenty-first century, including Frantz Fanon, James Baldwin, Edward Said, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Judith Butler, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Angela Davis, James Cone, Christine Delphy, Arundhati Roy, Patricia Hill Collins, Cornel West, and others. Students will have opportunities to explore journalistic writing and will reflect on their own experiences navigating social categories related to race and ethnicity. The course prepares students for future work involving ethnic and cultural studies.
Religion and Politics in the Contemporary World (W)

Open to Sixth, Fifth, and Fourth Formers. This course offers an opportunity for students to delve deeper into the connections, influences, and encounters between spiritual traditions in the contemporary world. We consider how religious identity is used as a wedge to exacerbate political conflicts and how common religious values can be used as a bridge to engender reconciliation across divides. The course looks at different settings for interfaith encounters and considers ways in which leaders of spiritual traditions have engaged cooperatively in social justice movements. We explore the concept of the public sphere and investigate how religious values impact policy debates and law-making in societies around the world.
Religion and Social Change (W)

Open to Sixth, Fifth, and Fourth Formers. 2023 marked the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington as well as the publication of Strength to Love, a volume of sermons by The Rev, Martin Luther King, Jr. In this course we will study the central teachings of Jesus alongside the writings of Martin Luther King, Jr. We will study Christian scriptures in light of their original historical and cultural context and also consider their theological, social, and ethical implications. We will encounter those same texts as they frame King's writing, preaching, and activism, and as they shape and inform movements for social justice more broadly.
Religion, Ethics, and Society (F)

Open to Sixth, Fifth, and Fourth Formers. This course introduces students to the phenomenological study of religion and explores various manifestations of religious thought, meaning, experience, and behavior. Themes covered include conceptions of religious authority, the roles of women, attitudes toward violence, histories of interreligious relations, virtue ethics, and ideas about the public good. We explore themes such as mindfulness, wellness, health, and freedom in different spiritual traditions and consider the guidance these spiritual traditions offer for living in harmony with the natural world and each other. We compare how adherents of the world’s major spiritual traditions live out their traditions in diverse times and places and how traditions have been adapted or reinterpreted throughout history. The course fosters a systematic and critically-disciplined understanding of the influence of religion in societies past and present. Students have opportunities to work collaboratively on projects and pursue independent research.
Women, Gender, and Ethics (S)

Open to Sixth, Fifth, and Fourth Formers. This course introduces key theories and methods in women’s studies, explores the works of women moral philosophers, and probes ethical issues related to women and gender. Themes and topics covered include sexual and reproductive ethics, feminist social theories and movements, the concept of intersectionality, including womanist contributions to moral philosophy, and themes related to women’s leadership and political activism. The course offers opportunities for students to practice public-facing genres of writing and scholarship and provides students with an opportunity to explore their voices and views on issues of public concern.

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Our Faculty

Shashi Dwarakanath-ji

Spiritual Life

sdwarakanath-ji@athensairportcarrental.net
Celene Ibrahim

978-448-7385

cibrahim@athensairportcarrental.net
Bio
Dr. Celene Ibrahim, a teacher in Groton's Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, has taught at colleges, universities, and theological schools across New England, co-directed an institute on interreligious studies and religious leadership, and served as a chaplain at Tufts University. Dr. Ibrahim has authored numerous publications in the fields of women’s and gender studies, religion in America, and Islamic studies. She holds a bachelor’s degree with highest honors from Princeton University, a master's of divinity from Harvard University, and a PhD in Arabic and Islamic civilizations from the Near Eastern and Judaic Studies Department at Brandeis University.

Dr. Ibrahim is the editor of One Nation, Indivisible: Seeking Liberty and Justice from the Pulpit to the Streets (Wipf & Stock Publishers). Her most recent book project (Oxford University Press) examines female figures in the Qur'an.

Dr. Ibrahim's several dozen awards and honors include being named a Mellon Fellow; a Harvard Presidential Scholar; a fellow in the Program on Religion, Diplomacy, and International Relations at the Woodrow Wilson School; and a Davis Scholar at Princeton University. Often quoted in the media, Dr. Ibrahim is deeply committed to fostering values of pluralism and civic responsibility. She is joined on campus by her husband, a retired professional athlete and trainer, and their daughter, a member of Groton's Form of 2024.
Sean Maher

smaher@athensairportcarrental.net
Allison Read

Chaplain

978-448-7257

aread@athensairportcarrental.net
Bio
The Reverend Allison Read joined the Groton community in the summer of 2020 to serve as chaplain and director of spiritual life and to teach in the Philosophy and Religious Studies Department. Prior to serving at Groton, for thirteen years she was college chaplain and dean of spiritual and religious life at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. She earned a bachelor of arts in English (Modern Studies) and religious studies (Christianity and Islam) from the University of Virginia, and both an M.A.R. and M.Div. from Yale Divinity School, as well as a diploma in Anglican studies from Berkeley Divinity School at Yale. Chaplain Read was ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church by the bishop of New York, and before turning to educational settings served parish churches in New York City and New Jersey.

Chaplain Read oversees weekday services for students, faculty, and staff in St. John’s Chapel, and directs a group of faculty and affiliated personnel who support and lead Groton’s diverse, ongoing religious and spiritual life programs. Drawing on the school’s Episcopal heritage, Chaplain Read brings together students, faculty, and staff to carry forward vital traditions, embrace pluralism, and promote diversity and inclusion for the well-being and integrity of our school community and the world. She extends pastoral care and counsel to all Groton students. On Sundays and holy days, she conducts Christian worship in St. John’s Chapel in the tradition of the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer. She is a dorm affiliate and otherwise supports faculty and engages students to thrive amidst the academic, athletic, and creative arts activities at Groton School.
Monica Sanford

msanford@athensairportcarrental.net

Explore our Curriculum

Philosophy and Religious Studies

Our Faculty