Dr David Grumett (BA(Hons) MPhil PhD SFHEA)

Senior Lecturer, Theology and Ethics; Director of Quality Assurance and Enhancement; Convener, Research Ethics Committee

Biography

Background

David has interests in theology, ethics and philosophy. Prior to arriving at Edinburgh, he held positions at the Universities of Cambridge and Exeter.

Qualifications

BA(Hons) MPhil PhD FHEA

Responsibilities & affiliations

Internal Appointments:

  • Director of Quality Assurance and Enhancement, Divinity
  • UG Theology cluster Programme Director
  • Convener, Divinity Research Ethics Committee

External appointments:

  • Animal Welfare Committee, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
  • AHRC Peer Review College
  • Research Assessor, Carnegie Trust
  • Deputy Editor, Ecclesiology
  • Associate Editor, Brill Research Perspectives in Theology

Undergraduate teaching

THET08015  Ethics and Society

This course combines philosophical and theological approaches to ethics, bringing together key texts and practical issues. It surveys different possible sources of ethics and focuses on command, virtue, conscience, utility, freedom, community and narrative.

THET10016 Metaphysics and Morality

This course examines the relationship between metaphysics and morality in German philosophy from Kant to Arendt, including the place of God and religion. It is for 3rd and 4th year students in the School of Divinity, inclding those also studying Philosophy. The other major figures studied are Hegel, Nietzsche and Heidegger.

THET10052  Consuming Practice: Food in Christian Religion

This course explores fascinating and sometimes bizarre Christian traditions of food and eating in order to understand consumption, addiction and abstinence today. Bringing together material from biblical studies, history, theology and social theory, it is for 3rd and 4th year students in the School of Divinity and for visiting students.

THET10057  Regarding the Other: Theological Ethics in Continental Perspective

This course examines recent theories of the person and relationships between people developed or used by Christian ethicists. It is for 3rd and 4th year students in the School of Divinity, including those also studying Philosophy, and for visiting students. The major ethicists studied are Levinas, Ricoeur, Derrida, Merleau-Ponty and Bonhoeffer.

DIVI10001  Dissertation

Postgraduate teaching

THET11039  Key Thinkers in Science and Religion

DIVI11010  Dissertation

Open to PhD supervision enquiries?

Yes

Current PhD students supervised

Beatrice Ang

Carolina Sanz De La Fuente

John McLuckie

Nomi Pritz

Paul Scott

Jeremy-Joe Tan

Past PhD students supervised

Julian Roche, Roger Garaudy, Marxism and Christianity (2020)

B. J. Condrey, Supererogation in Christian ethics (2020)

George Walters-Sleyon, Christian ethics, mass incarceration and death (2019)

Anthony Haynes, Jacques Maritain, metaphysics and mysticism (2018)

Russell Almon, Stanley Grenz’s social trinitarianism (2017)

Research summary

David's interests span theology, ethics and philosophy. He has published extensively on aspects of modern French Catholic theology, including the work of Henri de Lubac, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Maurice Blondel and Yves de Montcheuil. He has also produced work on theology and food, in which he seeks to recover and rearticulate a distinctively Christian ethics of eating for the present day.

His major book Material Eucharist was published by Oxford University Press in 2016.

Current research interests

David is currently working on aspects of sacred and secular material theology, including the Eucharist. He is always pleased to receive enquiries from potential research students wishing to work in these areas or in others reflected in his interests and publications. From 2019 to 2021, David is co-investigator on the AHRC-funded research project 'Christian Ethics of Farmed Animal Welfare'.

View all 188 publications on Research Explorer

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